August 2026 Bookclub News

 

 

Henri Bendel's

Dear Bookclub,

Our 'summer night out' melted into a 'summer night in' as our little group relaxed into an air conditioned booth at the Veranda eschewing the horrible heat outside. Reminiscing about our early department store experiences, we could not reach back far enough to touch the "Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion" the aptly subtitled description of Julie Satow's "When Women Ran Fifth Avenue". From Karen's Northwest view, to Martha's L.A. and NYC memories, Julie's Chicago stores and my Pittsburgh Kaufmann's, the variety of tales mimicked the variety and depth offered by department stores; a trait hard to find now in the world of homogenized shopping and online accessibility. Our coming of age was defined by shopping malls, a world evolved from the creative, competitive fashionable Fifth Avenue. 

We enjoyed Satow's accounts of Hortense Odlum, Dorothy Shaver and Geraldine Stutz. The stories of their successes and obstacles, typical of the times, gave us an appreciation for how far women have come in business and life.  Hortense sadly reflected that her experience was not one of her choosing and she felt the failure of her marriage showed that you could have career or family but not both. Perhaps her Floyd was just not a great guy.

Demolition of Bonwit Teller’s flagship store, 1980. One of the two Rene Paul Chambellan Dancing Lady bas-reliefs.

 

Speaking of not great guys, the construction of the Trump Tower in the early 1980's on the site of the Stewart and Company/Bonwit Teller building involved shady destruction of beautiful art deco pieces on the building, promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Donald Trump decided the proper removal of the pieces was too costly and demolished them to the shock of those who valued the art. Please read more about the building's history and enjoy the pictures and stories of Bonwit Teller:

https://drivingfordeco.com/stewart-and-company/ 

 

As a child, my sister and I loved to sit on a blue, silk brocade living room sofa and pore over two huge volumes of New Yorker cartoon anthologies. There are newer ones today but these were published eons ago. One of our favorites:

 

 

The phrase, "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it",  originated in my mind as the caption of a cartoon published in The New Yorker on December 8, 1928, drawn by Carl Rose and captioned by E.B.White. Lost on us at the time was that this was a play on the American idiom implying "rubbish" or "nonsense".

 

Satow's chapter, 'Fashion is Spinach', telling of the  Parisian copy houses, brought a whole new light to this gag cartoon. I found it fascinating that smuggling, covert sketching, and outright stealing were par for the course. Elizabeth Hawes memoir "Fashion is Spinach: How to Beat the Fashion Racket" revealed her passion for revamping the industry. Please enjoy more on the cartoon and phrase, followed by a link to learn more about Hawes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_say_it%27s_spinach 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hawes 

 

Our little group decided to put two new selections onto the calendar since several months have passed without recommendations. Selected:

October "Calamity Club" Kathryn Stockett

November "Theo of Golden" Allen Levi

Up next: 

Happy reading,

LK