Behind the Taffeta Curtain: A Novel

By Verne Castress

Clair, a small-town girl attending Iowa State University in 1940, has her palm read for a laughand gets a surprisingly specific prediction about her career, marriage, and children. She laughs it off, with no idea of how accurate it will turn out to be.

After a failed romance, she hastily marries a man named John, has two children, and very soon finds herself miserable. John is not only abusive and controlling, but also a compulsive gambler. In an effort to support their family, Clair finds work in a nearby department store, and her career in fashion begins.

In the sixties and seventies, Clair works her way up through the industry, chipping away at the glass ceiling of a field with far fewer women executives than the ad firms of Madison Avenue at the time. As an executive buyer for numerous retail conglomerates, she travels the globe searching for innovative fashions and meets regularly with iconic designers such as Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Oscar de la Renta. Among the fashion elite living the high life, there are steamy affairs, drugs, and suicides, as tragic elements mark the lives of these women in fashion whose insecurity remains hidden beneath their stoicism.

This novel tells the story of Clairs journey through the fashion world, a single mother contending with the conniving wiles of men and women and facing obstacles in the devious, behind-the-scenes political struggle of those climbing to the top.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491739921

Verne Castress

Verne Castress retired following a forty-five-year career as a fashion executive, for which she traveled the world in search of innovative fashions for the American market. The mother of two adult children, she currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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Copyright © 2014 Verne Castress.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-3991-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3993-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3992-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912039

iUniverse rev. date: 07/11/2014

Contents

Acknowledgment

Chapter 1 Then and Now

Chapter 2 Chaphard’s Department Store

Chapter 3 Buying Goods on Foreign Soil

Chapter 4 Ports Afar

Chapter 5 Globetrotting

Chapter 6 Meeting Tim in Tokyo

Chapter 7 Business in India

Chapter 8 Hong Kong

Chapter 9 The Salon

Chapter 10 Roland’s

Chapter 11 Kincaid’s

Chapter 12 Kohler’s

Chapter 13 The Wearable Art Shop

Chapter 14 Invitation to Join a Cruise

Chapter 15 Finale

For

Cathy and Jim

and Maryann

Sammy,

Buddy and Mikey

Acknowledgment

To Jo Davis

Editor

and

My friend

Chapter 1

Then and Now

You will have an adventurous life and travel around the world. Your career in merchandising will be long and successful. I see only one marriage—an unhappy one that produces two beautiful children. … But you can make life what you want it to be.

It was 1970, and Clair was on her way home, this time flying from Tokyo to Los Angeles on Pan Am flight 778. At the same time, her soldier son, Tim, with whom she had spent a few precious hours in Tokyo, was flying back to Vietnam, and her daughter, Susan, was flying to London on an Easter break from college. Clair was returning to the 64th floor of her majestic high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan—their home base—after completing a six-week fashion buying tour of the European and Asian fashion markets.

Self-confident in a shapely tailored suit and heels- in the jet age of the 60’s and 70’s, passengers dressed for transatlantic flights- Clair was a fashion figure. With sun-streaked blonde hair and an international tan, she was an outstanding figure among the passengers. As a working mother, she was always driven to be at her best while covering up the stress caused by a demanding job and missing her children’s activities.

As the steward poured iced champagne into a crystal flute, Clair’s thoughts went back thirty years, where a fortune teller—an afternoon entertainment at the sorority house on an Iowa college campus—had read her palm. She had laughed it off, as she had never heard the term merchandising. And she had never traveled out of Iowa. Her goal then, as was every girl’s hope at the time, was marriage. Careers for women were generally limited to nursing or teaching, and neither appealed to Clair.

1940

Clair’s new life began when she stepped onto the grounds of Iowa State University. Heady with this new freedom, she joined every campus activity that offered an opportunity to enrich her life. She pledged to a sorority, had an active social life, and soon became involved with Ryan, an upperclassman. Ryan had the confidential ease befitting the only son of affluent parents, and he was accustomed to never having any wish denied. His casual charm, laughing blue eyes, and free-spending habits made him a campus idol. He was every coed’s dream—and every coed’s mother’s wish.

When Ryan centered his attention on Clair with a Hi, babe, she swooned. They spun around the campus in his yellow Ford convertible, laughing and singing—free spirits framed against a bright blue sky. They were in love. Her head was in the clouds, her bare feet on the dashboard. They were in their own fantasy world—at least Clair was. Her goal, marriage, was already in the works.

But suddenly, their world changed. The war in Europe escalated, and men were signing up or being drafted. Ryan graduated, and since he was in the army reserves, he was called into service as an officer. In his tailored uniform, he cut a glamorous figure as he marched off to camp. I’ll be back in a year, babe, Ryan promised as Clair tearfully watched him board the train.

Clair naively said to friends, Surely no one will take a little man like this Hitler seriously. She could not foresee that the world would be dragged into a war that would bring catastrophic changes in everyone’s life for years to come.

As time went on, Clair faced cold stark reality—and she was devastated. With no wedding plans in her future, she confided to Sally, her roommate, I have to find a job. I have no money to continue my education here, and I can’t return home to that small-town life—it would be unthinkable.

When she had enrolled at the Iowa campus, she lifted herself out of the bleak life she had been born into. Her mother held a tight purse on the money. At her father’s insistence, her mother had begrudgingly allowed Clair funds for one year of college education and then commanded, After that, you will return home to work and contribute to the family’s finances.

Desperate, with no money or family support, Clair boarded a bus and headed for Chicago. At Sally’s recommendation, she found the old Chicago mansion on Lake Shore Drive, now a women’s club, and checked in. The single room was her new home in the bustling city. This was Clair’s first excursion out of the rolling Iowa farmlands.

The next step was to find employment. She scanned the want ads of the Chicago Tribune and found a position with a company that sold newspapers, magazines, and cigarettes in the lobby shops of elegant hotels. Customers she met were the wealthy and socially elite—and Clair loved meeting people. For the next year, her career progressed, but her work responsibilities left her with little time for trysts with Ryan, who was stationed at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri.

She lived for his weekly love letters. The few weekends Clair and Ryan spent together were romantic and intensely loving as always. There were no luxurious hotel rooms—only those available in the decrepit but clean housing units outside the army base. A sparse bedroom with a quaint chamber pot in the corner was their idyllic love nest. But the drab surroundings were not even noticed. They spent every moment there, with the exception of the interruptions for food forays out to Joe’s Diner, the only restaurant in the area.

Ryan’s parting words were, I will miss you so much. You are the center of my world; you make this life tolerable. As she left him, she brushed away her tears, boarded the train to Chicago, and joined the other girls who sobbed as they waved good-bye to their sweethearts.

Two weeks after one of these visits, Julie, a friend from Clair’s hometown, called. Hi, Clair, I’m in town for the day. Let’s get together for a pitcher of sangrias and gossip. They met at La Margarita and settled in for a pleasant luncheon as Julie made sure that Clair was caught up on the local gossip. Then Julie inadvertently mentioned, Oh, by the way, did you know that Polly Senter has spent several weekends with Ryan at Ft. Leonard Wood?

Clair was in shock. She finished her drink but no longer had an appetite for the taco the waiter brought. An empty, desolate feeling tore at her heart. Clair