Scruples (37 page)

From 1973 to 1976 Prince and Valentine worked side by side. Although his licensing activities brought in the really big money, their value was directly dependent on the continued success of his ready-to-wear line, which had made him famous in the first place. If Prince ever started to slip, and several bad collections in succession can almost put any American designer out of business, both with buyers and editors, the licenses might possibly not be renewed when the time came. Prince often brooded angrily over the case of the late Christian Dior, who had been dead well over a dozen years when the brand of panty hose that bears his name was invented. And that was only one example. How did the beastly French do it—so typical of the wogs.

Valentine learned how to work with Prince as if she were his second head. She mastered the conceptual fundamentals that made his expensive clothes different from any other designer’s expensive clothes, and only an informed person could have told which of the two of them had worked on any part of any one sketch or chosen one fabric over another.

But Valentine was far from satisfied. She was content with her job as a job: Prince now paid her forty-five thousand dollars a year and she had her own assistants, but she was only a shadow figure and she felt it keenly. She was, if one insisted, doing something “creative,” but creative in the image of Prince: She was nothing but a disciple, gifted but absolutely limited in what she would accomplish. Prince’s rich clients were not innovative women: They wanted a Prince look they could count on as being immediately recognized by their peers as a Prince look. Valentine’s work gave her less personal satisfaction than that of a professional art forger, since she couldn’t even feel that she was putting something over on a gullible public.

Valentine had never stopped her own designing. Uninfluenced by what everyone was wearing on the streets of New York, uninfluenced by Prince’s strong talent, she continued to fill page after page with sketches of her own ideas. Her only audience was Spider, her only model herself. Only rarely now did she have the time to actually make up one of her own designs, particularly since Prince demanded that she dress exclusively in his clothes, which he made for her for nothing. He dressed, as a matter of course, the permanent female members of his Vivid People, and Valentine was indispensable to him, since she lent the garments, destined for wealthy, still young, conservative, society matrons, her own brand of
chien
with which none of them would ever be blessed. However, every season Valentine doggedly made at least four garments of her own and added them to the others in her closet. She refused to give up that private side of her talent.

Several times a year Prince was forced to venture out of New York to show his new line at important charity fashion shows in major cities across the country. He even did the much loathed but highly profitable “trunk shows,” for which Prince himself, along with a key salesperson and two house models, would accompany the sample collection to a major department store and for three hectic days, backed by heavy local newspaper advertising and store promotion, take orders for future delivery from the women who came in feverish flocks to squeeze into the samples. Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Adolfo, Kasper, Geoffrey Beene, in fact most important designers, recognize that there is nothing like a trunk show for stimulating interest in the rich women who rarely get to New York to shop. It is not just a way of making and keeping influential customers, it is also an important opportunity to see what women, uninfluenced by super-cautious store buyers, are anxious to choose when they have an entire line to pick from.

In the summer of 1976 Prince planned a longer trip than usual. He decided to combine a fashion show benefit for Chicago’s Gastrointestinal Research Foundation with a trunk show at the local branch of Saks, going on to Detroit and Milwaukee for two more trunk shows, since he would be in the Midwest in any case. He also decided to fit in a secret trip home to Des Moines, where his widowed mother was a local celebrity for having produced him, although her friends, as working class as she was, knew of him only through the publicity clippings she pressed on them.

Valentine was tempted beyond the power to resist. With Prince away from the office for a full week and a half, she realized that she could sneak her own latest creations into her private office without anyone knowing that they were there. Then she would ask one of the house models to put them on for her. At last she could see what they looked like when they were worn by someone else. There was something ultimately frustrating in making clothes that you saw only on yourself in a mirror. Lately she had been troubled by the growing idea that her work was becoming too inbred, too personal. Perhaps her things wouldn’t work on a girl with different coloring and a different way of holding herself.

Lately, she hadn’t even had Spider to show them off to, Valentine mused. She had seen almost nothing of him since he had met Melanie Adams. Even now, with Melanie off in Hollywood, Spider was keeping largely to himself. The dinners she cooked went unshared, the comradeship she almost took for granted had disappeared. She didn’t admit it, but she felt cast adrift. Never would she have believed that her love-’em-and-leave-’em, freewheeling Elliott could fall so insanely in love as he had with that disgustingly beautiful bitch. He was absolutely possessed, the damn fool, and she, Valentine, thought that it was too bad Spider wasn’t Catholic. She would gladly have arranged for his exorcism. Clearly he had the devil under the skin, as her mother used to say. No good could come of it; the girl didn’t love anyone but herself as any idiot could see, but what man would listen to reason when he was in love? Or what woman either, Valentine added, grimly remembering. Hastily she turned to packing her most recently finished clothes in opaque plastic bags. She would get to the office early today, before anyone was around, and hang them in her private closet There was no risk. Beth, the black model, was a good friend and renowned for her ability to withstand the temptation to gossip.

A half hour before lunchtime Valentine asked Beth if she could spare her some time later in the afternoon to try on a few things for her.

“Why not do it now, Val? I’ve got my yogurt right here and I wasn’t planning to go for lunch anyway. If we wait till later there may be buyers dropping in and they’ll need me in the showroom.”

“Oh, would you really, Beth? That’s wonderful! But listen, this sounds silly, but could we do it in my office? I’d prefer that no one sees them—they’re just a couple of things I ran up myself for kicks, nothing important, but, well, you know how Mr. Prince is—”

“Enough said.” The black girl was only an inch taller than Valentine and just as slim. In every other way they were as unalike physically as two women could be, and Valentine was dancing with anticipation of how her clothes would look on Beth.

An hour later both women were happily collapsed on Valentine’s couch, each wearing one of Valentine’s dresses, all the other garments heaped on the chairs, falling just as they had been left when Beth had taken them off.

“I haven’t had so much fun since I gave up playing with dolls,” Beth exploded. “I didn’t know I was sooooo gorgeous! Baby, you’re just nuts to worry that they might look good only on you. I like you in that number just fine, but I like me a lot better!”

“Beth, you are divine, divine, divine!” Valentine was almost drunk with relief and the excitement of seeing Beth, who ordinarily showed clothes with a bored hauteur, kicking up her heels and almost prancing as she tried on each new garment, entranced by their flair and fantasy and originality.

Suddenly they both jumped, in guilt, as someone knocked urgently on the locked door of Valentine’s office.

“Who is it?” Valentine called, rolling her eyes at Beth.

“It’s Sally,” answered the receptionist. “Val, there’s an emergency, come on out Fast!”

“What’s going on—is Mr. Prince back?” Valentine asked, not unlocking the door.

“I wish he were! Mrs. Ikehorn is here! Mrs. Ellis Ikehorn—and she won’t talk to anyone but you or Mr. Prince. She’s mad as hell—didn’t know he was out of town. Come on—what are you waiting for? She’s in the showroom, but she’ll be in your office in a minute if you don’t hurry.”

Beth had already stripped and put on the gray satin wraps models wore between changes. She and Valentine exchanged appalled glances. They both knew, as did everyone on Seventh Avenue, that Billy Ikehorn, whom
Women’s Wear Daily
had lately dubbed “The Golden Witch of the West,” was John Prince’s most cherished and adored private customer. Now that she had built Scruples, the dream store in Beverly Hills that everyone in the fashion business was gossiping about, she had become even more important to Prince since she was buying for the store as well as for herself.

“Beth, go tell the other girls to get into their first numbers and fast! Then go and tell Mrs. Ikehorn that I’m coming—no, never mind, that will take too much time—just go change and get out there in the showroom,” Valentine said in a quick undertone, running her fingers through her hair and putting on her shoes in one swift movement. Beth vanished and Valentine headed toward the showroom at a fast trot.

Billy Ikehorn was standing in front of one of the showroom mirrors, every patrician bone in her body registering annoyance.

“Really, Valentine—what on earth is John doing in Middle America for heaven’s sake?” she burst out, not even bothering to conceal her anger. “I made a special trip down to this God-forsaken neighborhood in this ghastly heat—and I find he’s off on one of those silly charity shows instead of tending to business.” She glared at Valentine, but even her furious expression did little to mar her regal, dark beauty.

“He will be absolutely desolated when he hears that he missed you, Mrs. Ikehorn,” Valentine said, turning on a little French accent as she unconsciously did in moments of stress. “In fact, if he hears that we didn’t give you the most satisfactory private show you’ve ever seen, I fear for our lives.”

“I don’t have much time,” Billy answered, in her most curt manner, without a smile, not willing to be mollified. Finally she settled down in one of the booths, behind a small Lucite desk, where buyers sat and wrote their orders.

Valentine snapped her fingers and the house models, five in all, paraded in front of the two women, managing to change so quickly that there was no break between the presentation of the various items of the large collection. However, as smoothly as the showing went, Valentine noticed, with sinking heart, that Mrs. Ikehorn said nothing and wrote as little on the pad in front of her. Her posture was immobile and unbending, exuding irritation. It was not possible that she didn’t see anything she wanted; the collection was an excellent one. Was she keeping the numbers in her head, Valentine wondered, in a panic.

When the last model had passed there was a small pause. Billy Ikehorn drew a deep breath and said in tones of withering assurance, “Dull, dull,
dull.”
Valentine gasped. “I said ‘dull’ and I meant it. It’s Prince, but it isn’t new; it’s so fucking dependable that it makes me want to scream. I know it will sell, Valentine, I’m not saying it won’t, but it just doesn’t make me want to buy. I can’t get excited about one single thing. Not one piece—it’s a bomb.”

This was a catastrophe. Valentine knew that if John Prince had been there he would have cajoled and jollied Mrs. Ikehorn out of her bad mood long ago and had her writing numbers like a machine. She jumped up and faced the formidable woman who was sitting in judgment with total conviction that her word was law.

“Mrs. Ikehorn, you have to realize that your own taste is developed way beyond that of the average customer.” Valentine knew that she shouldn’t be this bold, but she had to do something to save the situation. “After all, now with your new store you are buying for other women, who will almost certainly not be able to wear what you wear or even understand it—” Valentine’s voice trailed off as she noticed a spark of interest come into Billy’s eyes.

“What about that dress you have on?” she demanded. With amazement, Valentine realized she was still wearing one of her own designs. She had run out of her office so quickly that she had forgotten to change into her Prince.

“Dress?” she said.

“Valentine, I know you can’t be stupid, but it’s getting hard to believe. You are wearing a dress. I like that dress. I want that dress. Sell me
that dress!
Is that plain enough for you?”

“I cant.” Billy Ikehorn looked as stunned as if someone had deliberately thrown a large glass of red wine in her face. Valentine would have laughed if she hadn’t been so terrified.

“Can’t? Whose dress is it? Or is that a secret? I want to know!”

“It’s my dress.”

“Obviously. Who designed it? Don’t tell me Prince because I can damn well tell he didn’t. So—this
is
interesting! When the boss is out of town you won’t even wear his clothes. Are they too fuddy-duddy for you, Valentine? Is that it?” There was menace in her tone and Valentine quickly decided that it was better to admit the dress was her own design than to let Mrs. Ikehorn think she was wearing something from the competition.

“Sometimes—almost never—I make a little something for myself, just so that I don’t forget how to sew. That’s all it is, Mrs. Ikehorn—just an inexpensive little thing I ran up at home. That’s why I can’t sell it to you. This is the only one.”

“ ‘Inexpensive!’ This is Norell quality wool jersey at a hundred dollars a yard and you know it better than I do. Stand up and turn around,” Billy commanded. As Valentine reluctantly rotated, the stock boy entered the showroom wheeling a rack on which hung all her other designs.