“Let’s have it, Spider,” Billy said, in a flat, bored voice. Everything about her breathed lack of interest, even her posture.
“I’ve got good news.”
“Surprise me.”
“You have only one rival to surpass to become the number-one store in Beverly Hills and you have only one way to do it.”
“That’s just insane. Try to make sense, Spider. I thought we’d agreed that fancy footwork was out.”
“Your rival is Scruples.” He held up a hand to forestall her interruption, locking eyes with her so that she subsided, only her dark eyebrows quirked in angry suspicion. “I could put it more plainly. Your rival is your own dream of Scruples, of the store you wanted it to be, the store you were convinced southern California was waiting for. You were wrong, Billy. By about six thousand miles. I understand your dream; it was the inevitable outcome of your personal taste, but it was as futile as expecting to build the Petit Trianon on the site of the Hollywood Wax Museum. Some things just don’t transplant. You can sell Coca-Cola in Africa and there may be as many Mercedes in downtown Abu Dhabi as there are in Beverly Hills, but there is only one possible Dior and it is located on the Avenue Montaigne and that is where it should stay. Give up your fantasy of Dior, Billy, or buy a ticket to Paris. The light is different there, the weather is different, the civilization is different, the customers and their needs are different, the entire approach to buying a dress is absolutely, completely different. You, of all people, know what a serious business it is there to choose a garment—it’s a monumental decision.”
Billy was so taken aback, more by how he was talking to her than by what he was saying, that she didn’t even try to answer him.
“Look at the facts. In Beverly Hills you have a shopping area that equals in sheer luxury and choice, the best of New York. It’s not as big, but neither is the population. Now, obviously, this area wouldn’t be here, and growing every day, if the customers weren’t here to support it. But Scruples isn’t getting them. Why? Because it doesn’t work.”
“Doesn’t work?” Billy glared. “It’s more elegant and comfortable than any store in the world, including Paris! I made sure of that.”
“It doesn’t work as ENTERTAINMENT!” Both Valentine and Billy just stared at Spider as he went on. “Shopping has become a form of entertainment, Billy, whether you like it or not. A visit to Scruples is just not fun and your potential customers demand fun from the stores they visit. You can even go all the way and call it the Disneyland concept of retailing.”
“Disneyland!” Billy said it in a low, horrified, repelled voice.
“Yes, Disneyland—shopping as a trip, shopping as a giggle. The same money changes hands, no mistake about that, but if your customer, your local customer or your customer from Santa Barbara or a tourist from another country, has a choice between Scruples and Giorgio’s, your neighbor across the street, which will she pick? You walk into Scruples and you see a vast, ornate space decorated in twenty-five shades of supremely subtle gray, with little gilt chairs here and there and a terrifying herd of chic, elderly, haughty saleswomen who all act as if they would far rather speak French than English—or you go into Giorgio’s and you see a crowded, merry mob of people drinking at the bar, playing pool, salesladies who wear nutty hats and look at you as if they’ve been hoping you’d come in for a good gossip, all of them ready to make you feel expansive and cosseted.”
“Giorgio’s happens to stand for everything that Scruples is NOT,” Billy said in a glacial voice.
“And Giorgio’s is the number-one retail specialty store in the country, including New York City.”
“What? I don’t believe it!”
“Would you believe one thousand dollars of business per square foot per year? They have four thousand feet of selling space, which means four million dollars a year just on clothes and accessories. And we’re talking about what is just a big boutique. In comparison, our local Saks, which has one hundred fifty thousand square feet, only did twenty million dollars in 1975, so you can see how well Giorgio’s is using its space. There are dozens of women who spend at least fifty thousand dollars every year with Giorgio’s, customers from every wealthy city in the world. There are even women who come in every day to see what’s new—it’s one way for them to keep busy. And they buy—how they buy!”
“How do you know you’re right about this, Spider?” Billy was somehow managing to sound indifferent.
“I—ah, more or less, fell into conversation with the owner, Fred Hayman, and he told me. Later I confirmed the figures with Women’s Wear. But don’t think it’s just happening at Giorgio’s, Billy. All the stores in town that are fun to shop in do wonderfully, Dorso’s most particularly. Just going in there makes you feel good, whether you buy or not; it’s half like going to a good party, half like going to a friendly museum—a sensuous experience either way. Billy, Billy, people want to be loved when they buy their clothes! Especially rich people.”
“Really, Spider,” Billy shrugged.
“And they don’t want to be judged by salesladies,” Spider continued.
“I was playing pool at Giorgio’s the other day, and I saw two gals come in together, one in tennis shorts, the other in dirty jeans, a t-shirt without a bra, and scuffed sandals. By the time they’d left, and I was able to watch every move they made because the few fitting rooms they have are so small and inconvenient that you have to come outside to see yourself properly in the mirror, each of those two ragamuffins had bought three dresses, a Chloé, a Thea Porter, and a Zandra Rhodes—not one of them much less than two thousand dollars. I asked one of the gals if she shopped at Scruples—as a matter of fact we even played a little pool—and she said that she’d come in right after it opened but—and, Billy, I’m quoting her exactly—‘It’s too much trouble to get all dressed up to go shopping in a stiff, stuffy place with all those snobbish salesladies.’ ”
“Was she the one in tennis shorts or dirty jeans?” Billy asked contemptuously.
“No matter. The point is that I’m so convinced that unless you will accept the Disneyland concept of making retailing fun, there isn’t any point in my staying here. You can have my resignation if you want it.” Billy looked at him testily. He wasn’t using that astonishing smile for a change. He was really in dead earnest. She had had enough experience with men to know a ploy when she heard one. This creature meant every word he was saying.
“Christ, I’m beginning to think I should have bought Giorgio’s instead of building Scruples!” she said with a bitter laugh and sudden tears in her eyes.
“Wrong! Scruples can be ten times the store Giorgio’s is because you have three things they don’t have: space—Valentine—and me.” Spider had already smelled a change in her. Billy had abandoned something with her last remark and stepped an inch away from a fiercely defended position.
“And what do you plan—to put in a pool table and ask my salespeople to dress funky?”
“Nothing that simple, or that copycat. Complete re-decoration, including your immaculate fitting rooms. They have to be made sexy, individual, and amusing. It may mean another seven or eight hundred thousand dollars spent on top of the millions you’ve sunk in here already—but it will be enough to turn the store around. Example: When you walk in the front door of Scruples after we redecorate, you’ll find yourself in the most extraordinary, charming country store in the world: bulging, chockablock full of everything necessary and unnecessary from antique buttons to lilies growing in pots, penny candy in Waterford glass jars, antique toys, the most expensive pruning shears in the world, handmade writing paper, pillows made from grandmothers’ quilts, tortoiseshell boxes and bird whistles to—you name it. And the country store is so much fun that it puts you in a good mood, whether you buy or not. The way I’ve planned it, they’ll buy there on the way out, impulsive gifts, but it’s planned to be the entrance to the Fun Fair.
“The Fair, Billy—that’s the main part of the ground floor. For the men, we’
ll have a pub. And while they’re waiting for the women to shop, and so they don’t feel silly, as if they’ll trapped in some embarrassingly feminine place, we’ll give them all kinds of those new pinball machines, the electronic ones, and at least four backgammon tables and, of course, a men’s department, accessories only, but the finest in the world. Maybe a couple of Ping-Pong tables—I’m not sure about that yet. Now, the rest of the room, except the back end, is going to be accessory heaven for women—just heaps and heaps of gorgeous goodies, only the best, the most expensive, the latest, the newest, most exclusive beautiful things—you know what I mean—but all done with such a sense of abundance, of accessibility, of touchability that they won’t be able to resist. The Arabian Nights. The Sultan’s Treasures. That’s why they shop, Billy—not because, God knows, they need another bag or scarf but because it just feels so damn good. They want to be tempted—they can afford it. And in the back, an Edwardian winter garden, cozy, intimate, old-fashioned, just the place to revive yourself with tea and crumpets or a chocolate soda or a glass of champagne. And, of course, all the showcases and display pieces will be easily movable—even the walls in between the country store and the winter garden can be sliding walls—so that when you give the parties there’ll be lots of room for the orchestra and for the dancers—” He paused for breath.
“Dancers?” said Billy in a strange tone of voice.
“Well sure—we’ll have to close to redecorate, so we’ll reopen with a gala ball. After that, you’ll give dancing parties twice a month—I included the cost of turning the first floor into a ballroom in the decorating plans—because, except for charity parties and a very few private parties, women don’t have enough chance to get dressed up here. They all want to, as what woman doesn’t, but hostesses have gotten into the habit of giving rather informal private parties, unless it’s a big occasion. So if you were to give dancing parties, by invitation only, twice a month, women will simply have to have more pretty clothes, won’t they? And then, maybe once a month, on boring old Sunday nights when there’s nothing else to do in this town, we’ll have a gambling party here. The prize could be a Scruples dress, but it would be real gambling. The money would go to charity, of course, but it’s cheaper than going to Vegas and a billion times more classy, and they’d have to dress for that and—”
“The clothes, Spider, where do we put all the clothes while they’re dancing?” Now there was only one note in Billy’s voice: curiosity.
“Oh, we never keep the clothes down here. I thought I’d mentioned that. The clothes are the serious fun of Scruples. We sell upstairs. That way our customers can have real privacy between them and the mirror. Christ, even in the Saks Park Avenue Room they only have curtains, which don’t even close properly—anybody can see a woman in her underwear just by passing through, no matter how expensive her dress may be—I don’t understand why they put up with it. No, at Scruples when you come to buy, you go upstairs and get the full treatment, the fitting room, the luxury, the free lunch, the foot massage, remember? Even if you just come to look, you’ll be treated like a princess. The kind of ‘just lookers’ we’ll get will all become customers someday.”
“Spider, that’s all very—interesting. But how will our customers know what we have in stock upstairs? All you’ve talked about are accessories and gifts on the first floor. I don’t understand how you could overlook that,” Billy drawled.
“I was just getting to that part, Billy. On the first floor, where shoppers are going to congregate in any case, we have a large, permanent staff of models, maybe a dozen, maybe more. They’ll change into new outfits every few minutes and walk through the floor showing the stock. I detest mannequins, they’re a turn-off, but models make women want to touch the fabric and ask questions and see themselves in the dress—models do everything that a hanger can’t do. Now, for the windows, did I say that they’ll be crammed, packed, full of beautiful things, like Christmas morning, all year round? Changed every three days, we’ll draw crowds—look, I’ll draw it for—”
“Please, don’t bother, Spider.” Billy interrupted again, “Would I be wrong in saying that you want to turn Scruples into a kind of penny arcade with pinball machines and penny candy and free lunch and sexy fitting rooms and a hoard of models parading around and foot massage and gambling and dancing parties, or am I exaggerating?” She bit off each word as if she were reading from a laundry list.
“Basically, yes.” There was much more, but he’d stand on that, Spider decided. If she couldn’t see—
“I LOVE IT!” Billy leaped up from behind her desk as if she’d been detonated and kissed a dazzled Valentine who had yet to open her mouth. “Valentine! Darling! I LOVE IT!”
“As they say,” said Spider, “everyone has two businesses: his own and show business.” He left his wall to give Billy the kiss he decided she wanted to give him but was too embarrassed to offer. He thought he was beginning to understand her. A bitch, but not totally stupid.
The next morning Scruples closed for redecoration. Billy spent the day on the telephone locating the world-famous decorator Billy Baldwin, who was to take over the individual redecoration of each of the twenty-four fitting rooms. He had never done this sort of job before, but she had developed a good working relationship with him when he had redone the apartment in the Sherry-Netherland, the house in Barbados, and the villa in the south of France that she and Ellis had owned. They understood one another, and for Billy Ikehorn, Billy Baldwin would turn his attention to fitting rooms. She left the first floor to Ken Adam, the brilliant theatrical designer, since essentially it was going to be a dramatic tour de force, like a stage set.
Billy was not just a good loser, she was a totally committed one. Now that she had accepted Spider’s basic concept, she threw herself into making sure that it was done as magnificently as possible. Having given in on the idea of building a restaurant in Scruples, she stole away one of the best chefs from Scandia and gave him carte blanche in the workings of the kitchen. Spider, who had envisioned a simple tray of sandwiches, listened bemused as she and the chef conferred on how much smoked salmon should be ordered from Scotland, how much caviar from Iran, how many endives from Belgium, how much crab meat from Maryland, how many freshly baked croissants from Paris. The simple tray became a specially designed Lucite folding tray table, the china was the viciously expensive Blind Earl pattern, the crystal was Steuben, the heavy silver from Tiffany’s, and the tray mats and napkins classic Provençal cotton prints from Pierre Deux on Rodeo because Billy thought that everyone was bored with Porthault.
Spider decided to write Billy Baldwin a memo because he wasn’t sure that his employer had really understood what he meant by making the fitting rooms more sexy.
Dear Mr. Baldwin,
Our customers come here in part because they have an itch to spend money, in part because they need a new dress, often, largely because they would like a little romance in their lives without actually deceiving their husbands. They are sophisticated, spoiled, self-indulgent, self-involved, much traveled, and utterly youth-conscious, no matter what their age. To a woman they want to be STROKED, psychically. To be brutal, you may think of them as gratification junkies.
Please unleash all your fantasies. You have not one client here but hundreds. Each individual fitting room will have its particular admirers, whether you choose to do it as a villa in Portofino or as a Moroccan seraglio or even as a Queen Anne boudoir in Kent. Our only specific requirements are a large armoire or built-in closet in which accessories can be kept, lots and lots of mirrors, and a comfortable piece of furniture on which each customer can lie down at full length. Finally, at the risk of sounding lewd, could I suggest that the mood, the ambience of each room be that in which a bidet, in a corner behind a screen, would seem possible and appropriate? I don’t mean that we install a real bidet, just the atmosphere that suggests the possible need for such a convenience.
With admiration and respect,
Spider Elliott
It was Billy who had inspired him to add the request for an armoire. She knew that women tended to wear their most comfortable old shoes when they went shopping and to leave their best jewelry at home. She couldn’t bear the idea of losing the sale of a Galanos chiffon because of the lack of a pair of evening shoes and the ropes of pearls that should complement the dress and clinch the sale. She intended to stock the armoires with heaps of the newest shoes and scarves and costume jewelry of every description, not for sale, just to accessorize the outfits.
Perhaps Billy’s greatest personal contribution to the new Scruples was in her body-snatching capacity. She was well known to every saleswoman in town from her many years as a compulsive shopper, and once convinced that a knowledge of French mattered not a whit compared to charm and warmth, she proved an adroit kidnapper: first Rosel Korman, formerly of the Saks Park Avenue Room, dignified, calm, and lovable; then Bohemian, be-hatted Marguerite from Giorgio’s; wise, ponytailed Sue from Alan Austin, both Elizabeth and Mirelle, two tiny, young Frenchwomen from Dinallo, friendly, blond Christine and relaxed, redheaded Ellen, both from the General Store, Holly, tactful and enthusiastic, from Charles Galley, as well as another dozen of the top salespeople in town. She also hired the best alteration experts, headed by Henriette Schor from Saks. Her only recruiting failure had been lovely Kendall, who wouldn’t leave Dorso’s for any inducement, but, as even Billy had to admit in frustration, Dorso’s was a special sort of place. Billy also established a delivery service in a town where multimillionaire customers have to do their own pickups in every boutique.
While the store was closed, Valentine and Billy went over the stock. From the day she had conceived of Scruples Billy had been her own buyer. Her chief complaint about the other stores in Beverly Hills was that she could never find what she wanted in them. She had been convinced that if she could go to New York and see all the wholesale lines, she herself could choose far more exciting merchandise.
Scruples Page 34
