The Mad Three Weeks

Into New York's Kennedy International Airport last week flew a precious cargo--the new fall and winter styles from Paris. There to receive them were the representatives of the two New York department stores that market high-quality but inexpensive copies of European couture fashions. The arrival marked the start of one of the most hectic competitions in all of American retailing--the race to get bulging cartons of Givenchys, Cardins, St. Laurents, Diors and Balenciagas unpacked and into the hands of cutters and tailors for public showings only three weeks away.

Invitations were already out from the rival stores, Alexander's and Ohrbach's, not only for big press showings of originals and their duplicates in mid-September, but also to such big names as the Duchess of Windsor and Mrs. Nel son Rockefeller, who would help attract a glittering crowd to public displays a week later. Though the original dresses had sold in Paris for between $700 and $5,000, Ohrbach's and Alexander's copies, made from the same French fabrics and virtually impossible to tell from the originals, would sell for $100 to $800. Neither store makes any profit, what with total costs for buying, producing and promoting a collection running up to $350,000. Says Alexander's Fashion Director Lorrie Eyerly: "The price is not only below the cost of the original, but below our cost of making it."

Mouth-Watering & Delicious. The two firms are happy to make these semiannual sacrifices because no product on earth can give more tone and prestige to department stores that usually boast of their low-price bargains. A few expensive shops in half a dozen U.S. cities sell a tiny number of custom-fitted Paris interpretations at extremely high prices; cheaper concerns turn out low-cost copies in nonoriginal fabrics. Ohrbach's and Alexander's win their acclaim by making large numbers of line-for-line copies in the original fabric at a price not entirely out of reach.

The arrival of this year's collection followed the usual giddy ten-day whirl from fashion house to fashion house in Paris in late July and early August. From headquarters at the swanky Hotel Georges V, Alexander's buying delegation stepped out each morning for buying appointments at 7:30, then rushed to catch the shows, and often worked late into the night studying color samples. There is an elaborate air of secrecy surrounding the whole thing. Ohrbach's buyers, for example, made a point of staying at the less conspicuous Elysee-Parc Hotel, because few, if any, other buyers were staying there. At the shows, each team was furnished long lists of dresses, skirts and jackets to be modeled, ticking off items that they especially liked. "I always marked lots more than I really wanted," said Ohrbach's Fashion Director Irene Satz, "just in case someone was looking over my shoulder."

This year Ohrbach's was especially enamored of Yves St. Laurent's No. 82, a black gabardine suit that shows the current new softer lines, with a short, gently flared skirt, and a jacket that features a clerical collar and a row of gold buttons. The model wore an accompanying stole thrown back over one shoulder, and a black velvet beret. St. Laurent charged Ohrbach's $1,800--perhaps twice what a single noncommercial customer would pay for one of the dozen or so other models of the same suit made by the designer. At Dior, Ohrbach's picked half a dozen choice--and expensive--items, including a loosely shaped $1,400 black velvet cocktail dress featuring a large black satin bow, with puffs of black lace as collar and cuffs. Last week both looked like sure winners among the 40 dresses, suits and coats that Ohrbach's brought back from Paris.

Among Alexander's similarly sized harvest, the buyers are especially proud of a St. Laurent daytime dress of cream-beige crepe with a subdued use of beads. It is, says one, "the Ford of our collection"--something everyone will want. Also interesting: a Patou white worsted dress that is close to the body, with a flared skirt and four rows of horizontal stitching; it is considered the best trend indicator. "It's the princess line all over again," says a buyer. Like Ohrbach's, Alexander's was active in the Italian mar ket too. It will display a stunning brown wool trench coat by Heinz Riva with an oversize paper-clip belt ("Everything is belted this year--the belts go any place from right under the bosom to down over the hips").

Once bought, the clothes are rushed off to New York. On arrival, the cartons are rushed to a select group of Seventh Avenue manufacturers who do the copying job for Ohrbach's and Alexander's on special consignment. The appropriate European clothmaker, contacted in Paris, has already sent along precisely the same fabric that went into the original. But sometimes the search for just the right button or strap can take days. When copying time comes, the originals are never taken apart.

Rather, the Seventh Avenue tailors study them inch by inch for hours, finally produce the piece patterns, and put them all together on the basis of minute calculations.

Then come the press shows and the public showings, with society and show business well represented. At Alexander's, half the third floor of the new store at 58th Street and Lexington Avenue will be roped off and a U-shaped runway erected. Two models will promenade at the same time, one wearing the original, the other the copy.

Though dress and skirt lengths are any woman's guess this year, there are definite trends, not only to belts, but in the attention paid to the waist, and in the overall softness of fit, particularly in skirts. Says Alexander's Lorrie Eyerly: "This year's styles are soft but still architectural. Instead of boxy little shapes a la Courreges, the skirts are flared. Suits and the waist are really back. And we see the princess silhouette as the most important line coming out of Paris."

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