Fashionably Late

by Olivia Goldsmith

  She walked over to the little family group. Her mother looked up at her. ‘You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas,’ Belle said.

  Once a bitch, always a bitch, Karen thought back, but restrained herself from saying anything. Instead she looked at her sister. ‘Have I got a deal for you,’ she said.

  The arrangements were worked out. Stephanie would come to Paris to model, Lisa would chaperone, and Defina would work into the night with all the girls to give them some tips and more confidence. Finally Karen had time to sit down on one of the folding chairs at the back of the showroom. It was only then that she noticed Perry Silverman sitting quietly in the corner next to a pipe rack of discarded samples.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.

  ‘Long enough. So now I know what you do. And you actually say that you like this line of work.’

  ‘I don’t say that today,’ Karen sighed. He was drinking something from a Styrofoam cup. ‘Why do I suspect that isn’t coffee?’

  ‘Because you have the instinct of a private investigator,’ Perry told her, and extended the cup. ‘It’s a martini, my own recipe. Hold the vermouth, hold the olive.’

  She took a swig of the straight gin and shivered. It was awful-tasting. ‘And you actually say that you like this?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t say that today,’ he smiled. ‘You know, Karen, that was an extraordinary show you put on. I don’t mean the cat fight. I mean the clothes. I’m no fashion mavin, but there is a sculptural quality to them. They’re a kind of art …’

  ‘Fashion isn’t an art. Not really. It’s a craft, but it’s a very poetic craft.’

  ‘Nice work,’ Perry said.

  ‘Thanks,’ she paused. ‘Hey, how did you get in, Perry? This is supposed to be top secret.’

  ‘I told them I was your lover,’ Perry said. ‘Wishful thinking.’

  ‘So much for my expensive security service. I wonder how many sketchers and competitors sat in. Heads will roll.’ She was actually too tired to yell at security. She’d let Casey or Janet do that. She reached out for another sip of the disgusting drink. There was only a little left. She raised her eyebrows, asking permission to finish it.

  ‘Sure, go ahead. It’s my last one anyway. I’m leaving New York for a little while, Karen. Twenty-eight days to be exact. I came to say goodbye.’

  ‘Rehab?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re a regular Rhodes scholar. Minnesota, here I come. You figure the state had to become the alcoholism dryout capital of the world. The weather is so bad everyone there has to drink, and they certainly wouldn’t make it on any other tourist business.’ He stopped smiling. ‘I never was that much of a drinker. Just since Lottie. I guess it crept up on me. So, I’m done with my self-pitying, self-medicating phase.’ He paused and his voice sank. ‘One night I caught myself thinking that if Lottie hadn’t died, then I wouldn’t have started drinking.’ He paused. ‘I probably would have been taller and have more hair, too.’ He tried for a little smile. It didn’t quite come off. ‘I disgusted myself. I don’t know who I’ll be when I come back. Or where I’ll live. Or what I’ll do. I don’t know if I’ll be able to paint anymore, but since I can’t paint now I guess it’s not a key issue. I’ll probably just be reduced to the three B’s: bereaved, balding, and boring. But I’m not getting my hopes up. I might not even be that good sober.’

  Karen stood up, moved toward him, and he rose from his chair. She put her arms around him. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.

  ‘This is good for starters. Want to try it lying down?’

  ‘Men!’ she said with mock horror. ‘They just want to have sex and kill things.’

  ‘The only one I’ve ever wanted to kill was myself,’ Perry said softly.

  Karen hugged him again. ‘I’m glad you’re doing this. I love you.’

  He looked down at his rumpled self. ‘Alcoholic artists who wear denim and the women who love them. Next on Oprah,’ he intoned. He fished keys out of his pocket. ‘To the loft,’ he said. ‘If it hadn’t been for you and Jeffrey, I couldn’t have afforded rehab.’

  Karen took the keys and said nothing. Jeffrey must have lent Perry money without telling her. Of course, she was glad that he had. ‘I’ll be away too,’ she said. ‘But we’ll take care of the place until you come back.’

  ‘Hey, mi casa, su casa,’ Perry said. ‘In this case, literally,’ he laughed, reached over, and kissed her once on the mouth. ‘The show is going to be great. You’ve got talent up the gazoo. Break a leg,’ he said, and he walked to the elevator, waved once before he stepped into it, and was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Paris When It Sizzles

  Fashion Week in Paris had become impossible more than a decade ago. Because France took pride, as well as an investment position, in the business, much of the cost of putting on dozens of shows for buyers from all over the world was underwritten by the government, and everything was overseen by the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode. However, French bureaucracy being what it was, it was no guarantee that things ran smoothly.

  The majority of shows had long been centralized in a complex in the gardens of the Louvre. Security and telecommunications were provided by the state, but that didn’t mean a ticket secured your entry, or that those without tickets didn’t get in. Seats were scalped, tickets were counterfeited, and at least a couple of shows a year were near-riots when the doors were closed. Fashion here was more than business; it was national pride and a way of life.

  The paparazzi too were more violent and extreme here than they were in the States, but here there was a lot more at stake. For over a hundred years, Paris had ruled the world as the fashion center, and the first photos of any major French collection sold to all the wire services and major newspapers and magazines. Photographers would literally trample anyone in their way to get a picture, and more than one buyer or hapless journalist had been injured this year already.

  It was hard to believe that clothes could generate such hysteria, but there were, Karen reminded herself, fortunes hanging by a thread. Last season the twenty-three couture houses had employed 2,424 people who had spent 273,416 hours working to produce 1,461 outfits. They estimated that they’d done a million and a half embroidery stitches at Lacroix, and used 350,000 sequins at Yves Saint Laurent. Maurizio Galante alone had used 9,000 pearls. When Karen looked at the beauty and the detail of the work, she felt as if she might swoon. You simply couldn’t get that kind of quality back in New York, despite Mrs Cruz.

  Yes, Paris was more than art or craft. It was money. A lot of money. A major part of the French economy was based on fashion’s hegemony. It wasn’t just the couture houses, but the huge perfume empires that owned the fashion houses. One company, LVMH, owned not just Dior, but Lacroix, Givenchy, and Vuitton as well. And there were the enormous fabric mills that sold to high-fashion clients all over the world. They created and maintained the illusion of glamour that was published by the international fashion magazines and bought by women worldwide. No wonder that when Yves Saint Laurent was about to go under, the government bought him out. It was a matter of practicality. Saint Laurent had been the Chrysler of France.

  Despite the government support, the French had lost ground to the Italians in recent years. Gianfranco Ferré had taken over Marc Bohan’s job as head of Dior, Armani ruled women’s wear, and much of French manufacturing had migrated to Italy. The French had never quite grasped the concept of working together in a factory – or anywhere else. The Italians were the masters. Twenty years ago, there wasn’t even a word in Italian for designer. They were called sartos, which meant ‘tailor’ and was a bit of an insult. Now, Armani, known as The Monk, ruled fashion worldwide, and the beau monde bought more high-style, high-priced clothes from Italians than from anyone else. But the Italians, though they could design and produce quality clothing, still didn’t have the fantasy, the flair, the complete artistry of the French.

  Amer
icans were accused of lacking it all: no artistry, no flair, and no production. Karen’s workrooms were a dying tradition. Only Jimmy Galanos still could produce that kind of quality. And when it came to bridge lines, well, Karen rolled her eyes at the problems she’d had. Everyone knew that in America production costs for fine garments were ridiculously high, and quality low. So here in Paris, Americans were seen as interlopers, nothing but merchandisers. Calvin Klein and Donna Karan were accused of being watered-down Armani, and de la Renta was scoffed at as a Romeo Gigli without balls. The French looked with disdain on anything American, except the dollar.

  And dollars weren’t enough. There wasn’t a good hotel in Paris that wasn’t completely booked during the shows, and it was impossible to reserve a table at any of the better restaurants: all were filled. Fashion was a cash cow, and it was milked by the French. Xenophobia aside, it was no wonder the French were not ready to welcome an American female interloper.

  ‘Okay,’ Karen yelled as she strode out from the hotel and along the arcade of the Place des Vosges. ‘What’s the désastre du jour?’ In a hectic five days, Jeffrey had done wonders as an advance man. He’d made final arrangements for the show at the Grand Palais and also rented the space and arranged for tent rentals at the Place des Vosges. Defina. Jeffrey, Casey, Carl, and Jean-Baptiste, their French liaison, were standing in the courtyard of the Hôtel Grenadine deep in conversation. Since New York, in three frantic days, her team had managed to pull everything back together. Defina had taken spare white tulle and dyed it black with indelible Waterman ink. Mrs Cruz had laboriously re-created the headdress, and Stephanie had been rehearsed while Tangela had been threatened and tamed to a point of suspicious meekness. Lisa had immediately agreed to the Paris trip, and had barely bothered to ask Leonard’s permission. She’d left Tiff behind – a punishment for her bat mitzvah performance – and come with a virtually empty suitcase to fill full of Paris clothes. Carl was planning on shopping as well. Meanwhile, he was doing some great hair things on the girls.

  Now Karen walked into the tent and looked about at the vast white expanse. The tent was made from some kind of high-tech fabric, some form of plastic, and it had a tautness to it that gave it an almost architectural elegance, like a huge white cloth cathedral. Karen had checked it out the evening before, but overnight her elves had been busy. Now the place was decorated, no longer a pristine canvas.

  Her name was on everything: across the entrance to the tent, on the label of all the clothes, on the invitations, the show programs neatly placed on the folding chairs, and in huge letters spread across the enormous arch behind the runway. She stared at it with satisfaction. But all at once, it didn’t look to Karen like her name anymore. The writing seemed foreign, the combination all wrong. For an eerie moment she felt the way a stroke victim must feel, learning to re-identify once-familiar letters. That’s my name, she told herself but, after all, the name wasn’t only hers. It was Jeffrey’s last name, not her own, and though she had never wanted to use Lipsky, she realized now that even that wouldn’t be her real name. The letters danced before her eyes. She couldn’t make sense of them.

  Karen felt a stomach-lurching panic. She was about to take her biggest gamble and launch herself on the international fashion stage. Her name was worth millions to Bill Wolper, or even to Bobby Pillar, and she couldn’t even recognize it. Was this what they called an identity crisis? Or maybe a panic attack?

  It’s nerves. Just nerves, she told herself. But anything could go wrong, and usually did. She thought of a fringe designer, Gregory Poe. He found fame by – among other things – creating purses that weren’t just like the Pepto Bismol pink – they actually had Pepto Bismol between two layers of vinyl. Unfortunately, the vinyl and the Pepto Bismol didn’t agree with each other. One bag exploded all over a Vogue editor’s Balenciaga. This business was hard. Marc Bohan was dumped after more than thirty years at Dior. Tony de Freise had gone under. Norris Cleveland’s perfume debacle was putting her into receivership. What will explode on me, Karen wondered. She averted her eyes from her name. She felt as if she might begin to laugh or cry, and that once she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Tightening her hands into fists that were hidden in her pockets, she closed her eyes and counted her breaths. She got to ten, began again, and told herself this was all just the tension catching up with her. After a third series of breaths, she opened her eyes and – to her relief – instead of the dyslexic dancing letters, she saw her own familiar name once again.

  The others joined her. Karen forced herself to look the facilities over. She calmed down. She didn’t want to give herself a kunna hora – the Yiddish equivalent of a hex – but things seemed to be going smoothly. The invitations had all gone out and been received and now, as they all stood together in the white tent, Mercedes strode into the empty white space to join them.

  ‘I think we’re in very good shape,’ she said. ‘The problem with the shows so far this year is that there were only two kinds of things: things that are unwearable or things that everyone already has. People are either outraged or bored.’ She paused and allowed herself a small grin. ‘And the crowding at the Louvre was worse than ever.’ In fact, there had been an actual riot. Karen had heard some journalists say it was dangerous to go. ‘I think our two-show strategy is going to work,’ Mercedes continued. ‘We’re the talk of the town. Enough people have told enough other people to have figured out the deal, but no one can figure out which is the A list and which is the B list. It’s driving them all crazy.’

  Karen laughed. ‘That’s because there is no A list and B list, thanks to you.’ It had been an all-night task for Mercedes to divide up the attendees so equally in status, wealth, and clout that no one would be able to decide if they’d been snubbed. Snubbing was death, and the French were notoriously difficult about seating and protocol. Karen remembered at one show last year the prime minister’s wife refused to sit beside Princess Caroline of Monaco. But there would be no snubbing here. Both shows would be A-list shows. Now, thinking of the confusion they’d caused, Defina giggled with Casey and even Jeffrey smiled. The strategy had also doubled the number of front-row seats, always most desirable and at a premium, though the people in them were stepped on by the photographers.

  Still, at every show there were only forty front-row seats and eighty fashion heavies who felt they merited them. It was the first chakra on the way to fashion paranoia – had you been assigned a good enough seat? Now KInc had twice as many good ones to dispense! The only question left was which show Karen would appear at and, after long consideration, she had come up with a solution. She was going to open the black show, although it was the tradition for the designer not to appear until the end. ‘But I’m breaking my tradition by doing black, so it makes sense. And anyway, if the black wedding dress on Stephanie does what I expect it to do, there will be pandemonium afterward. They won’t need me. So I’ll rush back over here and close the Place des Vosges white show.’

  Everyone approved, even Mercedes, who was the most worried about how all this would be taken. They certainly didn’t want to alienate the French or the fashion press in their first Parisian outing. But Karen knew that there was no longer any choice at this point, and a calmness descended on her. Everyone knew their jobs and she would simply have to trust that they would do them. So when Lisa and Stephanie stepped out of the hotel doorway and onto the cobbles of the courtyard, Karen turned to smile at them. ‘If everything’s under control, I’m going to take off for an hour with my sister,’ she told the group. ‘Casey, I’ll meet you at the Grand Palais at noon.’ He nodded. He and Mercedes were going to handle the show there and Defina was doing the Place des Vosges. Karen turned to her. ‘Is Tangela all right?’ she asked. Defina shrugged.

  ‘She’s broken up with her boyfriend. I don’t know how she feels, but I feel great.’

  Karen smiled and patted her friend’s shoulder. ‘Well, I’ll be back to help you in an hour.’

  Le Marais had been a warren of ti
ny streets and ramshackle old buildings that had once been the equivalent of London’s East End slums. But then the Pompidou Center and urban gentrification had kicked in, and in the last decade Le Marais had become the hippest and most charming quartier in Paris. The Place des Vosges, a perfectly preserved sixteenth-century square, was the centerpiece and around it were arrayed all the charming shops, fashionable bistros, adorable cafés, slick boutiques, and nouvelle restaurants that anyone could ask for. Karen could have stayed at the haute elegant Crillon, right on the Place de la Concorde, or the luxurious George V, off the Champs Elysées, but Le Marais was younger, hipper, and a lot less pretentious. If Karen was also a little intimidated by the grand hotels and established fashion houses in the tonier quarters, she wasn’t admitting it.

  Now, the three of them, Karen, Stephanie, and Lisa, took off, single file, along the narrow sidewalk. They passed a greengrocer, and an old-fashioned café that still had the tin-covered counter and unmatched battered chairs of a neighborhood gathering place. Everything seemed so charming, so pretty, in the watery morning sun. Colors looked different here in Paris light. Karen was glad she wasn’t doing colors in her show. They wouldn’t have translated well.

  For her, this was more than a business gamble; it was a dream that she had made come true. She’d justified the expense to Jeffrey with the argument that this would put them in the big leagues, truly part of international fashion, but that wasn’t her real reason for the show. For her, this was keeping a promise she’d made to teenaged Karen Lipsky back in Rockville Center, Long Island – that some day she’d have a show in Paris, just like Coco Chanel. She smiled at everything around her. It was really happening.