Crimson (29 page)

If he didn’t make the money by gambling, he might well do so from insurance, for Adam had just become an external member of two insurance syndicates at Lloyd’s of London. Each big risk at Lloyd’s was generally shared among a number of syndicates, in order to reduce any individual loss. It was a pity that Adam could afford to belong to only two, because the risk would have been better spread had he belonged to, say, twenty of the four hundred syndicates.

Each syndicate member of Lloyd’s had to meet the necessary financial requirements, which included showing assets of seventy-five thousand pounds, part of which had to be kept on interest-bearing deposit at

Lloyd’s. Although Adam did not possess seventy-five thousand pounds, he had enough cash to lodge the deposit, and he had been able to borrow the remainder, temporarily, in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the council of Lloyd’s, which regulated the business ethics and standards of its market and everyone in it.

Beside Adam, on the seat of the maroon Rolls, lay his briefcase containing a Lloyd’s prospectus and also a list Of Elinor’s investments, together with their total current worth and reasoned suggestions as to which should be sold. The briefcase also contained several contracts that required Elinor’s signature. After his father’s death the previous January, Adam had checked years of back correspondence to familiarize himself with Elinor’s business affairs, and now she gratefully turned to him to advise her on all decisions; in fact, Adam had almost reached the point where he would describe himself as her business manager as well as her lawyer.

As the butler took Adam’s coat, they both heard angry voices coming from behind the door of Elinor’s study.

“Perhaps you would care to wait in the drawing room, sir?” said the butler, serene as a Buddha.

“Shall I bring you sherry or tea, sir?”

“No, I’ll wait here in the hall. Whisky and soda, please.” Adam sat on a sofa, vexed that Miranda obviously hadn’t informed Elinor on the day before his appointment, as he’d asked her to do.

As he sipped his drink, he could clearly hear what was being said next door.

In the oak-panelled study, Elinor, in electric blue, faced a scowling Miranda.

“I don’t understand what’s gotten into you this year,” stormed Elinor.

“First, you broke your engagement…”

“Angus and I would never have lasted,” Miranda said y, not liking to acknowledge to herself that she still 0 Oed their comfortable intimacy.

“He’ll be much happier 34th a traditional Kensington deb. He’s the only twenty nine-year-old man I know who wants to get married and settle down.”

“That’s not something to hold against him!” Elinor said vehemently.

“Then you badgered me for dangerous flying lessons and now you want to open a shop! My granddaughter is not going to be a sh.opgirl!” Biting her lip to top tears of anger and disappointment, Elinor turned away from Miranda and looked out past the garden, now having its winter rest; the two flame-shaped holly trees on either side of the gate to the orchard never failed to provide red berries for Christmas.

“And you know nothing about commerce!” Elinor added.

“Neither did you when you started work.” Miranda, in a purple jumpsuit, stood her ground, arms akimbo, before the slowly burning apple wood fire.

“You would be fighting against huge competition. Arden, Rubenstein, Revlon “Gran, I work at Elizabeth Arden. I know what kind of fortune a woman spends on her face once she walks through that red door.”

“Exactly! You wouldn’t stand a chance!” Elinor turned, triumphant, to face Miranda.

“Yes I would! Because Arden isn’t interested in someone with only a few shillings to spend! But I am! Think of the millions of Youthquake girls who can only buy oldfashioned, masklike, heavy make-up in middle-aged colours … Sure, they can go to Woolworth’s but is Woolworth’s trendy?”

“You know how much money the big firms spend on development. Miranda, if there were a gap in the market, as you claim, they would have spotted it!”

“There is a gap!” Miranda insisted.

“And they aren’t interested in spotting it. That sort of firm simply doesn’t understand what young girls want, and they don’t understand what a lot of money these girls can collectively spend.” Her voice rose in exasperation.

“I want to sell to the other girls I see dancing at Humph’s we’re forced to paint our faces from a child’s paint box. Ask Annabel about it. She knows I’m right.” From Annabel, Miranda had learned the make-up techniques used by American models. Annabel had ransacked Concorde, the dimly lit chemist on Madison Avenue that seemed to contain every cosmetic in the world, to send samples to her sister.

“Why must you be so difficult, Miranda?”

“Why must you be so unhelpful? Didn’t anyone help you get started when you were young?”

“No!”

“All the more reason why you should help me,” Miranda retorted.

“I’m not going to throw thousands of pounds away on a risky, foolish venture that has little chance of success…”

“Although you were willing to spend thousands of pounds on my wedding, which I think had no chance of success.”

“Let’s not harp back to that again! That poor young man!”

Miranda changed her tactics. She jumped to the fire, took up the poker, and prodded the smouldering wood until it flared. Then she lowered her voice and spoke winningly.

“Gran, I can prove that you wouldn’t be throwing money away if only you’d pay for a bit of research. Cosmetic profit margins are huge! Sixty per cent of the retail price goes to the manufacturer, and only eight per cent of that is spent on raw materials.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense! It costs millions to launch a cosmetics company ,fLubbish!” Miranda leapt to the sofa table, thumbed ugh a copy of Vogue, and stabbed her finger at it. ere! You only have to look at the small ads in the glossies to see that there are plenty of small companies “but those ads have no style. I havef “You’re too young, Miranda, and that’s fin aW “Annabel says there’s a girl in New Jersey Adrien Arpel who started in 1959, when she was only eighteen. Herfather gave her four hundred dollars to start, and now she’s thriving! What would my father want you to doT Elinor had been halted. After a few moments, she said in a quieter voice, “As a matter of fact, my mind is not as closed as you think, Miranda. I spoke to my stockbroker. He said that getting a line of cosmetic products into the stores against the competition of the big companies is almost impossible.”

“A fat lot that bald old Billy Bunter knows about it! There’s still room for starting up in your own salonl” Miranda cried.

“And what does he know about the sort of lipsticks girls want? Look at my face!”

Elinor looked, and managed not to shudder.

“You can’t get any of these colours in London,” Miranda rushed on.

“And Annabel says you can t get them in New York either! To get a light, shiny pink lipstick, I have to use theatrical whitener under light pink Caran d’Ache crayons, then top it with Vaseline. I want to do it all with one product! And I’m sure there are plenty of girls like me! And I can sell to them from my own little shops, instead of going the expensive route in the big stores: I’m never going to waste time flattering the buyers, or jostling for cover space, or waiting months for late payment that’ll upset my cash flow!” Miranda continued, seeming not to pause for breath.

“Oh Gran, won’t you even let me have a market survey done to prove what

I say? Annie Trehearne says “Your new friend, Miss Treheame, is a fashion editor, not a fortune-teller!” Ebullient, blonde Annie Trehearne was known for her outrageous ideas and her uncannily accurate fashion predictions.

“Exactly! She’s fashion editor of Queen. Her business is spotting trends. That’s why she understands what I want to do! She can see the gap! The young want something different, and Annie senses that!”

“A pity you didn’t just quietly paint her nails. Do you tell all your customers of your hare-brain cd scheme sT “Gran darling, Annie specializes in hare-brained schemesl Come off it you know you like her, really.” Miranda added, “And Annie’s wheedled an advertising agency into doing a cut-price market survey. She told them she wants it for a story, and she’s offered to splash me when I launch. And Adam has got a financial projection.”

“How dare you go behind my back to my lawyer!”

“Gran, I’ve known Adam since I was a little girl,” Miranda pleaded.

“He’s my friend as well as your lawyer. And he didn’t have to pay for the financial projection. The merchant bank prepared it.”

“What merchant bank?”

Miranda moved to the mantelpiece, picked up a little globe, and started to spin it as she spoke.

“When I go into business, Gran, I’m going to need a merchant bank, aren’t I? Won’t you please look at Adam’s figures? … I have them here.” Elinor looked less sure of herself.

“Why didn’t you say that you had consulted Adam? If Adam thinks there’s a possibility … I suppose there’s no harm in looking at the figures., In the hall, Adam stood, picked up his briefcase, and knocked on the door of the study.

Three hours later, Elinor had agreed that for Miranda’s RAqwty-first birthday present, she would buy her a little and provide enough money for a secretary duty shop an p assistants for three years, plus sufficient d two sho working capital to cover other overheads and products to tock the shop.

Adam was to be Miranda’s business adviser, and Mir-inda had agreed that for the first three years she would ,aot take any action that was contrary to his advice.

for all this” Miranda agreed not to take flying In return ks son Adam noticed that Miranda did not say that she would never take flying lessons.

Miranda decided to call her business KITS. She spent the spring of 1961 in a whirl of work, not all of which she enjoyed Rather than sell the overpriced, branded products pro nd duced by other firms, Miranda wanted to package an retail her own cosmetics; then, she knew, she would have direct control over quality, packaging, and pricing, which would also help to sharpen the identity of KITS.

She knew exactly what this all-important image of KITS should be: bold and young, visually sophisticated but inexpensive. It would project excitement, and it would also be practical. In the KITS store, a customer could buy a set of empty bottles and boxes and then select her colours to fill them: this meant that instead of a collection of gaudy, ill matched bottles and boxes in her bathroom, she would have only one well-designed, matching set stamped with the KITS logo, of course.

Miranda also knew that, where two products were indistinguishable, a shopper tended to buy the one with the clearer public image; dull packaging, and subsequent lack of image, was the reason for the failure of many private label inexpensive cosmetics. And she knew that inexpensive cosmetics need not mean inferior ones; the same products

from One factory were frequently sold at different prices: a face cream might cost a pound in one pack but five pounds in another pack with a more expensive name.

Having targeted her market, Miranda now had to locate suppliers, choose or design her make-up and her skin-care range, write her sales literature, acquire a shop, and hire staff.

After deciding on a final list of basic cosmetics, Miranda developed them in Elinor’s kitchen at Chester Terrace, much to the indignation of the housekeeper, who hated the pungent smells. Miranda was less confident about her skin-care products: although she had learned basic formulas during her training, she planned to discuss this line with a qualified cosmetics chemist. So Miranda telephoned four cosmetics manufacturers: three refused to see her, brusquely explaining that her order would be too small to bother about. The fourth was Ladyface.

FRIDAY, 31 MARCH 1961 Sitting in the Ladyface reception area, Miranda fidgeted; her appointment had been for eleven o’clock it was now forty minutes past. Was this an example of Ladyface reliability? “Hello, I’m Cherry Dawson, the publicity officer.” A charming blonde in her late twenties stood smiling in the flimsy doorway. Her job was to deal with time wasters like Miranda and save her charm to entertain the press and the groups of American executives who flew in regularly from the New York office. Miss Dawson smiled regretfully.

“I’m afraid we have no vacancies of any sort at the moment.”

“I don’t want a job, I’m a potential customer,” Miranda said firmly.

When Miranda proved persistent, Miss Dawson growing less charming by the minute said that clients were not department and escorted her to the office of Miss on, a brand manager known for her ability to get rid of anyone, with speed. While Miranda was describing her plans to Miss Scotson - a suspicious and dismissive woman i her mid-thirties the brand manager was abruptly n gummoned by her boss.

Waiting yet again, Miranda looked gloomily around Uiss Scotson’s office, a tidy white shoe box covered with notice boards. She wondered how it was possible to become so deeply depressed in only twenty minutes. She stood up, stretched, and examined the schedules on the notice boards, none of which she understood. She then glanced at the pile of letters on the manager’s desk: the topmost letter was headed “Arthur Bell Cosmetic Products Ltd, Birmingham’. The letter started: “We much regret the late delivery of the EP02 range for Nigeria…” Miss Scotson suddenly materialized.

“So good of you to let me know your plans, but we can’t help you, especially in view of your … unusual … testing requirements.” Miranda wanted. no animal testing involved in her product development.

“Perhaps I can help you,” Miranda said pleasantly. She pointed to a dummy advertisement pinned on the wall. It read, “Let your skin feel Ladyface sink into it…”

“The skin is an excretory organ,” Miranda said.

“You can’t shove things into it, any more than you can into any of your other excretory organs, and any cosmetic claims to do so are ludicrous.” She stalked out.

The following Monday, Miranda’s taxi drew into a grimy, dark red brick Birmingham back street, at the end of which “Arthur Bell Cosmetic Products Ltd” was painted on a large pair of grey gates.