HUMAN SPIDER ENTICES CH’CH WIVES INTO WEB

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17865, 5 June 1926, Page 17 (Supplement)

HUMAN SPIDER ENTICES CH’CH WIVES INTO WEB

Gets high Pay for decorating Windows and extracting the “ Sliddery RaV’

(Written for the “Star” by

Berta Wisely

SEE this ordinary looking little man, with his pinched, lined face and close-cut grey hair? Peep into his paybook and tell men what you think his occupation is from the figures you see. Accountant? Librarian? Traffic Inspector? Wrong every time; he is only a window dresser for a large firm of drapers in the city. There’s nothing the slightest bit extraordinary in that, but neither is there in anything else until you come to think about it. The figures you saw cm that pay-sheet thrilled you, didn’t they? How do you reconcile the two? All he does is simply dress the glass show windows for his firm, drape dainty frocks about the waxen figures, place shoes and parasols in becoming positions and retire, leaving the public to do the rest. Yet when you think of it he is really an artist of the front rank. His is the -cleverness which transforms that bare, cold' square into a place aglow with charm, alive with beauty: alive, J thrilling and satisfying, and by its life it touches the eye, the heart and then the purse. Herein lies the justification for that big salary.' His firm buy his body, his brain, nay, his very soul, to enhance their reputation and turnover. The onus is on him to draw as a magnet the best clientele and to uphold his lirm as one of the most select in the city. His brain must continually evolve new delights of style and colour, new arrangements and transformations of the same old window, and thus successfully extract the “ sliddery ba’ ” from a groaning purse. A pickpocket in very truth, but with the owner’s consent. “Pooh! ” someone says, “it’s very easy and simple when you have the. choice of a whole shop, and don’t have to consider price.” But is it? Thousands of people have the same advantage, the choice of the whole shop with money no object, and yet it is not as a general rule in the ranks of the extremely wealthy that we find the most artistic taste in either dress or | furnishing displayed. Far more ofter it is the neat tvpiste or salesgirl who will delight you with a toilette of grace and beauty conceived out of pure ' art because pence were scarce. So

that disposes of the argument that it f is easy. It isn’t: it is a special artistic | sense possessed by the few. How far-reaching its effects are! The I recital of the decoration of shop win- j dows brings longing for recovery to the. invalid, lights up a .tiled mother’s eyes and sends many an unsuspecting person home parcels heavier than he should have been. For who ever went to town and came home with just what they needed anil just what they went for? Woman, of course, is the worse offender, but the fish and the fruit shop claim many a victim spelt “man” also. Why did they buy? Mostly because things looked nice in the window! Women will admit that they really didn’t need that last evening frock or that pretty scarf, but it “ took their eye ” and they yielded to sudden temptation. Here we have the subtlety, the genius of the windowdresser. His arrangements must not only please, they must tempt and provoke, and finally overpower. He reminds me very much of a spider. Today he spreads his web of needed things and beaded things, of things to tone and things to own, adjusts the lighting and retires into the darkness beyond. In walk the flies and yield up thenblood (viz., their earnings) with a glad ; gasp of satisfied possession. But howfleeting the joys of possession arc! * To-morrow the spider changes the de- : sign of his web, and now it is neat ; things and sweet things that send out their mute allure. And so the flies are caught again and again, just as cir- , cumstance (mostly money) permits. > The power of the wary brain over the ’ U The more you study the crowd in fc the Square the more you admire the 3 tactics of that obscure little man in his quiet home. How greatly has human- - itv fallen for his creations! Durability ?. or suitability do not-matter; it looked 2 nice in the window and therefore looks nice anywhere. That is how many I folks reason. , ' But I must not overlook the edu--5 cative value of this question. By study- , ing the windows ail over town the f would-be shopper has a good idea of , cost and value and is armed to a fair ' extent against being “had.” Also, she often quietly acquires the cost of Mrs' 3 Over-the-Way’s new wool coat or bead- £ ed tunic, a source of feminine, satisfaca tion if not strictly educative. “ I remember standing fully an hour

one day watching the deft hands of one of these artists evolving the most beautiful frocks from a straight roll .of material. All he used was a few pins, no scissors. I stood entranced, for as fast as I anticipated a finishing touch and the right one it was there, just what each particular model required, and a beautiful tableau was built up with very little effort. Its beauty was compelling, its atmosphere intriguing. I didn't need one of these pretty frocks, nor could I afford them, yet they drew and drew me. How could I possibly cam more money that I. too, might be bitten this delicious way? Here is this article! The riddle, the answer! 111 across my day dream a vision suddenly loomed. A vision, I said? Visionary, it seemed, ’twas all so ludicrous, so appalling. A wav in a trice had vanished those ecstasies of black and white, the cicl blue had vanished too. Here was a broad expanse of angels, clad only in filmy scarves, gambolling on green grass, -under massive bluegum trees! My eye followed the wings of ivhat looked an archangel (he wore a little halo jauntily) and encountered suddenly a seam! A seam ? What madness was this? Back to earth I came with a crash, for the little angels and the bluegum leaves adorned the back of a woman who must have weighed sixteen stone. Between gasps of laughter and gasps of pain my mind again dwelt in homage to that plain little man, the dresser. Further up the street I had studied that same design as curtains for a nursery. Vet here he had inspired a dress for the very stout madame in front of me. Subtle suggestion and the public does the rest—pays the price and secures the dresser’s heavy salary. Wily one! I wonder how my costume is striking that other lady. Is she alternately amused and and have I, too, been beguiled by his magic to vie with those angels in front? And so the pageant moves and history repeats. Day by day that brain conceives the blending of beauty and appeal, and day by day the merchant’s cash-desk is filled. Nothing is really new except our greenness. I should have said our evergreenness. . Our round money rolls round, says hello and goodbye in its cheery way, and we grow old and admit things are not what they seem, nor can e’er be what we dream. Long live the art of the window-* dresser!