When I interviewed for my first buying job with Mickey Drexler, who was then MVP for Ready to Wear at Abraham and Straus (now part of Federated Dept Stores), we had a very interesting merchandising conversation that has been implanted in my brain ever since. Mickey asked me why I was wearing the outfit I had chosen for that day, a Kenzo tunic and Frye boots. He liked the unexpected combination. And then he told me how that morning, while he waited with his son at the bus stop, he was struck by the image of a child wearing a bright yellow slicker, hat and rubber boots. He loved how the color stood out on that grey, rainy day. Mickey hired me for my first retail buying job and gave me the liberty to use my instincts to put together items I found in the market that would motivate the customer to want to buy. Thus began my primary lesson in the impact of color and item merchandising.
Mickey moved on; we all know how far he went changing the merchandising landscape at Ann Taylor, The Gap, and J Crew. I, too, went on to Macy’s (not Federated at the time) and eventually began my Lingerie journey. I have had many opportunities to venture back into the Ready to Wear field, but have stayed here in the world of Intimate Apparel because, as a woman, I can find no other venue more appealing to my feminine instincts than the fabric and drape of lingerie. Like a box of luxury chocolates or a gift of perfumed flowers, lingerie is a gift for a woman to receive or to give to herself.
Lingerie is the poetry in a woman’s wardrobe.
