Shop Talk

There are a few compensations for the end of the summer. One is that your faithful shop-hound doesn’t go around with a chip on her brawny shoulders because of the heat. And another is that little excited feeling that New Things are happening in town. The same feeling you had when you got back to your school desk in the autumn and saw the brand new books piled up, all fresh and shiny and full of mystery. In this case it’s the shiny departments in all of the shops that get your correspondent all aquiver. And the city’s full of them—luring you in to snoop and spend as surely as glittering flies lure the trout.

Those that like to knit can, but why anybody wants to is one of those things that I’m getting premature wrinkles about. Knitting is one of those many things, like flying and emptying ash-cans, that I would rather leave to others better equipped, and in the case of knitting there seems to be nobody better qualified than the Famous Fain people on East Forty-second street. These gluttons for knitting and knit-wear have machines that are almost human, or maybe considerably super-human, for they never make a mistake. They are designers in their own right too, and if you are finicky about the way your knitted clothes fit, they’ll take you right up to their Special Order Department where you can plan your outfit. You want it to be a little different, a little frillier or plainer, You want the sleeves longer or the neck higher. You can’t explain what you want done, but then you don’t have to. Fain’s are positively clairvoyant. They get the idea, take your exact measurements and make the garment materialize. I like this. I think women should fuss more about dressing to type. Snatching things off racks is all very well, but if you do it long enough you begin to look vaguely like a clothes rack yourself. There is no extra charge for this made-to-order, individual service.

Despite Mussolini’s disparaging attitude towards anything but corpulent womanhood; despite letters from young men to "city editors" wishing their girls would stop dieting and start improving their dispositions—despite all this anti-thinning propaganda on the part of the male, ladies of all ages and sizes go right on reducing. Quite an interesting psychology considering the theory that we women live to please our men. Kleinert’s however, facing facts, has two apt little garments that reduce your hips while you go right on living your own life, playing tennis or golf, riding or even swimming. One without garters (for sock wearers) is a joy and costs about $5. The other thigh-restraining girdle is made especially for the tall figure. It is sixteen inches long and costs about $8. At Macy’s.