The 40s: The Story of a Decade (99 page)

APRIL 13, 1940

I
t is quite possibly true, since so many fiery Hearst editorials have said it is, that the lot of the modern businessman is a sorry one. However, I am more concerned about the fate of the poor, bedraggled, bewildered retail customer (which is every one of us) than about any other breed of forgotten man—or woman. Incessant polls, surveys, and other spurious means of consulting our wishes have all but made it impossible to buy the simple things we want. In offices all over the country, high-priced, alert people keep on deciding what we humble souls should be made to buy, which is usually something entirely different from what we yearn for. Despite the writing on the wall proclaiming that the great American public has grown up, the legend persists that it is moronic and incapable of making a decision.

The movies, though still far from perfect, have shown signs now and then of realizing that the average citizen likes good things and isn’t flattered by having his lowest tastes condescended to. The studios used to turn out pictures tailored exclusively to the taste of the muggs; now occasionally they go out and hire a Raymond Massey to act his best in a picture, and, to their amazement, the public flocks to see the result. The radio has hardly caught on at all, as anyone who has ever listened to daytime serials will tell you, and its sturdy right arm, the advertising industry, can be equally dense at times. Both have surveyed the human being until he has become, in their minds, simply a piece of machinery, dangerous if not kept under control. Everywhere bright young men sit at their desks and shudder as they try to outwit that mysterious ogre, the American Housewife; hundreds of underlings sort out questionnaires and charts, compiled at vast expense, from which to prepare copy that can sizzle across billboards and into magazines and over the air and supposedly lull American women into docility. In vain, a young lady pleads that she’d like to know how to make last year’s evening dress look new for a special occasion. The survey experts chorus that she’s crazy and that what she really wants, if she hopes to haunt a reluctant man, is a bottle of perfume that costs ten dollars. It is all most constructive and efficient.
In vain, dear old ladies plead that they would prefer a bottle of My Sin to the nicest gray shawl ever knitted. They don’t know what they want, say the boys back of the surveys, rustling around in their statistics to prove that old ladies want shawls and think perfume is a criminal waste of money. I often wonder how much longer women, who for years have been deferred to as a potent factor in our national economy, will take these insults to their intelligence and good nature.

OCTOBER 27, 1945

T
he war must be over. Arrogance is beginning to strut again among the shoppes. The customer is again being ritzed by salesladies and a lot of well-heeled but timid customers are apparently buying whatever is thrown at them. And it looks as if the average woman, the one with a mind of her own and a pocketbook to consider, is going to be kicked around. In other words, the postwar world is just more of the same. None of this, happily, applies to the great veterans of the trade. No initiative, I guess.

For instance, Bergdorf Goodman’s third floor, as well behaved as ever, houses a comprehensive collection of ready-to-wear clothes, priced at from $40 to $70 and with lines so suave that Bergdorf must have shopped around quite a bit to find them. The late-afternoon and informal dinner dresses are particularly notable. There is an invaluable black or brown rayon-crêpe one, with a V neck that can be fastened right up to the throat and front drapery that looks like a huge bow, one loop of which makes a deep pocket. This drapery also gives a rounded-hipline effect. At least, that’s the way it looks to me. Other black dresses, these with square necks, have long, tight sleeves and a bow on the left shoulder; darts and drapery give that same rounded-hipline effect in the back. A black matelassé dress is cut with deep armholes, long, tight sleeves, and drapery in the skirt that makes it look like a tunic. A long-bodiced dress has a cap-sleeved, round-necked, black jersey top and a gathered black rayon
satin skirt; superb, and $40. Next, there’s a black moiré two-piece number with a high, keyhole neck, a basque top descending in back, folds over the shoulders, and an easy, swinging skirt. Mustard-yellow rayon crêpe is used to make a top with a turnover collar; this goes with a gathered skirt of black rayon velvet, with black bengaline edging the high, notched waist and the hemline. And if you want lamés, there are lacquer-red, bronze, or green-and-gold affairs with high necks that tie at the throat, cap sleeves, and drapery at the hip that looks like a pocket. All of these are lovely even if you haven’t a mink coat to wear over them.

JULY 27, 1946

A
merican milliners, who are sometimes referred to as “mad geniuses” in their lush little world, are notoriously perverse folk and unpredictable in direct ratio to their prosperity. The custom hats they have devised for this fall and winter are a challenge to psychiatrists. John-Frederics solemnly speak of fashions that stem from the “landscape of America.” But to judge by their offerings, John and Fred think that we slaves to steam heat plan to shake off our bonds and spend the winter on the plains of North Dakota, and they’re afraid we’ll freeze. So they have put in a lot of time on hats that may start as turbans, cloches, derbies, or whatever, and end up with vast scarf appendages which you wrap tight under your nose (they don’t tell you what to do when you want to smoke, have a drink, or kiss somebody—even just a mild goodbye). These flowing businesses, having thus forced your chin deep into your chest, either pin up into casual drapery at the back of the head or, more often, descend over the back of the neck to produce a silhouette that a turtle would consider an infringement on his patent. When the idea turns up in Technicolor white, an ivory shade that I would just as soon not try to describe, the effect is of a person with bandaged facial burns; in dark colors, it suggests, to go on with the boys’ elaborate conceit, Oriental rather than Grant Wood landscapes. Then, Lilly Daché, a specialist in the spun-sugar, or wedding-cake, sort of frivolity, has come forth with some of the simplest, most youthful silhouettes to be seen in town.
And Sally Victor, idol of the night-life set, has shown up with striking untrimmed shapes and with felts cunningly draped, in a very suave way, like turbans. It is all most inconsistent and surprising.

The milliners, of course, are subjected to terrific temptations this season. Because they have been short of luxurious fabrics for years, it is understandable that they should go wild now that they again have at hand all the aigrette-type feathers, ostrich plumes, birds’ wings, velvets, and other gaudy ingredients they want. Some of the results make me beg you to proceed with caution. It should also be noted, in all fairness, that the temptation of fine felts and French ribbon has not been resisted, either, and usually the results of this are happier.

As for line, the shops show a leaning toward hats with tiny brims that either shoot forward or are turned back, with high, narrow, squarish crowns that slant toward the rear. (You had better see how your profile looks in one of them before you take any definite steps.) There are wonderful adaptations of derbies and what are called “rollers” at Bergdorf Goodman, bonnets at Sally Victor, enchanting tilted contraptions at Daché and Florell. Most of them show the forehead and a bit of hairline, but there is an ominous tendency in some of them to ripple low over the forehead in the style of the twenties. That period is also hinted at in John-Frederics’ circlets for evening, that go straight around the head like the band of a wedding veil, and I must admit that they are charming affairs. One is made of brown glycerined ostrich, which trails down the back; others start with diamond (not real, of course) circlets and have soft, spangled scarves coming down over the shoulders. A definite and fearfully elaborate trend is evening hats in the Gaby Deslys style—toques or big velvet hats adorned with ostrich feathers, birds, or velvet ribbon, and sometimes all of them. John-Frederics, who always like to stun their public, have lots of these, often accompanied by boas of curly ostrich or of frail glycerined feathers of the aigrette type. Other examples are simpler; Sally Victor makes vast inverted saucers in felt, absolutely unadorned, and Lilly Daché has a lovely big-brimmed felt with glycerined ostrich clouding the severity of the brim and giving a misty look to the whole thing.