It was a difficult job. From what Karen could see, Elise loved Larry as passionately as Karen still loved Jeffrey. So Elise deserved a celebratory dress. Also, a bride should look new and fresh. But how could Elise look fresh and her age at the same time? If that conundrum wasn’t enough, Elise had two matrons of honor: tiny, bird-like Annie Paradise and corpulent Brenda Cushman. They could not possibly be dressed similarly with any hope of success, yet Elise had insisted that their costumes be coordinated, and she had asked Karen to create a look that was both female and sophisticated.
Elise, not only an actress but an heiress, was paying for everything, but while money wasn’t an issue, her perfectionism and the difficulty of the assignment was. Vera Wang and Carolina Herrera did the gowns for ninety percent of society weddings, and while it was an honor that Karen had been asked, it was eating up her time. Jeffrey, who was waiting for the offer from NormCo and would be tense until he got it, complained bitterly. Karen knew that because of the investment of time she would never make any money on the deal, but she also knew that her designs would be seen worldwide, and if they looked good she could prove in a single stroke that she could dress any woman beautifully: tall, regal, but aging Elise; short, thin Annie; and big, round Brenda. It would be quite a coup, but it was no easy trick. And, in a way, it would enhance KInc’s value to NormCo. But only if the dresses worked.
Just when they’d finished making up the dresses, Elise who always kept herself in the same perfect shape, had lost weight in the last two weeks before the wedding. Hysterical, Karen and Mrs Cruz had to spend an emergency evening taking in the bridal dress. Karen didn’t trust anyone else to do it. Meanwhile, Annie Paradise had been on a book tour and missed two fittings, while fat Brenda had dieted off quite a bit of weight, only to rebound at the last minute. It was all enough to make Karen, Elise, and all the women in the workroom absolutely crazy. But they had persevered and now Karen sat in the ninth pew, along with Jeffrey, like everyone else waiting for the processional march to begin and hoping for the gasp that accompanied the entrance of a successfully dressed bride.
Karen watched while the final guests continued to flow in. There were people from the New York society world, designers that Elise had been a client of for years, titled Europeans, young models, plus a full measure of Hollywood royalty. Isaac Mizrahi, a great designer who hadn’t yet managed to find the backing to expand from his couture work, arrived with Sandra Bernheart. Christy Turlington and Amber Valletta, two of the hottest mannequins, arrived almost at the same time. That seemed a new trend – top models as best pals. Ralph and Ricky Lauren sat with their two sons, David and Andrew. Donna Karan was seated with her husband, Stephan Weiss, both all in black. And while Calvin Klein didn’t seem to come, his wife, Kelly, and her stepdaughter, Marci, were there to represent him. Kelly was wearing her famous pearl necklace – Calvin had bought it for her from the Duchess of Windsor’s estate. There were a lot of jokes about Kelly in the fashion business. The marriage was once rumored as one of convenience, and a pun had been popular based on Kelly’s maiden name, Rector. ‘Heard that Calvin married Kelly?’ says the first guy. ‘Rector?’ the second asked. The first raises his brows. ‘Wrecked her? He damn near killed her!’
Karen looked around. Jean Paul Gaultier showed up in an outfit that looked like prison stripes, and sat next to a very tightly-put-together Blaine Trump. In the mega-rich international contingent Karen could just see Gianni Agnelli, who, as always, had on a button-down shirt that was, as always, unbuttoned and, also as always, was wearing his watch on the outside of his cuff. Ann Bass who was once married to Sid, Mercedes Bass, who was now married to Sid, and Mica Ertegun, who had never been married to Sid, were all there. Beside them, Norris Cleveland sat, sans her husband. Karen wondered if the divorce rumors were true and if Norris had a sketch pad secreted in her Judith Leiber purse. Meanwhile, all the New York wives of the wealthy were wearing everything from tonal Armani to the rose-infested smocks of Anna Sui.
But it was Hollywood that, as always, went wild. Phoebe Van Gelder made an entrance in a leather Thierry Mugler that was slashed in a dozen places. ‘So appropriate for a house of God, don’t you think?’ Jeffrey asked. Dustin and Lisa Hoffman arrived, he in something nondescript, conservative, and she in a sort of monastic thing that might have been a Jil Sanders. Someone gorgeous that Karen didn’t recognize – she didn’t have time for much television – was wearing the most outrageous Ozbek – all clinging bronze lace, absolutely sheer, with bright orange satin tacked-on sleeves along with eggplant-colored tights and knee-high leather boots. ‘Who is she?’ Karen whispered to Jeffrey.
‘What is she?’ he shot back. Jeffrey was a fashion conservative. ‘Her designer hates women.’
Karen knew that not only Jeffrey but a lot of women and some of the media believed that most fashion designers hated women. They believed there exists some kind of twisted conspiracy among gay men designers to make women look ridiculous. Jeffrey called them ‘the gay mafia.’ But Karen didn’t see it that way. Gay men seemed to like women, but wanted to dress only those women who were built in the gay man mode: long, tall, lean with broad shoulders. Their designers were often flamboyant, dramatic, silly. And mostly they came up with ideas for the sake of pleasing themselves. So you might say that gay men fashion designers dressed women to look attractive to gay men.
If there was a conspiracy, it was the conspiracy of the straight white males who actually owned the fashion business. The guys with the money, the guys like Bill Wolper who had an enormous investment in making sure that women were continually dissatisfied with the way they looked and were simultaneously being barraged with new images of how they should look instead. The conspiracy to create dissatisfaction and a constant search for the new was the real fashion merchandiser’s tyranny.
Karen looked up in time to see New York’s most beautiful couple, Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere, taking a seat together, holding hands. Karen knew, of course, the talk about them but they seemed a happy couple to her. Could people, actors and models, put on an act in public all the time? Michael and Diandra Douglas were, as always, beautifully dressed, but Al Pacino looked more like Al Capone in a pin stripe. Karen was surprised to see him arrive alone.
‘Money and talent don’t mean good taste,’ Jeffrey murmured. He himself was in the most quiet of dark suits. He despised eccentricity in men’s fashion. Oddly enough, Karen liked that about him. Did she think fashion was too lightweight for a real man to care about?
She looked at his profile. She loved him very much. Even though they wouldn’t have a child together, despite her disagreement on the NormcCo deal, and even though he didn’t understand or share her craving for a family, Karen knew that she loved him. And that he loved her. He was probably right about adoption, about her real mother, and mostly everything else. He had always believed in the best part of her, even when she didn’t. When he told her she had talent she had believed him. What if he hadn’t encouraged her? She reached her hand out and put it on the soft dark wool of his jacket. She could feel the firmness of his forearm beneath the suit sleeve and the silky cotton of his shirt. She thought of Carl, alone in Brooklyn Heights. Jeffrey was all she had, but he was enough. He was a lot more than enough.
She took a deep breath. The ceremony was about to begin. She was about to be judged by everyone. Her hands were cold. If she was this nervous, how did Elise feel right now? Elise was used to public appearances. Was it possible that Karen was more nervous than the bride? She felt the wings of butterflies in her stomach. She and Jeffrey had never had a proper wedding. After Jeffrey had backed out of his engagement to June and asked Karen to marry him, it had somehow seemed inappropriate for her to sashay down the aisle in a billowing white tulle victory gown. Even if she had felt victorious against great odds. Anyway, she wasn’t the tulle type. They had, instead, gone down to the municipal building and had one of those three-minute city jobs. Karen had never planned on a big wedding, but she did regret the total lack of
ceremony. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure if she could stand to participate in something this choreographed. But Elise Ellliot, after all, was an actress and from a generation of debutantes that had ‘come out.’ She must be used to playing a central role.
Karen just hoped she had gotten the costume right. Elise would never forget this dress. Well, what woman did forget her wedding gown? But, then, if there was more than one wedding, Karen wondered, did they remember all of their gowns? Could Liz Taylor remember what she’d had on when she married Mike Todd? Or John Warner? Or Burton for the second time? Calm yourself, girl, Karen told herself sternly. This is only a dress, not exploratory surgery. But she had broken out in a cold sweat. Surreptitiously, Karen wiped her damp palms on the side of her oyster boucle jacket. She felt the outline of the photos that she had taken for good luck. They comforted her.
And then the wedding march began. The amazing, triumphant sound of the massive organ reeds rose from the end of the nave. At the same moment, all heads peered toward the back of the church. The center aisle, carpeted in red, was illuminated by dozens of spots that were hidden in the deep gloom of the vast ceiling buttresses. And so the wedding began.
If she craned her head toward the altar, Karen could see Larry Cochran, lanky and blond, step out from some side door to wait for his bride. With him was another young man, much shorter, wearing a less perfectly tailored morning jacket and tails. But Karen, like everyone else, didn’t have much time for the groom. At weddings it was the women who held the spotlight. As the music continued to play, Brenda Cushman entered the center aisle and began the long walk to the front of the church.
She looked good, Karen could see, and she sighed with relief. Karen had put her in a simple dress, the shoulders built carefully to support the heavy swing of the silk broadcloth. The color was perfect for dark Brenda – it was neither pink nor gray but somewhere in between. It was shorter than you would expect, but the movement around the hemline drew attention to Brenda’s terrific legs. To Karen, a garment was partly about movement. A woman with flaws especially needed the right energy and movement in her clothes. Brenda, carrying a handful of blush roses and freesia, moved confidently down the aisle.
Then Annie Paradise followed. Annie was built like Lisa, Karen’s sister, petite and small-boned. Karen had used the same heavy silk broadcloth but a slightly less gray shade, just a shadow of a difference. She had cut the same asymmetrical square neck but the dress itself was a sheath, its simplicity almost oriental, showing off Annie’s slim line. The richness of the fabric, the subtlety of the color, proved that, in the words of Chanel, ‘Simplicity doesn’t mean poverty.’ Karen was pleased.
And then the organ announced the bride. Karen, like the rest of the congregation, turned her head but she could not even catch a glimpse of Elise. There was a moment’s pause and then, as Elise stepped out of the shadows cast by the loft at the entrance to the church, the hush was replaced by that huge sigh, the offering made to great beauty.
She was walking on the arm of her uncle, a tiny elderly man, and she towered over him. But their proportion did not make them a joke. His shortness emphasized her stature. Beside him, she looked like a goddess. She too was dressed in the heavy silk broadcloth, but its color was two tones lighter. Karen had left the square neck, but had filled it in with a yoke and a high wimple out of magnificent lace dyed the exact same pink-white. It covered Elise’s chest and neck up to her jaw line, an older woman’s most vulnerable parts. And, as a continuation of that thought, Karen had created a veil that sat on an almost invisible headpiece, draping only the sides of Elise’s face and then dropping in incredible folds down the back of her gown. The gown itself was almost severe, cut in a princess line straight to the hem, but the sleeves belled generously, exposing a clinging undersleeve of matching lace.
Elise was lovely. The color of the gown was almost exactly that of her pale skin, and though that had been a gamble, it had paid off. Even at this distance, Karen could see that rather than monochromatically washing Elise out, the color and sweep of the veil and gown had expanded her, perfected her. She did not look young, nor did she look old. She was ageless and, at that moment, more beautiful than anyone Karen had ever seen. Tears rose in Karen’s eyes and she had to blink furiously. She didn’t want to miss a second of this vision, this masterpiece that she, Karen, had created. For a moment everything came together in the way it could in only the most perfect of all possible worlds. Fashion, a minor creation always judged by the stage on which it was set, and by the woman who wore it, can sometimes transcend time and achieve art. Karen had accepted Elise’s style, her age, her joy, and even her fears, and together they had transcended.
Jeffrey took Karen’s hand. ‘My God,’ he whispered. Then he pulled his eyes off Elise and turned to Karen. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, and his pride in her completed Karen’s joy.
Moving down the aisle, Elise Elliot passed Karen, her beautiful profile staring straight ahead, serene in the knowledge of her great beauty and dignity. Karen watched her pass, admiring the fall of the train and its overlay of veil. Over Elise’s shoulder Karen could see Larry Cochran as he caught his first sight of Elise. His face was transfixed, with love and shock and perhaps some disbelief because his bride was moving toward him, an absolute embodiment of eternal beauty. The crowd, for once, was still, moved by the perfection and serenity that was Elise. It was only when she stopped at the altar that the spell was broken and the genteel buzz began.
‘Unbelievable,’ Jeffrey told her. ‘I don’t care what it cost us. It was worth it. This is going to make you bigger than the Oakley Award. Mercedes better make sure that she’s got the releases out on this.’
But for once Karen didn’t care about the business. She heard the comments, the hum of approval and disbelief and yearning and envy, but for once none of it mattered. This wasn’t a fashion show and she wasn’t selling tickets. She had created something special, something wonderful, and it didn’t matter right now what other people thought. She knew what a difficult job it had been, and she was satisfied. If it was the succès d’estime that Jeffrey now predicted, that was just icing on the cake. Karen leaned back against the pew and, as the bride and groom made their promises, she felt as if all was right with her world.
She leaned over to Jeffrey. ‘I don’t care what NormCo offers,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to sell.’
He turned to her. ‘Karen, it might not be a question of choice. You know that if we don’t expand we’ll fold, so this may be our best option.’
‘Not after this. We’ll be getting bigger orders from everyone. I just know it.’
‘Then we’ll have bigger cash flow problems.’
She looked at him, her mouth set as firmly as his own. ‘I won’t sell, Jeffrey,’ she told him.
PART TWO
Hemming and Whoring
Clothes are the fabric of history, the texture of time
Jay Cox
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fashionable Collection
Lisa tried to remember how long it had been since she and Karen had really talked. Next to the phone was the new issue of People magazine, with Elise Elliot on the cover and the article about Karen inside. Well, from that alone Karen must be overwhelmed with calls. Lisa told herself she shouldn’t feel resentment. But this time she had been determined to wait until Karen called her. It was becoming a long wait. And with little else to do, her boredom and resentment grew. She’d been bored for a long time now.
It hadn’t always been so. In the days when Lisa owned a dress shop she’d been like a junkie who covered her own addiction by dealing. The shop had met all her needs. It gave her someplace to go every day to get away from the children. It allowed her to be the big fish – albeit in a pond as small as a boutique on Central Avenue in Lawrence. It gave her a reason to dress up, a way to legitimize her Manhattan shopping sprees, a feeling of importance when she was recognized as a buyer at the Broadway showrooms, and even a means to unload some of her person
al fashion errors – Lisa had been known to put something she’d worn back on the rack with a fresh price tag. It had given her a sense of power: when an annoying customer hesitated over a purchase and left the shop, Lisa could tell if the woman would be back; then she’d remove the item and put it away out of spite. When the woman returned for it, Lisa would smile sweetly and tell her it had been sold. Lastly, it had given her a place to socialize – the acquaintances she had struck up with clients served her well. And she had managed to expand some of the acquaintanceships almost into friendships, partly by giving those women she courted special discounts on the clothes they liked. If it was buying friendship, Lisa didn’t think about it. Lisa didn’t like to think about anything unpleasant.
Her sister had run a small, exclusive maufacturing business. She’d run a small, exclusive shop. Things seemed just fine for a while. But the outcome of it all was predictable, even if she herself hadn’t seen it coming. The one thing the store didn’t do for her was make any money. At first it wasn’t expected to. Then it had held its own for a few fat years in the mid-eighties. But with her discount policy for all the socialites of the Five Towns – even before Wall Street’s Black Monday in October and the end of spending as a sport – the shop was a losing proposition.
Leonard had finally put his foot down. Since the shop had closed, Lisa had found her ‘friends’ dropping away and her life reduced to an ever-narrowing circle. Boredom set in – Jesus, it was her daily companion. Meanwhile, her sister’s business and life got bigger and bigger.
But now, at last, Lisa felt she had a way to fight back. Throwing her daughter’s bat mitzvah was putting Lisa back into the spotlight again. If she couldn’t be a successful businesswoman, she’d be a successful social hostess. This would be an affair to remember. She had begun drawing up lists over a year ago, combing through her files of old clients, her outdated address books, her clippings from Newsday and the local paper of attendees at charity events, the upper-echelon members of the temple and the one country club she and Leonard still belonged to. Though she had already thrown herself into charity work to try and keep herself afloat in the circles to which she aspired to belong, her inability to either donate largely or bring in big donors had relegated her to the scut work – addressing invitations, picking up circulars at the printer, and stuffing envelopes – definitely not what she’d had in mind. By now she’d quit most of the organizations. God, if she had wanted to be a secretary she’d have gotten a paying job in the first place.
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