1. |
Act 1
05:00
|
|||
And even tho you’re young enough to have a good memory
Doesn’t work that way
Yeah but anyway
No I mean when I was babbling away
I know that you know you’re trying to do this project
I quite honestly don’t think my story kind of merits
You know what I’m saying
I mean you’ll have to do a whole lot of embellishing or something
Because I this what what you probably have a completely
Different peg that you’re hanging things on
So you can direct your you know what I’m saying
I mean I didn’t have to cross any mountains to get into the States
My story would be multiplied by millions probably you know it’s this
Why I say it’s your own creation which you can
If this gives you a starting off point
So be it
Initially so um
I was sort of living in you know we were kind of a bedsit situation and um
I found there was nobody kind of around during the daytime
So my only cousin just a I’ve forgotten what degree of cousin
My father’s first cousin was a gentleman who lived in New York in New Jersey
So he had a connection to somebody who ran an employment agency
And set me up to meet her and so on
So she sent me on an interview to this textile company
That were looking for somebody in their weaving department
You know they asked did I know how to weave
Well having been through home economics we had had one project for weaving
So I said yes
But it didn’t matter because in the ‘50s large companies really trained their employees
To whatever they wanted
So you know I blended
You know I was asked if I would get along with people
You know or words to that effect
I’d never been asked that question before
So I said yes yeah I mean meekly I would’ve agreed
Are you an axe murderer
Possibly but
Then they started me off in that department
And what they would do is make small samples on a
You know a handloom nothing like a large industrial type
Uh to show customers what their design would look like
Garment manufacturers
The buyers would come in and look at our designs
Cos we had a book of possibilities
And they might want their own variation on one of them
Or they might have brought in something entirely different that they wanted to interpret
We had color books showing all the available colors
All the whites browns blues you know et cetera et cetera
They’d say well I like this but I need it closer to what I have here
So that’s where our mills down south
You know they could adapt our stuff to continue matching
And when I um eventually was moved in that department
Into the design area
Well again it was a beginning step
You know you were mentored throughout
|
||||
2. |
Act 2
03:48
|
|||
I wasn’t even looking for a career
The career happened
And then I obviously found myself dealing with some of the
I mean it was Mad Men time
Eh so you eh you were dealing with a huge amount of sexism and whatnot
Ehm on this but because of my background
I was able to deal with it in my way
Now it wasn’t necessarily the right way
But I would say my line was I was brought up in a convent
You know I’d stonewall
You know I played the convent card til it was threadbare ha
And then I played the I am married card until it was threadbare
And I remember once in a place down south
Eh they brought us to a disco or something
I remember somebody dancing with me
And asking to escort me to my room
And I said I’m married
So am I what difference does it make
So I mean you’re dealing with a raft of this
But fortunately I you know feet on the ground kind of person
And I was able to deal with it from my point of view
But it wasn’t probably
Now I could never understand
How some of the girls in my department
Would complain to me about so and so
Cos we had some of the worst male chauvinist you know
In the sales force and management to some extent
And couldn’t understand how they weren’t able
To put these people down
But some people evidently they would get offended
To the point of tears and evidently didn’t know how to stop it you know
So they would in latter years complain to management
Have somebody up on the carpet about it
But it hadn’t come to that really in my era
But you know I’m delighted that women don’t have to deal with that now but
I dealt with it and didn’t come up badly out of it
I think the fact that I was uh um a woman from an unknown culture if you will
From a different culture
And I was treated with a lot of kid gloves you know what I mean
And I think it
A lot has to do with the person themselves
As to who would try what on
I remember once in a meeting a guy would’ve been senior to me
Made some kind of personal remark
And I said knock it off Chuck or I’ll start on you and he knocked it off
And that would’ve been with me that kind of um behavior
Would’ve only been a learning curve
Cos I came up out here yes sir no sir haha should I jump sir
|
||||
3. |
Act 3
04:47
|
|||
But eventually I would have to get on an aircraft
Fly south look at all these designs and colors
Uh to see how well they matched under different
We had a light box there which showed daylight
It’s ah fluorescent you all different possibilities of lighting
So you’d have to make your best judgment
As to the closest one for the customer
Yeah so uh you I’d fly back and show it to the customer
And they’d either say yes or no and then you’d get on the phone and say
He wants it a little greyer or a little blue-er or a little redder
Or whatever you know
So it was required a good and a and an understanding
Of what the customer is getting at
Initially when I was with the company for the first few years
We were in a ehm what I would call a shirting and dress
Lightweight cotton blends type business
You know and we’d make what they call plaids and checks and so on and so forth
It wasn’t florals or prints or anything like that
That was because Burlington was such a diversified company
They had different divisions for all of these other aspects of textiles
When a number of years had passed
Ehm because of market conditions
This division was merged into another division
They had a more diversified range so I had to learn you know
They had to teach what you call piece-dye
Which would be plain dyes just a range of colors on different fabrics
They would’ve had a print division as well
Eh but the one I was in because of my background see don’t forget I went into
This without a formal college degree in textiles
I was just there hoping to get you know say a year or two out of this particular thing
I wasn’t looking for a career
But in the latter part of my um years with the initial company
They sent me to FIT for and I went to night school
So I did some study on the more technical aspects but
This new division I went into had different requirements also
I really just fit into the niche they had for me
And ehm it was still classified as design that kind of thing
So ehm then I’ve forgotten quite the sequence of years
With that particular oh I know before I went to that other
The piece-dye division
Ehm we had merged with the denim division
Because they just ehm you know they were cotton oriented
See our mix would be cotton blends and eh they would’ve been
Levi would’ve been and HD Lee would’ve been customers of ours for certain things
Shirtings and you know all different things
So when ehm we merged with the denim division
They were you know bigger customers of ours
|
||||
4. |
Act 4
05:41
|
|||
Once a month they’d have a fashion show
In the Hilton or one of these hotels and so on
So all the industry people came up
And I remember laughing um well I didn’t but I wanted to
One of the women who was addressing this
Eh you know after-lunch crowd said
And we have who have dedicated our lives to fashion
I mean I mean if I have felt I felt a curse coming up
If that’s all you had to say for yourself
We who have dedicated our lives to fashion
I’ve dedicated my life to earning a salary from fashion
And some of them knew the women who went onto be
Magazine editors and that kind of thing
Truly those women did devote their entire being
They became the persona who represented that
Thing at you see I couldn’t make the jump because I’d been brought up here sensibly
With feet on the ground so you know there was no way
I mean you couldn’t ask me to pledge allegiance to something else
Thank you very much
I actually saw Helen Gurley Brown on the street once
Talk about she was the woman who started Cosmopolitan
And she was always preaching to women to
Well her idea was that we had to be more womanly by catering to the men
Anyway but I saw her on the street and she looked like a skeleton
These women the tradition is they didn’t eat they’d eat a leaf of lettuce for lunch
No woman can be too rich or too thin
You know it’s amazing how gullible people in the fashion world are
If somebody preaches the gospel kind of with
Conviction so many people will buy it well people want to be told
And they want to be told with authority
But of course there also has to be a certain amount of solid base because
People will find you out eventually
If there isn’t but I mean you can get by with an awful lot of you know
Hogwash too
|
||||
5. |
Act 5
02:38
|
|||
So then Levi and HD Lee would’ve been the two biggest
And so we spent a lot of time working
You know I’d be flown out to see their
Or they would come to New York to
Seasonally to see the new range and so on and so forth
They were San Francisco and HD Lee would be Kansas City
Depending on the time of year there’s the
Because it was a seasonal
There’s a spring collection you know an autumn collection
Whatever it is you call them
The fashion business is cyclical you know
And some of them do more ranges for certain seasons the month
But we our design department worked a year ahead on developing color ranges
Yeah so that’s why they would send us to Europe to see what was happening
You know if you it was my career just happened
Because if you know if I’d had a family I’d have been at home rearing my children
Or maybe dipping a toe in the water as a part-time whatever
But I was there longer than most people would be
And with each time we merged with somebody
Fingers crossed you know I was picked up you know in the next wave
|
||||
6. |
Act 6
03:31
|
|||
We had a fashion lady over there Nicole
She had been countess before they abolished titles in France
But I mean you know things got slightly more ordinary as time went on
You know as margins narrowed
Sometimes I traveled with ehm she was a designer for H.D. Lee
Cathy and um we had good we had good trips you know because
You know obviously if you’ve got somebody you can share your perspective of
And so on and so forth and wind up the boss between us
Very naughty
But then when times got tough then I was sent by myself
And that became seriously hard work because you were you know
We were supposed to buy samples and everything
So here you were managing big luggage
You know I mean it wasn’t it wasn’t the fun part
No the early years I mean I paid in spades for any enjoyment
I squeezed out of the early trips
You know we stayed at five-star hotels
I mean I would never have
The Hassler in Rome you know
And the Via Veneto you know we had ah you know
We were living
Thank you thank you thank you
I had experience of things that never would have come my way
You know um well I remember staying at the one at the Via Veneto oh
Having your breakfast brought with a rose on the tray
And when you step out on, the
Of bed, ’twas on a white linen runner so it wouldn’t be
Cos I mean the carpet could be centuries old you know
Who knows
It it I mean what I’d have never found out about it
Had it not been
|
||||
7. |
Act 7
03:10
|
|||
So I mean you might be back and forth
Five or six times in a season
Yeah my poor husband was abandoned
And that’s why I went we retired
I had such a guilt thing built up
That I was you know here to cater
You know so I didn’t join the golf club until he was gone
You know that kind of thing
You know because I felt I had so much to make up for
If we had children it’d be different
You know we probably would’ve stayed in the States
But ehm in our case there was more of a draw
Family reasons to come back here
So ehm but it was the right decision certainly for me
You know cos I found my roots which I never knew about
Yeah I found and I play there’s a golf and gardening and yoga
And all these things that I never had time for in my other life
Well see this is me wherever you put me down
I did what was required of me
Whether I did the job or I did anything else
You know when you leave a life
One portion of your
You know I’ve lived three segments of a life
My life here growing up
Life there as a married working woman
And I’ve the retirement segment here
And I thought I’d lose a grip on everything
If I didn’t bring some material mm proof of what I’d done
I’m serious it was I it seemed like a dream
Yeah because everything here
Your present life always takes over
|
Streaming and Download help
Cal Folger Day recommends:
If you like Cal Folger Day, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp