The Fashion Designer

by Nancy Moser

  “You realize by your revelation you’ve just created more work for everyone. And I assume you need more practical fabrics than the silks and chiffons you previously purchased.”

  “Yes, on all accounts. But oddly the right work feels like less work.”

  “You will not overwork,” Sean said, squeezing her hand. “You must promise me that.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson. As Edna said, God has equipped us for the work to be done in the given amount of time. I trust Him.”

  “As do I.”

  “I finally feel as though God has me where He wants me, Sean.”

  He smiled and drew her hand to his lips.

  Annie had another thought. “But…do you realize I might not have come to this God-place if I hadn’t overworked, fallen down the stairs, and been made a prisoner, forced to slow down?”

  He chuckled. “Next time, get His message without the tumble, all right?”

  “I will do my best.”

  The models came to the workshop at seven. The sewers, Gert and Ginny, stayed late to be a part of it. Annie had called Mrs. Tuttle and asked if they could bring some tea cakes or cookies along to supply sweets for the women’s trouble.

  During the rest of the afternoon, Annie had come up with some questions she wanted to put before the group. She hoped much would be gained by an open discussion. This would not be a test. There were no wrong answers.

  As seven o’clock approached, the women streamed in, filling the workshop to overflowing. The addition of the tea cakes was a grand idea, and the plate was quickly emptied.

  Then it was time. Annie asked them to take what seats there were—four ladies managed to squeeze onto the window seat amid much giggling. Gert and Ginny stood in the doorway of their sewing room. Annie stood before the group and began.

  “Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to come here.”

  “I’ll always come if you serve those cakes again.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Tuttle said. “There’s more where those came from.”

  Since everyone was certainly tired from a long day, Annie chose to get to the point. “The reason we have called you here is because you are all experts.”

  “In what?” Mrs. Tuttle asked.

  “In living your lives.”

  “We can’t argue with you there.”

  “We”—Annie point at Edna, Maude, and Vesta—“wish to design fashion for working women, mothers, wives, daughters….you. But first, we want to know what you would like in your clothes.”

  Maude stepped forward. “If you could design your perfect dress, what would it be like?”

  The ladies thought a moment, but only a moment, for almost immediately the ideas flowed out of them, making Vesta—who had been assigned to take notes—struggle to keep up.

  “I don’t want it dragging on the ground. What a mess,” Ginny said.

  “I want sleeves that are loose enough that I can fully move in ’em,” Gert added.

  “But not too loose so they get in the way,” said Betsy, a typist.

  “I do like the recent style that has the waistline up higher, under the bust. It hides me big belly better,” Mrs. Tuttle said.

  They all laughed, but there were many nods.

  “I like flowy fabrics but not too fancy.”

  “I need simple dresses I can wear to work in place of the usual dark skirt and white blouse that are so boring.”

  “Right,” Betsy said. “Besides, I don’t want to look like everyone else.”

  Annie interjected. “Your bosses will allow you to wear something beyond the office uniform?”

  Betsy looked to the others. “I think they would. If the dresses were smart.”

  “I don’t want the neckline too low,” Mrs. Tuttle said. “I have to bend over and pick up children umpteen times a day. I can’t have my bosoms showing.”

  “But not too high. I want necklines that are flattering.”

  “That suggest our assets without revealing them.”

  This generated a giggle.

  “Actually,” said Suzanne with a mischievous grin, “I’d like to wear pants like men. Do you realize how freeing it would be?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Mildred said.

  “I don’t want to look like a man. Men’s and women’s fashion should be different,” another woman said. “Since we are different.”

  “If we wore pants, what would we do with our drawers? We couldn’t tuck them in.”

  “Go without, I guess,” said Dora.

  They all laughed. “I refuse,” Mildred added.

  Annie needed to get them back on track. “What about colors? Prints?”

  Velma from the Macy’s sewing department raised a hand. “I’d love to have a dress with a pretty print, but I don’t see many of those fabrics even available.”

  “Would you like prints?” Annie asked again.

  “I’m not sure,” Mrs. Trainer said. She was a mother of four from the neighborhood. “My husband will only let me have three dresses. One for Sundays and parties, and two others for every day. Solids are more versatile.”

  “As Velma said, we don’t offer many patterned yard goods at Macy’s,” Mildred said. “Perhaps a stripe or two. Or maybe a small floral print.”

  That was true. In fact, Annie couldn’t remember selling any fabrics with a printed design. “Do the rest of you agree about prints?”

  They all nodded.

  “I can dress up an ensemble with a hat or a necklace,” Dora said. “My grandmother left me a gorgeous filigreed necklace with a green stone.”

  “An emerald?”

  “Probably not. But it’s pretty.”

  The talk of accessories made Annie ask, “What about hats?”

  They all scoffed, and Suzanne spoke for all of them by saying, “We have no need for ostrich plumes or the ridiculous wide brims we see posh ladies wearing. I saw one that had a bow the size of a small child on its brim.”

  More laughter.

  “Then what kind of hats do you like?” Edna asked.

  “None would be good.”

  “None?”

  “They’re a bother unless it’s cold out.”

  “And no corsets either.”

  Surprisingly, this came from Jane.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she noticed she’d gained everyone’s full attention. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No,” Dora said. “You are absolutely right. We all agree. Our lives would be ever so much easier—”

  “And more comfortable.”

  “—if we didn’t have to cinch ourselves in.”

  Mrs. Tuttle put her hands on her midsection and moaned. “When I take it off at the end of the day it’s like I’m being let out of a trap.” At their laughter she added. “Who’s kidding who anyway? Look at me. I’m a baker. I like to eat. No one is ever going to think of me as a skinny-minny even if I wore a hundred corsets.”

  Annie agreed with all of them, and yet…“I’m not sure we can address the fashion of undergarments. That’s an entirely different industry. But we can design dresses that are more comfortable and better suited to your needs.”

  “What about trim and embellishments?” Maude asked.

  “Not too much,” Maybelle said. “I want to show off the flowers I sell, not me dress.”

  “Lace is too fancy for every day. But I like that braid stuff,” said Gloria, a woman who worked in a printing company. “Sticks up a bit? It’s kind of fancy, yet not?”

  “Soutache trim?”

  “That’s it. I like that.”

  Annie had another question. “How much are you willing to pay for a new dress?”

  Since she worked at Macy’s, it wasn’t surprising Mildred answered first. “Dresses at Macy’s vary, but the ones they make special, just for the store, sell for $5 to $10. But most women still have them made to their measurements and those are a little more.”

  “I can order a dress made to my size from Sears for $5 to $
8,” Jane said.

  Velma offered the view of the home seamstress. “By the time a woman buys a pattern, fabric, and notions, she probably spends $3 to $5 on a dress.”

  “But that’s the home sewer,” Mrs. Dietrich said. “I don’t have a sewing machine, wouldn’t know how to use it, and don’t have time because I work the pushcart six days a week.” Her cart sold pots and pans and other tin items.

  “Your dresses are better than Macy’s,” Suzanne said to Annie.

  “I hope so.”

  “So you could charge a bit more.”

  “But not too much more.”

  Suddenly, there was silence. “Anything else you’d like us to know?” Annie asked.

  A few of the neighbor women exchanged looks. Mrs. Trainer spoke for them. “We just want you to know that we support what you’re doing. You’ve made us feel real special.”

  The ladies left, the door was closed behind them, and the four friends stood in the empty room and offered a communal sigh.

  “That was enlightening,” Vesta said. She held out her notes. “I tried to get it all down.”

  Maude sat on a stool by the cutting table. “They confirm what you said this morning, Annie. We’ve gotten off track doing things Mrs. Sampson’s way.”

  “But no more,” Edna said. “Right? We really are returning to our original inspiration?”

  “We are,” Annie said. “God willing.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Today was the day. What the ladies had accomplished in less than three weeks was close to impossible, and yet they had done it. They had started over, creating twelve dresses out of sensible but pretty fabrics that reflected their own design sense and fulfilled the needs and desires of their customers.

  Annie awakened early, her stomach in knots. Moments later, she felt Sean’s hand upon her shoulder.

  “It will all work out beautifully, Annie-girl,” he whispered.

  She turned over in the bed to face him. “Everything is riding on this.”

  He touched her cheek tenderly. “Not everything.”

  She took a fresh breath. “You’re right. Success or failure will not change us.”

  “Not a bit.” He took her hands in his, their physical link filling the space between them. “Either way there will be challenges, yet our love is a bond that can’t be broken. Ever.”

  She was glad for his words. She needed to hear them. “Ever,” she repeated.

  Sean hired a wagon to carry the dresses and accessories, to make sure they arrived safely at the Sampsons’. Annie, Vesta, Edna, and Maude took the streetcar. They brought with them five models from the neighborhood. One of them had never been on a streetcar and held onto Annie’s arm in terror. Maybelle was a street vendor who sold single flower blooms, two for a penny, that she gathered from the droppings of the floral store down the street.

  “It will be fine, Maybelle,” Annie said. “You’re perfectly safe.”

  “I never been this far away from home. What country are we in now?”

  Was she serious? “We’re still in the United States. We’re still in New York City.”

  Maybelle looked out the window. “The streets are so wide, the buildings so grand. Do kings and queens live here?”

  Kings and queens of commerce…

  “There are no kings and queens in America, silly,” said Betsy, who worked as a typist in a solicitor’s office.

  “I take the streetcar every day to work at the printer’s,” Gloria said.

  Mrs. Trainer shook her head. “With four young’uns, we stay pretty close to home.”

  Mrs. Dietrich agreed. “I have to live close or I wouldn’t get my pushcart home each evening. Though the mister and I do take the streetcar to see a musicale time and again.”

  “With costumes and everything?” Maybelle asked.

  “With costumes and everything.”

  As the ladies discussed musicales and plays, Annie worried—a small bit—about their reaction to the Sampson mansion. Would Maybelle be so awestruck she couldn’t model? Had using ordinary women been a mistake?

  Finally they reached their stop and disembarked. The plan was to meet the other models on the steps of St. Patrick’s, just across from the mansion: Jane and Mrs. Tuttle from the bakery, Velma and Mildred from Macy’s, and Dora and Suzanne from Butterick. The twelfth model would be Annie, wearing a maternity dress.

  The Sampsons didn’t know she was expecting.

  There was a lot they didn’t know.

  Annie was relieved to see her six friends had already arrived. She could always count on them.

  “Are you ready?” Jane asked Annie.

  “Are you ready?” Jane was a shy one. Would she be able to pass among the guests with ease?

  Mrs. Tuttle slapped Jane lovingly on the back. “She’s ready, and so am I.” She put a hand to her hair. “I spent extra time on my hair. I heard it called a French roll. Do you like it?”

  “It’s smooth and sleek. Well done.”

  “I saw it in a magazine. Iris helped pin it up.”

  “How is she faring?”

  “The doctor says she’s due any day. I gave me husband strict instructions to come get me if she goes into labor.”

  Annie was taken aback with images of Mr. Tuttle, with his stubbly face and brusque ways, breaking into the soiree, calling his wife and daughter home. She hoped the baby would wait until it was over—and immediately felt selfish for the thought.

  It was time to go in.

  But first…

  “Can we have a prayer before we proceed?” Annie asked.

  The women gathered close at the foot of the grand cathedral. Many held hands. Annie wasn’t used to praying aloud, but found the words. “Lord, be with us today. Help us all do our best, and show us Your will. Amen.”

  Maude took over. “Come on, ladies! Let’s put on a show!”

  They were all led to the upstairs library to get dressed. It was ironic that this was the same room the Sampsons had wanted them to use for the workshop. Annie couldn’t imagine sewing under Eleanor’s thumb. If they’d done that, she never would have fallen down the stairs and never would have come to her senses about the fashion they were offering the world.

  The models got dressed, but every time the door opened, Annie’s stomach flipped.

  Vesta noticed. “You’re watching the door as if expecting a monster to enter.”

  “Not a monster. Mrs. Sampson.”

  Vesta slipped her hand around Annie’s arm. “Perhaps it would be better if she saw the fashion now and not for the first time, during the fashion show.”

  “I’m torn about that. Today she’s in her element, entertaining her friends as the perfect hostess. If she sees beforehand that the dresses are back to my original designs, I’m afraid she’ll be so upset that her party will be ruined.”

  “But if she doesn’t know until the models walk into the room…”

  Annie bit her lip, still staring at the door. “Am I being a coward?”

  “I am not one to speak to anyone about courage.”

  “But you have been courageous, coming to work every day despite Richard’s objections. I’m very proud—”

  “He still thinks you need help because of the fall.”

  The fall was weeks ago. “He doesn’t know you’re helping with the actual cutting and sewing?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “So you see, I cannot judge anyone regarding courage.”

  “And the truth shall make you free.”

  Drat. To remember that truth at this particular time…

  But there was no denying it. “I need to tell Eleanor. Now,” Annie said. Before I get into my dress. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  Vesta gave her a hug. “Good luck, my brave Annie.”

  Annie didn’t feel brave. Not at all.

  Annie spotted Eleanor making the finishing touches on a large flower arrangement. Please, Father. Help me.

  Eleanor looked up, clapped her hands together, and dr
ew Annie into an embrace. “Are you ready?”

  “Nearly. How about you?”

  “My guests will arrive any minute.”

  “How many are you expecting?”

  “Twenty-two, though I received word that Mrs. Wallace has been under the weather, so may not make it.”

  “With or without her, that is a commendable gathering.”

  “If each woman orders one dress…do you have seamstresses ready to handle the business?”

  Twenty-two dresses? Annie was surprised by the thought. She assumed once Eleanor’s wealthy friends saw the simplified dresses, modeled by ordinary women of all shapes and sizes, there would be no sales. “I–I’m sure we can handle the orders.”

  “Of course you can,” Eleanor said as she squeezed Annie’s hand.

  Annie remembered why she had sought her out. “Would you like to see the dresses ahead of time? We have made some changes…”

  “I think that would be a marvelous. Let’s go—”

  The chimes on the front door echoed.

  “Oh dear, there is no time. My guests are arriving. I will see the dresses soon enough.” She scurried off to greet her guests.

  Crisis averted.

  Or merely delayed?

  Annie quickly dressed, and the models got in line. Annie checked each dress, each hat, each bit of simple jewelry or reticule.

  Mrs. Tuttle pinched her cheek. “Take a breath, girlie.”

  Annie did so then saw that Jane was nearly white with fright. “You’ll do fine, Jane. Don’t be nervous. All you have to do is stroll around the room and let the ladies see the dress.”

  “What if they ask questions?”

  “Try to answer them. Or look for Vesta, Edna, Maude, or me. We will be nearby to help.” She let go of her own nerves to ease her friend’s. “You look lovely. I’m so very glad you could help us today.”

  Jane’s cheeks blushed. “I feel lovely—or as lovely as I can feel.”

  Annie touched her chin. “Smile and enjoy yourself.”

  “I will try.”

  That’s all any of them could do. For Annie was in the same position, modeling her maternity design. She was pleased to know that she needed it. Her regular clothes were too tight. It was exciting to finally see evidence of their blessing.