Obeying the Woman Inside Her Closet
Back in the mid-’80s, when I read that Nancy Reagan had her own vendeuse at I. Magnin, I immediately wanted a vendeuse too--even before I knew exactly what one was. A fashionable older friend of mine explained: “A vendeuse is like a personal dresser, but she’s at one store, and she calls you when something comes in from your favorite designer.”
Of course, the word itself is French for “saleswoman,” but something is lost in the translation--a quintessential chicness, n’est-ce pas?
A vendeuse, as I understood it, wasn’t someone who just wanted to sell you something, but someone who also wanted to sell you the right thing, someone who was invested in helping you look your best, who therefore saved you both from having to shop around and from egregious fashion error.
Of course, I didn’t want Nancy Reagan’s vendeuse. I had no desire to wear those primly tailored suits or pastel colors; I wanted a vendeuse of my own, one, I imagined, who had range and wit and understood my taste but had a more knowledgeable and faultless eye. My vendeuse, as I imagined her, offered a perfected form of mothering--of which I had a need.
If my own mother had had her way, I would’ve used fashion to disguise those parts of me that made her queasy--my odd sense of humor, my slight urchinness, my largish bust, my post-hippie artiness, and all else that hurt my standing in the desirable middle-class mainstream or, more specifically, with that steady, hard-working breadwinner meant to provide for my future.
If my own mother wanted me to look tidy, crisply feminine, sexually blank and blandly conventional, a vendeuse, as I imagined her, would want me to look exactly like myself--but the most fabulous possible version thereof.
The problem: How did somebody like me find such service? The Gap, where I did most of my shopping, did not furnish such services.
When the shopper is ready, however, the vendeuse appears.
*
There comes a time in every woman’s life, I think, when she can no longer face that sinking feeling at the mouth of her closet before a party, or date, or special event; when she grows weary of having to finesse an outfit from the limited selections that hang within. There comes a time when, for sheer practicality, a woman needs a wardrobe. That time came for me around four years ago. I was facing a number of public appearances, and my basic uniform, black cigarette pants and cashmere sweater, seemed insufficient.
I went to Weathervane, a small dress shop on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica whose inarguably chic and intelligent window displays had more than once lured me inside. There, a scrupulously handpicked selection of clothes by contemporary designers such as Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela, Piazza Sempione, Veronique Branquinho and Eskander hang in small clusters on wall-hugging racks. T-shirts, sweaters, the occasional unusual scarf or socks rest on shelves throughout the store.
It was as if Jan Brilliot, the owner and buyer, had sifted through Neiman Marcus and Barneys and Fred Segal and brought back only the cream to this sleek, small space. The look tends toward the minimal, slightly architectural, with outbreaks of humor, color and inventive oddity.
(I remember a plastic-coated wool skirt whose coating, it was promised, would eventually wear off--I wasn’t tempted, but I’ve never forgotten that skirt. Who knew such expensive clothes could be so peculiar?)
After a few nervous forays of “just looking” (the price range encouraged caution and conscious commitment), I bought three pairs of pants, two sweaters and a jacket. I spent an entire year’s clothes budget but obtained the very sturdy foundation of a wardrobe and--although I didn’t know it at the time--my own vendeuse.
I enjoyed all the saleswomen at Weathervane, but the person to whom I most frequently appealed on matters of taste was Deborah Stone. A petite, poised woman, Deborah wears a Margiela wrinkled cardigan or a Commes de Garcon uneven hemline with a calm, matter-of-fact aplomb that allows the wit and intelligence of the pieces to speak quietly for themselves.
I needed the confidence of a powerful, knowledgeable salesperson to steer me past sticker shock and into the world of sturdy, long-lasting, beautiful clothes.
Deborah simply and quietly did all the things a vendeuse does--she wrote me into her “book,” a thick three-ring binder in which she keeps track of everything her customers buy, and makes notes to herself. (Her initial notes about me say: “creative, interesting . . . upper arm and shoulder room . . . hip room”--as apt a portrait as any I’ve read.)
Deborah consistently steered me toward items that would “work” with what I had already purchased and what she’d observed me wearing. She was a bear about fit and was always getting out her box of pins to show how a bit of tailoring could make a piece perfect; or she was digging in her heels about another piece that would never, ever look right on my frame. (Perfect fit, I soon saw, was one of the secrets of her self-possessed personal style.) Deborah also began calling to tell me when new clothes--clothes I might like--came into the shop.
*
For someone who always wanted her own vendeuse, I was slow to grasp that I had one. Unlike a personal dresser, whom one hires, having a vendeuse is a less formal arrangement, which is often never articulated.
In fact, her first phone call baffled me. It wasn’t exactly like a call from a friend, but it wasn’t a sales pitch, either. She knew I was looking for slacks, and some good ones had come in--roomy-hipped ones, presumably. At the time, I didn’t think, “I have a vendeuse!” I thought, “Huh. That was nice of her.”
The importance of Deborah in my life didn’t register until I fell in love with a celery-green summer-weight wool gabardine suit by Luciano Barbera. It was so expensive that I wouldn’t even try it on. I just gazed at it. I couldn’t afford it when it dropped 50% either, but I did slip it into the dressing room. It looked great and made my green eyes glow--although the pants needed hemming and the upper arms were just a slight bit snug.
When the price went down to 70% off and nobody else absconded with it, I knew that the suit was fated for me. It still cost the equivalent of a new washing machine, but I could live in that suit. I could wear it to fancy restaurants. I could wear it to all my public appearances. I saw a whole new grown-up, sophisticated me.
*
Deborah thought the suit looked great on me, and if I just had to have it, she wouldn’t stop me (she was, after all, a salesperson working on commission). But since I asked, no, she didn’t think it was right for me in a philosophical sense. Too structured and tailored. Too corporate. If I wanted dressy and adult clothes, there were other ways to go. In fact, she’d been thinking about me and the green suit and had something to show me.
I discovered then that Deborah keeps a manila folder of pages torn from fashion magazines. She pulls images that appeal to her, or that remind her of a certain client. For me, she’d pulled pages from a Women’s Wear Daily, photographs of women in long sleek skirts, knit tops, sweaters. The look was soft, flowing and very svelte.
I was dubious, afraid that what appeared so sweeping and gorgeous on willowy 6-foot models would make 5-foot, 4-inch big-armed me look like a therapist or earth mother. But I agreed to give Deborah’s idea a try, and she pulled some dresses and skirts off the racks. Suddenly, I looked tall and slim and elegantly feminine--and pretty. And, I was comfortable. A whole new door had opened. I bought two long dresses, one black, one gray, and several tops to layer over them. I’ve been wearing the hell out of them for three years now.
That green suit went to a network executive.
Friends soon began noticing a difference in the way I looked. One began working with Deborah herself, and I saw a 35-year-old woman who, like me, had dressed in sportswear from the Gap and Banana Republic, transformed into a chic, elegantly turned-out woman who wore quietly unusual clothes as if she’d been born into them.
A man I know spoke to me in confidence about a mutual friend. “Somebody should tell her the whole hippie-grunge thing won’t work on a 40-something. I thought that you should take her under your wing.”
Me? He meant, of course, without knowing it, my vendeuse.
Yet, I like to think that the sartorial influence between Deborah and me hasn’t flowed entirely in one direction. After I’d known her for a year, Deborah and I began shopping together. One day, Deborah had a gift certificate to Saks and wanted a cashmere sweater. I encouraged, pushed and even bullied her into trying on a garnet red one. I still remember her wrinkled brow as she held the sweater up to her face. Her cheeks grew rosy. Still, she resisted. She made me try it on for size, in case she ended up not liking it. And then she bought it. And she’s actually worn it. Twice.
*
I now have a wardrobe. I have something to throw on for virtually any occasion. The decision is mostly a pleasure and, rarely, if ever, that old familiar bath of anxiety. I add pieces only occasionally now. This year, I bought only a pair of jeans and a red cashmere sweater (since I clearly wasn’t inheriting Deborah’s any time soon).
I also realized that everything I bought on that first Weathervane spree four years ago, I have worn in the last two weeks. I mentioned this with awe to Deborah. “Michelle,” she said, with only a hint of the weary instructress in her voice, “that’s the way it’s supposed to work.”
*
