Something Wholesale by Eric Newby

Author:Eric Newby [Eric Newby]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780007508228
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A Nice Bit of Crêpe

‘There was nothing basically new in the latest

London Designers Collection for Export …

Very little handling of new colour …

One inch drop in the hemline.’

British Vogue. September 1946

I assembled my first collection in the Autumn of 1946.

It would be an exaggeration to say that I designed it; rather I found myself swept away by events like a man heading for Niagara Falls in a barrel while grizzled spectators offered advice from the bank. I was the convener; the nodal point of activity; Macbeth on the blasted heath without whose presence the ghastly apparitions that I was to see in the succeeding weeks would have no occasion to rear their heads.

The Collection I was about to make could scarcely be described as something that would shake the world. No newspaper, however desperate for news, would ever report it and no one but wholesale customers would ever see it in its entirety.

Day after day in the dog-days of Summer we sat in the showroom – my mother, the Head of the Model Workroom, and Kathie, the Stock keeper, whose job was the counterpart of Miss Webb’s in Coats, and me – while the representatives of the silk and cloth houses with which we did business laid before us swatches of the stuffs from which the collection was to be made.

It was an exacting business. I soon learned the dangers of choosing materials simply because I liked the design, without first considering for what purpose I was intending to use them.

‘I like that. Do you like it?’

‘Yes, I like it.’

‘I think I like it. What are those things on it, cabbage roses?’

‘They look like Brussel sprouts to me.’

‘But what’s it for?’

‘Let’s pass it.’

‘Now I like that. You can use it on the cross.’

‘You can only use it on the cross.’

‘What sort of dress do you think?’

‘I think it’s cocktail. I can see it as a cocktail with a big bow at the back.’

‘Let’s keep off bows, for God’s sake.’

‘Don’t say “God”, dear.’

‘What do you think of it, Kathie?’

‘We had something just like it from Mr Flukes last year, Mrs Newby. It came in very late and it was all flawed. I shouldn’t be surprised if this was left-overs.’

‘Ha-Ha, Miss Ingles! You will have your little joke. This is Swiss and very exclusive.’

‘In that case we’ll be lucky if it ever arrives,’ said Kathie, gloomily.

‘Let’s pass it,’ said my mother. I was delighted.

‘You’re making a mistake,’ said Mr Flukes. He didn’t say as I expected him to, that we were making a mistake if we didn’t mind him saying so.

Most of the representatives of the larger firms were men of military appearance. Because the business they were in made it easy for them to evade the sumptuary laws then in force, they appeared almost unnaturally spruce in contrast to the rest of the population. Almost to a man they were dressed in Savile Row suits which they had acquired without coupons. Some wore ferocious moustaches and bowler hats which they wore tilted over their noses like officers of the Brigade of Guards in civilian dress.

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