A New Dream by Maggie Ford

Author:Maggie Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Betty Lewis looked up from cutting out a gold lamé evening dress to Julia’s own design. ‘This is lovely, just right fer these warm, end o’ September evenings. Mind you, I don’t exactly like these new knee-length hems, but I do like yer idea of this back panel. It sort o’ flows, don’t yer think?’

Yes, she did. After selling known labels Julia had tried designing her own dresses and had found herself quite good at it. Now suddenly the vogue was for skirts up to the knees and as a designer of sorts she needed to go along with the times. But this delicate panel she’d come up with, draped from the back of the shoulders to fall straight down to just above the ankles, rippled like a golden river and gave a wonderful effect as one moved. In fact these days she was full of new ideas, ever eager to see the finished product.

Betty was proving a treasure. She’d jumped at the chance to come with them when she and Simon had moved. Now in charge of a couple of girls who treadled away on sewing machines, Betty was the cutter for the clothes Julia was devising with growing confidence.

She was helped by today’s fashion for simple, straight lines and often wondered if she’d have achieved the same success twenty years ago when the fashion was for intricate gowns with wasp waists and figure-hugging drapes.

Surprisingly, despite their misgivings, the shop had finally opened for business and was proving a success. Julia had begun by making clothes for window display as she’d done in the old shop, to help sell her materials. Instead it was the dresses that had sold. Simon had helped by sending out leaflets to publicize them and now, six months later, she was being asked more and more often to design garments exclusively for a specific clientele.

Her first commission had been terrifying. She’d lost sleep worrying about it, visualizing her customer shaking her head in disappointment, she feeling a fool and never getting another commission. But the woman had been delighted. Julia had discovered a gift she never knew she had; incapable of sewing two pieces of cloth together she had now developed a talent for design, sketching away with surprising results. With Betty left to the cutting and overseeing of the sewing, they made a perfect team.

They had sectioned off the shop so that one side held Simon’s fashion jewellery, intended for stage costumes but no longer cheap and cheerful. Instead were long strings of cultured pearls; slave bangles of silver or rolled gold; shoulder and corsage brooches, still paste jewellery but of much better quality; long diamanté or cultured pearl earrings, also of superior quality. He now sold stage make-up as well, and his counter was always busy.

Julia’s side of the shop displayed beautiful silks, satins, crêpe de Chine and other lovely material, arranged on shelves and in cubicles or tastefully draped on one or two mannequins. The back room, now a modern fashion

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