Can I Help You, Madam? The Autobiography of fashion buyer, Ethyle Campbell

Ethyle Campbell

• Publisher: V&A Publishing
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781851779352
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Fashion Design

The working life of a women in retail in the 1930s was tough, but not beyond the no-nonsense Ethyle Campbell. First published in 1938 and quite unlike any other book about the rag trade in the '30s, this semi-autobiographical account of Campbell's time as a fashion buyer for a London department store rings with her slangy informative banter as she plies her trade, often hilariously, between the shop floor, the couture houses of Paris and factories of New York. The realities of the retail trade are interspersed with extraordinary vignettes, including a shoplifter with capacious bloomers stuffed with pilfered undies, and wealthy but unwashed society elite sporting filthy corsets and smelling so much that staff refused to serve them. Fed up with customers returning worn frocks as unsuitable and never forgetting that the customer is always the enemy, a determined Campbell splashes water over the dress of one notorious culprit in the wash room at the Savoy.This book is part of the V&A Fashion Perspectives Series. Selected by V&A publishing in consultation with our world-leading fashion curators, the Fashion Perspectives series offers an access all areas pass to the glamorous world of fashion. Models, magazine editors and the designers themselves take readers behind the scenes at the likes of Balenciaga, Balmain, Chanel, Dior, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue in the golden age of couture.

CHAPTER XVII

SHE’S ONLY A SHOP GIRL

Since marquises became milliners, countesses became corsetières, and the pawnbrokers noticed a glut of grand-ducal jewellery, it has ceased to be fashionable to say “shop girl” as though someone had just brought in a bad smell.

Have you got that horrible she’s-only-a-shop girl attitude towards life? I hope not, for you won’t like this chapter if you have.

“You ought to have more sense than to recommend a lady to wear a thing like that,” I heard a woman once say to one of my sales staff who was trying to be very helpful.

“I have,” was the icily cutting reply.

“I suppose you’re one of these shop girls who calls herself a lady,” continued the woman, who had herself entered the nobility through the chorus.

“A lady, yes,” the assistant replied, “not just titled.”

The aggressor retired in disorder.

There is a small but noisy and unpleasant group of people still left in the world which believes that sales girls—to them “shop girls”—are devoid of the finer sensibilities, have no pride, and that towards them no courtesy need be shown. Happily the number of people in this category grows smaller with each year that passes.

It is very hard to deal adequately with people who really believe that the gulf between one side of a sales counter and the other is so vast as to make its passage a social impossibility. They are usually bigoted, ignorant people themselves, and as such quite indifferent to changing conditions. Naturally the sales girls to whom they are so rude resent it bitterly, but it is to themselves that the irreparable harm is done.

I have had a great deal of personal experience with all types of girls earning their livings in the dress trades. As a result I would say that they represent a good cross-section of the community as a whole, with rather a larger leaven than usual of go-ahead young womanhood. To suggest that there is a stigma attaching to the occupation is to go back to the days when it was not considered respectable to live north of the Park.

If I were to generalise on the subject, I should say that the bulk of the girls who have passed through my hands have a considerably better social origin, higher intellectual attainments, infinitely more charm and cheerful willingness than most of the rather colourless and drab young women who look down their noses at them from the insecure pinnacle of a typewriter desk. Beyond argument it is the shop girl who gets a great deal more out of life, particularly if her charm takes the form of selling ability. The shop girl definitely has a career in front of her, while the office-girl has more often than not only a soured, embittered, and unrecognised old age to look forward to, unless escape be found in marriage.

It is amazing how some of the rougher types of girls respond to the essentially soft and feminine atmosphere of the rag trade. The improvement is first manifested by a dissatisfaction with sordid things, which in a strong character soon becomes a determination to be finished with them.

In a store such as the one in which I worked, the only opening available for the uneducated girl was that of “matcher”, a dreary occupation involving many miles of walking in all weathers. I well remember the struggles of one such girl to improve herself. Her speech was the greatest obstacle, but that she overcame. She took a lively interest in everything going on around her, and in less than a year was off as junior saleswoman at some rather less exclusive establishment. She no longer drops her aitches, and now earns three times what she could have earned had she been pounding a typewriter.

Most of my girls came from excellent middle-class homes, and were daughters of professional and business men of standing. A very few sprang from the upper classes, and for various reasons—usually financial—were compelled to earn their livings, and had no training for the purpose. The smallest number was that fortunate class which worked to earn “pin money”, and welcomed the activity of shop life by contrast with genteel poverty. I had no use for those of this last class who were playing at earning a living; they soon went, for there is no room in the rag trade for dilettantes.

Almost never did friction occur between customers and sales staff. Usually the sales girls were too well bred to start brawling with ill-mannered customers, and if the customers were well-bred people—and most of them were—friction simply did not occur. Almost invariably unpleasantness was caused by the class of women who believe in the divine right of the cheque-book, demanding in return for their trade a degree of servility which no self-respecting business house expects its employees to adopt. Certainly mine did not, and I was never reprimanded for standing up for one of my staff who became embroiled with a trouble-maker— always provided that my girl was in the right and did not behave unreasonably.

It would be idle to deny that some of the sales girls forsake the strait and narrow path of life occasionally. So do duchesses, prima donnas, efficient secretaries, masseuses, and the wives of umbrella menders. From which you may deduce anything you like, but to me it proves nothing. I have my fair share of knowledge of just how life is lived in the West End of London, and I say without the least hesitation that the sales girls in the rag trade, judged by any standard—looks, breeding, education, intelligence, tact, charm, and morals—will stand comparison with any other group which can be found. I go further, and say that the vast majority acquire behind the counters in the dress business a poise, a sympathetic understanding, and a character training which are hard to equal anywhere else.

A first-class saleswoman must learn to be superior without asserting superiority; to suffer fools and bores gladly; to be kindly tolerant of petty vanities; to be polite and smiling when feeling like death; to gauge to a nicety when to offer an opinion and when to withhold it; and above all to bear the brunt of the irritation of customers who, out of sorts with the world, vent their spleen on the nearest inoffensive object they can find.

(On reading the above paragraph I consider that it is an excellent definition of that grossly overworked term—a lady.)

When a girl so conforms, and into the bargain can put her own personality into her selling, she is entitled to call herself a good saleswoman. The same qualities in other spheres of life would make her a good nurse, a good hostess, a good wife, and a good mother. Fortunately, these things are abundantly recognised by the majority of people who, as a matter of course, treat sales girls like human beings.

I am told that in the good old Edwardian days the young men about town were prone to wine and dine attractive “shop girls,” and would wander through West End shops until they found one who took their eye. Those days are over. In the first place they are mostly very highly marriageable, and are soon snapped up by their own circle of friends. There are, of course, still a few Champagne Charlies knocking about the West End, but most of them should be in bath chairs, and have learned from experience that the sales girls are definitely not interested in them.

There is only one woman in London for whom I feel any sympathy when she is rude—as she invariably is—to sales girls. Here is a very sad story. It goes back to 1897, the year of the Jubilee.

Lady Charlotte was the belle of the season’s débutantes. Her father, an earl, did things in very handsome style for her. With wealth, position and beauty, few doors were closed to her. In the following year she became engaged to one of London’s most eligible bachelors, and the match made many mothers turn green with envy.

As was the custom of the time, I believe, Lady Charlotte was accompanied by her fiancé when buying part at least of her trousseau. She was served by a strikingly beautiful girl—so beautiful, indeed, that she remarked on it to her family. The fiancé also noticed the girl’s beauty, and when the purchases were made he slipped back later in the day for the purpose of talking to her. Flattered by the attentions of a young nobleman, and doubtless intrigued by the circumstances, she agreed to sup with him that night in a discreet restaurant with private dining-rooms. For the next few weeks they saw each other constantly, but without arousing the suspicions of Lady Charlotte, who remained in blissful ignorance of the whole affaire.

On the evening before the marriage was to have taken place, unable to keep the matter to himself any longer, this young sprig of the nobility jilted his fiancée. The next day by special licence he married the sales girl. Contrary to probabilities, the match has proved a very happy one, and its fruits will one day sit in the House of Lords.

Lady Charlotte was broken-hearted. Something seems to have snapped inside her brain. Ever since then—and she is a frail old woman now—she has nursed her grievance, becoming intensely bitter and constantly thinking of the tragedy which marred her youth. She has never married. To-day her obsession takes the form of a hatred of sales girls, who remind her of the tragic circumstances in which her life was uprooted.

I heard the story after a sales girl had come to me in tears at the rude and unreasonable way in which she had been treated. A woman who was a débutante in the same year told me. After that I saw to it that she should be treated with as much courtesy and kindness as possible. But it was no good. The iron had entered too deeply into her soul. She is now bedridden and no longer sees her bêtes noires as in the days when she went shopping. Perhaps she is less bitter and resentful now—anyway, I hope so.

Most of my experiences with my sales girls were of the happiest nature. They had their little peculiarities, naturally, and, being unable to blow off steam in front of customers, sometimes used me as a safety-valve. Their loyalties had to be understood. In any matter which involved me with the firm they would always back me up, just as they expected my moral support against any interference from outside the department. Among themselves they had a very strict code of honour, and would always unite against me in a matter involving one of their number.

To me, although I was much about their age, my sales girls were just like a lot of naughty schoolchildren. When my back was turned they would telephone their boyfriends, although private telephone calls were strictly tabu. When I was out of the department, I am sure, one of them kept cave while the others did their phoning and planned their evenings.

Sales girls have been called tough. They need to be, for Fashion is a hard taskmistress. Does she seem hard to you?

I hope so, for I am trying hard to paint her in her true colours. She “rode” me unmercifully for eight years, and I know her for what she is: a tough old battle-axe. She chews nails and spits rust; she has bristles growing down her backbone; she drives buyers into lunatic asylums just for the fun of the thing; keeps tired sales girls on their toes, and makes strong men weep hot tears. But there’s something grand and glamorous about her—she “gets” you.

I’m out of her clutches now, so I can say what I like. Small wonder that buyers and shop girls become case-hardened. Take one small liberty with Fashion and she will jump on you with hobnailed boots. Be a moment late with her and you find yourself a season behind. Try to anticipate her dictates and she will turn round and bite you—where it does most good.

Fashion demands from her slaves unquestioning obedience. Even then the old cat does not keep faith with them always. Follow her orders too literally and implicitly and she will slap your face and tell you that you should have used your intelligence. She’s really got us, and she knows it.

The bane of any buyer’s and sales girl’s existence is special orders. A woman comes in to buy a suit, finds the cut and style she likes but not the colour. It is the job of the sales girl who serves to see the transaction through to the bitter end. The customer likes the suit, perhaps, but wants the belt omitted. I always found that, on orders involving a departure from routine, the best sales girls were the least efficient. It was due, I suppose, to the fact that the sales mentality cannot be bothered with detail. The really good saleswoman draws a line in her mind when she has sold a garment, forgetting sometimes the importance of seeing that the garment is delivered exactly as the customer requires it. The customer who gets a green suit when she ordered a blue one is liable to raise a rumpus which falls on the buyer.

Furthermore, too many special orders prove the buying to have been bad, and that the buyer was unable to forecast accurately the public’s preferences.

Paradoxical though it may sound, it was always the best saleswomen who caused the most trouble. They were the ones who, thinking in terms of volume and their own commissions, got us into the most difficulties. The more careful sales girl, perhaps not so brilliant, took the trouble to get her details right, remembered all her instructions, and saw to it that the wholesaler carried them out. The hare and the tortoise again.

I suppose if it were not for some of the variegated specimens of humanity I came across in the rag trade life would have been a very dull affair indeed. As it was, I could never complain of dullness. One problem alone ensured that the buyer was always on the alert: she had to be. That problem may be summarised in one simple word: sanctions.

“Have you an account, madam?” How often have you yourself been asked that question?

“No! But I’d like to open one.”

“That can quite easily be arranged,” says the sales ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• I. Keeping the Wholesalers at Bay
• II. The Paris Dress Shows
• III. Fashion is a Treadmill
• IV. The Ascot Parade
• V. Are Sales Really Genuine?
• VI. Why is a Klepto-Maniac?
• VII. Clean Stocks
• VIII. What a Man Thinks
• IX. Are Your Corsets Spotless?
• X. “It’s Not My Department, Madam”
• XI. Fifth Avenoo
• XII. Tough American Wholesalers
• XIII. The Approval Racket
• XIV. Service
• XV. Peculiar People
• XVI. More Peculiar People
• XVII. She’s Only a Shop girl
• XVIII. These Were My Customers
• XIX. Remember the Ermine
• XX. Can I Help You, Madam?