Fashionably Late (31 page)

They were famous. Women would kill to get them. Karen knew how to cut the leg, how to seam the crotch, how to make sure the rise was just right so they never pulled, never pinched, but so they also minimized the belly and thigh, and elongated the leg. Simple, yes, easy, no.

After years of learning, after years of trying what worked and what didn’t, after moving up through the jungle of the garment center, after fighting for press coverage, for recognition, for sales, she’d finally made it. And now here she was, riding in this limousine, successful because of what she’d done but confronted with the challenge of the endless yearning for the new. Because in fashion it wasn’t enough to be good, to be flattering, to be stylish. You also had to look new.

Karen had to face it. Her women clients didn’t buy clothes because they needed them. They bought the thrill of the new.

And if her clothes were classics, if they were timeless, if they transcended the rules, if they fit and flattered and worked, but if they weren’t new, they failed.

Karen had come, over the years, to resent that last demand. She was inventive, but though she rose to the challenge time and time again, season after season, it had begun to feel like a bad parlor trick.

Novelty, unlike the other demands of fashion, had no intrinsic value.

Functionality and aesthetics were valid, but why did womenţand the pressţclamor for novelty?

Last season she’d done a good collection, sold well, and gotten generally good reviews. But womenXs wear had written up her show and called it “just a bit tired,” and accused her of “recycling.” One bad season, two at the most, could put her out of business, Jeffrey said.

Always the press’s darling, she’d resented their accusation and the resentment lingered. But now she was established, and just as they had built her, they would now undermine.

It was the way of the industry. The Oakley Awards would only make her a more visible target for potshots. If she did sell to NormCo, she wouldn’t have to worry so much about all this, but would they want her if she didn’t do well in Paris? She shivered at the thought.

For a moment she wished she’d never come. She longed to be back at her workroom. She needed to be back at her workroom. If she didn’t concentrate on the collection … To distract herself from that thought and to justify her existence, she turned to the pile of mail she had brought with her. It was a funny thing: when they had first opened the company, Karen had wandered around the office early in the morning, opening all the mail. It seemed a natural thing to doţafter all, it all had her name on it. Now Janet opened, sorted, and distributed most of the mail before Karen even saw it. Despite that, there was still too big a volume to keep up with. Now, in her lap amid the in-house memos and other usual stuff, there were two envelopes of interest. The first was a heavy pasteboard card. Janet had slit open the envelope for her, so Karen only had to slip out the note.

It was written in an elegant script on embossed stock.

Dearest Karen, I’m sure you must be pleased about the coverage that your wonderful clothes got, but you can’t be nearly as happy as I am.

I know I asked for a lot. No one could have done it but you. What an amazing talent you have and what hard work you back it up with. I think you know how very much my wedding meant to me, and with your help I looked as beautiful to Larry as I wanted to. I will always be in your debt.

Deepest thanks, Elise Elliot Karen blinked. It wasn’t often that she was thanked, and thanked by the likes of Elise Elliot, who had been dressed by Givenchy, Mainbocher, and Marc Bohn of Dior. She’d taken time from her honeymoon to write. Cool as she was, demanding as she had been, the woman had a kind of patrician class. Karen was touched.

The little pasteboard square had given her the answer to the question she’d asked herself. She was here in this car on her way to lunch because of her talent and hard work. The card was an omen that had come when she needed it most. She patted the card and slipped it in her purse. It wasn’t quite as good as the Oakley Award, but it came close.

The second envelope was not as gratifying. Norris Cleveland, third-rate designer, was inviting her to the introduction of her new perfume. Of course, it was called “Norris!” Norris’s new collection had looked almost exactly like one of Karen’s old collections. Except the colors were lousy. Karen shook her head. Somehow it continued to bug her that she, Karen, had to struggle for everything she got and that Norris did it effortlessly. Why didn’t Norris have to sell herself to the highest bidder? Well, perhaps she had. Karen crumpled the invitation into her schlep bag. She was sure it would be a beautiful party with beautiful people, but she doubted the perfume would be a Number Five or an Opium or an Obsession. Somehow Norris always managed the trappings without any of the content. Karen wouldn’t even be surprised if the bottles of perfume were empty!

Norris’s success proved that talent wasn’t necessary. So maybe Karen’s own success was just a fluke.

She looked out the window of the limousine. A crowd of motley pedestrians at the curb were trying to peek in and see who was moving through the traffic in such an elegant way. The tint protected Karen from their peeking. She could have been one of them, dressed in off-the-rack polyester, wearing shoes from Fayva. Why had she wound up in here, looking out at them? Why did she deserve this? And how long would it last?

Of course, in spite of what an ass he’d been last night, Karen knew Jeffrey had helped her achieve it all, and he was right about almost everything. He was right when he told her that Ford got rich making Fords, not Lincolns. There was no real money in American couture.

Perhaps that was why only Jimmy Galanos on the West Coast and maybe Scassi actually practiced it. Even high-end ready-to-wear, the next her down, was precarious. “Designer” clothes cost a lot, but they also cost a lot to make. The sales volume wasn’t high and the profit margin was small. One bad line and you could be wiped out. Designers like Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Anne Klein, and the rest who had “graduated” made their money in the lower-priced bridge lines and in the licensing business. None of them manufactured their own mass market lines.

Ralph used Bidermann Industries to manufacture his women’s wear, and they produced over fifty thousand styles a year! No wonder financing the bridge line without a partner and no real capital was eating VIKInc up.

It was hard to find a company that could produce her line, that would deliver it on time, that would keep up the quality, and that would wait to get paid. Unless she, Karen, wanted to sink to the Better Sportswear level of Liz Claiborne or Jones New York, she had better figure out a way to continue to finance the bridge line, or do this deal with NormCo and spread herself from designer wear all the way down to “moderate”ţthe level of Chaus and Tapemeasure.

The driver maneuvered the car past the pedestrian throng and through the brutal midtown traffic, over to the more residential East Fifties.

That was where the townhouse that was the home to New York’s finest French restaurant nestled beside other, more private, brownstones. In the slow crawl through midtown traffic Karen had had plenty of time to notice both the car and its appointments. There are limos and there are limos, she thought, noticing the perfection of the hurled wood interior, the pewter alpaca lap robe with the “WW” monogram, crystal decanters in the silver holders screwed to the privacy panel, and the silver vase (also monogrammed and screwed to the wall) that held a trembling spray of dendrobium orchids.

What did Bill have to tell her? She was nervous. Her fight with Jeffrey had unnerved her. She hated to be at odds with him. She felt jeopardized now. She felt like a package being delivered. The silence was getting to her. “Bill seems to like to brand things and screw them to the wall,” Karen commented aloud to the driver. The moment she said it, she could have bitten her tongue. But in the rearview mirror, the driver’s eyes didn’t even blink.

“We’ll be there in a moment,” was all he said. “Mr. Wolper will be waiting for you.” The driver pulled to the curb, was out, and had the door opened before Karen had time to realize she’d been politely chastised. But when she herself got out of the car she did take a moment to look over the driver’s wellcut gray suit and cap to see if it, too, bore the brand of the double “W”. It didn’t, but that didn’t reassure her.

She straightened her skirt and at the same time tried to surreptitiously wipe her damp palms. What have I got to be so scared about? she asked herself, and walked down the two shallow steps to the restaurant door, where she was greeted by Andre and ushered through the chic and tiny dining room hung with a priceless Gobelin tapestry to the less formal glass-roofed garden in the back. She smiled at Sherry Lansing, the head of Paramount Pictures and a client for many years, who was lunching with Demi Moore, not a client. Karen also recognized one of the Kaufman brothers, a real estate billionaire and friend of the Kahn family. This was clearly a power lunch place, though Karen had only been here for dinner.

Bill Wolper was already sitting at a corner table waiting for her. He rose as she approached, although she noticed that he didn’t move to help her into her chair, he let Andre do that. She also noted that he sat in the corner while she had to have her own back to the rest of the room.

Was that the done thing? She began to be sure that she didn’t like him.

But then Bill smiled at her. “Thank you for coming at such short notice,” he said, and sounded so sincere that she felt as if he might actually be apologizing. He turned to Andre and raised his bushy eyebrows. “Do you know Karen Kahn?” he asked. “She was on “The Elle Halle Show” this week.” Then he turned to Karen. “I suggest we put ourselves in Andre’s capable hands.”

Andre glowed. “May I suggest the homard ? We only have a few and I am serving them cold, in halves, as a salad to begin.”

Bill looked over at her. “Would you like the lobster?” he asked, as if she might need translation. She couldn’t decide if it was protective or condescending.

“Je voudrais le homard, mais ps maintenant, merci. Une slade verte seulement, et apres la salade, le homard, s’il vous plalt.” She smiled at both Andre and Bill Wolper. “Je n ai ps faim d habitude all de’jeuner, ” she lied. “Jamais.” Actually, she was starving, but it was best to keep it light.

“Je comprends, Madame. Moi aussi.” Andre agreed. He turned to Bill.

“Et pour vous?”

Bill Wolper cleared his throat, perhaps a bit discomfited. Good.

Karen suppressed a grin.

“I’ll have the same,” Bill Wolper said. He looked at Karen. “A Chardonnay?”

Karen thought of Defina’s Merlot and her subsequent hangover. God, she didn’t need any wine today, and the thought of a white wine made her ill. “I know it isn’t done, but I prefer a red, even with lobster.”

“Nous avons un Bordeaux supe’rieur,” Andre suggested to her.

But, “Why don’t we start with the ChardoMay?” Bill said smoothly, and Andre, remembering himself, nodded quickly and departed.

Karen blinked. The guy was clearly a control freak. She wondered, for a brief moment, whether she should insist on the Bordeaux but decided against it. First she’d wait and see what kind of an offerţif anyţwas forthcoming. She felt flutters in her stomach and tried to look calmly across the table, though she was made very uncomfortable by having her broad back exposed to the rest of the room. She wondered how often Bill might have brought women here and sequestered them in this way.

And how many patrons were noticing who Bill Wolper was lunching with?

” The Elle Halle Show’ was terrific,” Bill said. “And you got great coverage for the Elise Elliot wedding,” he added approvingly. “It must be great to see your ideas perform.”

Karen blinked. He was right, and he’d put it well. It had been great.

“Did you like her dress?”

“I like the coverage. Nowadays a designer has to be linked with celebrities. Most of them just have some movie star show up at one of their shows. You know, they hire a model to get her boyfriend to show.

Big deal. What you did was a stroke of genius. Elise Elliot! She’s popular with older women but she’s also seen as hip. Younger women admire her. She’s got class and cash and cachet. She could be to you what Audrey Hepburn was to Givenchy. How did you engineer it?” he asked.

Karen wondered if she should try to pretend it had been masterminded for months, but couldn’t pull it off. “She just asked me to do it,” she shrugged. “It was a risk, but the dresses all came out well.”

“You got a People cover! I’d say that was coming out well,” ” Wolper laughed. “I saw it and I wondered if you did it simply to drive our price up.”

Karen smiled at him. Was he kidding? She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. That seemed to be fine with Wolper, who continued.

“A funny thing about being involved with fashion in business. It’s made me have to learn to understand women.” He grinned. “It isn’t easy,” he said. “I liked a lot of what you said in our office last week, but I didn’t agree with you. I know all about that stuffţhow women want comfortable, wearable clothes. But I don’t think that is what women want. At least that’s not what they’re looking for when they go shopping.” He paused. “You know what they’re looking for?”

He leaned forward and looked deep into Karen’s eyes. Mesmerized by his concentration, she shook her head. “They’re looking for adventure,” he said. “They’re looking for hope. They’re looking for escape.”

“I didn’t know the mall was that exciting,” Karen wisecracked, uncomfortable, but Bill didn’t laugh.

“You think I’m joking?” he asked. “I’m not talking about your private clients. The Elise Elliots have other outlets. But think about most women’s lives. Helping the kids get dressed. Packing school lunches, dropping two off at the school bus and one at day care. Getting in to the bank or the insurance office to spend a day over a word processor or a computer terminal or a file drawer. Trying not to think about how old she’s getting, how disappointed she is in her husband, how long it’s been since anyone looked at her legs, or looked in her eyes.