At 94, She Holds No Brief for Retirement

Selma Koch was not aware of the passing years, or that she was an old woman, until she was 92. Maybe it was 93.

She is 94 now. And every day she finds a reason to believe--in life, in work and in the importance of a bra that fits.

Six days a week she spends 10 hours a day in the Town Shop on the Upper West Side, a lingerie store founded 114 years ago by her father-in-law.

She is acutely aware that she may not live to see 95. “You don’t buy green bananas,” she says, and laughs heartily at her own joke. She doesn’t fill a prescription for 100 capsules of medication. Too expensive, she says, and tells the pharmacist to cut it by half. “I may not make it to 100.”

Pills, she means.

Life, and time, are not always kind. Koch has seen plenty of both. Enough to know not to take anything too seriously; enough to know that work and family are the secrets to contentment. And that if you don’t laugh, especially at yourself, you might as well give up.

She also knows that progress-- be it Internet shopping or shiny catalogs with unnaturally endowed women wearing bras of red satin-- cannot replace simple human kindness, or making a customer feel important.

“There’s nothing left in New York that’s a service store,” she says. “You can go into Bergdorf’s, you can go into Saks, and nobody’s going to say a word to you, right?

“Here, a customer walks through the door, someone approaches her. And stays with her.”

Which isn’t hard to do. The Town Shop, at Broadway and 82nd Street, is about the size of a bedroom, with enough inventory to stock a house. Outside, beneath a hot pink sign with purple letters, is an old-fashioned glass window display with mannequins. Inside are bras in cup sizes covering half the alphabet, panties, house slippers, stockings, nighties from flimsy to flannel, socks, “merry widows,” swimsuits. And if you don’t see what you want, just ask.

In the back is Selma Koch, wedged behind a small desk, flanked by boxes of underwear rising to the ceiling. She does much of the buying, the scheduling, the phone orders that come in from around the country and--the bane of every business owner--keeps the help happy. Not to mention the customers.

“We have 17 people working here,” she says, rapping her polished nails on a rare bit of desktop not covered by papers. “And just try to keep peace with 17 women. That alone, in a small space, is a full-time job.”

She does not lower her voice. It carries, creaky but strong, into the store, where determined saleswomen stride from customer to back room, purposefully climb stepladders and reach behind Koch’s gray head to retrieve a lacy piece of merchandise. If they have heard her comment, their faces register nothing but brisk efficiency.

Her elder son, Peter, 72, comes to say she has faxed the same order twice. The manufacturer is confused.

She smiles. “I’m entitled to errors, right?”

But at 94, she doesn’t make a lot of them. Her mind, and her hearing, are sharp. She has two sons, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Crimson lipstick tastefully defines her lips, and a red dress with gold buttons plunges provocatively, revealing an unapologetic neck weathered to fine crepe paper and mottled with age spots.

On her feet, over sheer stockings, are dark pumps with cutout toes.

She has been walking into the Town Shop since 1927, right before she married Henry Koch, who was brash enough to flirt with the 20-year-old woman who came to design his Christmas brochure.

She’d graduated from Columbia University’s School of Journalism two years before and had done well for herself by landing a job as a copywriter at an advertising agency. She simply refused to be intimidated by the fact that there were few women in jobs like hers.

The Town Shop had four stores then, and its advertising business was coveted. She wanted the account.

“I went in to do the interview, and this guy said, ‘Where can I reach you after hours?’ ”

She thought he was married. “So, being 20 years old, I said, ‘You can’t reach me anywhere but at the office.’ And I flounced out.”

She is greatly amused by this memory, and laughs to herself.

Back at the agency, a male colleague said, “I hear you got the Town Shop account.”

“So?” she shot back.

“So that’s the most eligible bachelor around.”

That got her attention.

“So I went back. With a little more charm.”

Her grin is devilish.

“And that was how I married into the Town Shop.”

Henry Koch died in 1970. Left with a business to run, Selma Koch eventually closed the other stores, leaving only the Broadway shop, where she could walk to work.

She was born and raised on the West Side. And she’s stayed there. Home is five minutes away by cab. “I’m a neighborhood gal,” she says.

Her younger son, David, is 70. “My baby,” she calls him. He works in advertising.

Peter works with her in the store. “She’s not as sharp as she used to be,” he says right in front of her, and laughs. “But she won’t admit that.”

Peter Koch says he doesn’t worry that his mother continues to work. “What’s she going to do? She doesn’t play cards, she doesn’t like the movies. Sitting at the desk has been very good for her.”

She loves working retail. Dealing with people. She has client families spanning three generations. “Sometimes a lady will come in with either a walker, or a wheelchair, or a nurse. She can barely move, and she’ll say to me, ‘You know, you sold me my trousseau.’ ”

Koch isn’t sure that’s a compliment.

Brassieres were made of cotton “and not very pretty” when she started selling them. Then came nylon, cups shaped like Sno-Cone holders, Lycra, underwire, push-ups, and bras that worked wonders and miracles.

The latest trend?

“Large cups,” she says. “Bosoms are getting big.”

By themselves, or with help?

Oh no, she wags her head, she doesn’t mean plastic surgery. She means naturally. Exercise trends, the pill, other factors have resulted in an evolutionary escalation of breast sizes.

How does her staff measure a woman for a bra that fits but doesn’t poke, pull or pester?

“We don’t measure anything,” she answers. “Never use a tape measure.”

Then how do they know what size a woman wears?

“We know. We’re trained to know.”

Who trains the staff?

“I do.”

Who trained you?

“I just knew.”

She knows she’s not really answering, but she doesn’t care. Age has certain privileges, and this is one.

Working is another. “When you reach my time of life,” she says, “you don’t have friends. They’re all gone. You don’t have a social life. I don’t have the mobility to travel from museum to museum anymore. So my days would be endless if I didn’t come to work.”

She revels in telling visitors that she’s “almost” 95. Her birthday is June 29.

How does it feel to be almost 95?

The question stops her cold. She is not laughing now but staring down at her desk.

“It’s very strange,” she answers. “I wasn’t aware of it, I think, until I was like 92 or 93. I was not aware of time going.”

Is it frightening?

“No. Everybody else did it, so why not me?”

Everybody else did what?

And now she is laughing again.

“Everybody else died,” she chuckles. “So what?”