Shop Talk

The garden behind the decorators moon is Jessie Leach Rector’s "junk shop" at 220 East Forty-first street. (The inglorious and entirely unearned epithet is hers). It’s a ramshackle house loaded with old lamps, and irons and mirrors, prints and chairs, odds and ends Nine years ago Mrs. Rector was making boxes. They were lovely, handmade affairs, eventually killed by modern commercial imitations. So she began organizing a source of supplies for the town’s best decorators. The plot is that she takes old hideous and picturesque objects and adds a modern touch which brings out their innate beauty or humor, as the case may be. She’s a magician with mirror and glass, using them decoratively in new ways. If you’ve ever struggled with the lampshade problem she is an answer to your prayers. Her’s are dreams. Made to be unobstrusively handsome, some by day with their pattern coming to life when the lights are lit. Although Mrs. Rector’s business is largely wholesale, she’ll sell to householders and if you can lure her into explaining her ideas to you, you’ll have a thoroughly grand half hour.

Peck & Peck has done it again! Not only have they smart clothes but they give them a classic unusual quality that is guaranteed to keep you fresh as a daisy all day long. Their latest brain wave is the Habardasher Dress. Something pretty British and sporty about them made as they are in lush colors, in Vinca crepe and treated with the new Acqua-Sec process which make them waterpot proof and immune to perspiration. The cut is mannish and tailored magnificently, and the general appearance of them will defeat the stormiest weather mood.

Because it values the enviable position it enjoys in the play-life of those who cherish a taste for good living and can indulge it, the Colony Surf Club at West End, N. J., continues to roll up a score of new attractions that grows higher each year. There is probably very little we can tell you about it, but perhaps you haven’t been there this year yet, and so we’ll rave a bit. To us the club has always seemed like a breezy isle of romance in an everyday world and one of the few places where every summer sport can be enjoyed to the fullest measure. This year the inimitable Abe Lyman and his twenty-two-piece orchestra sets the mood, and it is a gay, carefree one. We won’t attempt to list all the attractions but they include a submarine lighted pool, supervised children’s play, archery, tennis and a wide white expanse of private beach dotted with brilliantly colored cabanas, comfortably furnished. Although it is only se###ty minutes away from New York, you’ll find it the summer playground for the city’s smart set.

Cammeyer’s shop at 427 Fifth avenue is so impressive that it used to frighten us. That is until we found the ponies! If you are up on your shoes you’ll know that they’re the rounder toed younger $10.75 and $12.75 shoes that this house is featuring. They started out to be for debutantes and boarding school babes, but there are plenty of matrons in this town with noses for bargains where style and quality are included and you can’t keep them out of the Pony department.