The Miss Anne Shop, Saddle River, New Jersey

July 29, 2015 — 1 Comment

As a girl, growing up on Eastern Long Island, deep in the heart of its nautically themed suburbs –2  hours outside of the City (the way its denizens measured space, distance and time), my awareness of fashion extended to back-to-school or prom pilgrimages to Modell’s, Swezey’s or Alexander’s—experiences I loathed—and later, taking the local bus to Smith Haven Mall to troll for trendy, cheap outfits at any number of chain boutiques catering to the teenage set.

Levi’s 501 jeans, white Keds tennis sneakers and pastel Izod Lacoste double-knit shirts was the uniform of Our Kind. As I turned 17 and neared my anticipated college rite de passage, I fantasized about  a glamorous career in fashion advertising, as suggested by my stylish Grandmother (a vague concept at best to my uninformed, impressionable self)—and a minted bachelor’s degree from F.I.T. –as  did so many young women in the Tri-State area.

Located “in the City”,  F.I.T. or Fashion Institute of Technology, sat six blocks south of seedy, 1980s era Penn Station, and was a stone’s throw from the rough and tumble Garment District to the east; which had yet to benefit from the whiff of gentrification that later enhanced it at the turn of the Millennia. Famous F.I.T. alumnus included Calvin Klein (who was then a major Star and fashion Brand) James de Givenchy and many other notables who went on to have—as my Grandma would emphatically declare, “Very Big Careers”. A side note: my Grandmother owned her own clothing boutique in the late 1950s called the Miss Anne Shop that catered to the finest ladies in Saddle River, NJ.

On a freezing cold afternoon, my Grandmother, Mother and I journeyed into the City to meet an admissions counselor from the school. It was the kind of dry February cold that made your nose hairs freeze, nostrils narrow and eyes water unmercifully. To expand, the kind of awful, dead-of-winter cold that had no redeemable qualities or saving grace, other than a howling, clench jawed escape to Miami. But, I digress.

Coming up the escalator from the loamy, subterranean bowels of Penn Station, we three (arms linked, with me in the middle) maneuvered our way down 7^th Avenue toward the school campus. I remember few things from that day, in this order…the brisk, clarifying icy wind hitting me in the face, the dancing sparkle of the sun playing off the mica-mixed concrete sidewalks, and the bits of trash (condom packages, plastic spoons, sandwich wrappers, blue and white paper coffee cups—(“We Are Happy To Serve You”, Grecian-style) blown in gusts, rattling down the street. And, yes, to add mirth and menace to the scene were a considerable number of homeless men loitering on either side; wearing stiff, worn flannel wool coats and many assorted layers.

We 3 Outsiders presented a stoic monolith of book-ended ranch minks and one central red fox fun fur, swaying in step toward the school. I must confess to you that I am blank on the rest of the day.

The upshot after this field trip was that it was decided that I not pursue entrance to this fine fashion institute, but instead pursue a broad degree elsewhere. Upon early admissions acceptance, I was slated to be packed and shipped off to a collegiate and seemingly safe Syracuse University (located squarely in the tundra snow belt of Central New York State) to study Communications, another fashionable degree of the era. My classmates mostly hailed from suburban Long Island, Westchester Connecticut and New Jersey—commonly known as The Tri-State trifecta. I enrolled with others, just. like. me.  Admittedly, S.U. did offer me a fine education, many life-bonded friends, endless opportunities to bend my right elbow and scream “GO ORANGE”, and develop keen social skills.

Wistfully, I can look back and realize S.U. did not offer the diversity, allure or glamour of gritty, post-70’s Warholian F.I.T. I can’t help but wonder these many decades later, what path my life would have taken had those sliding subway doors closed differently? Fashion, as it turned out still played her hand in my future.  A decade later, I joined the editorial fashion staff of fledgling Mirabella Magazine as their Sittings Editor and later Wardrobe Manager. Working at the magazine immersed me, full tilt into the crazy world of New York and international fashion— and introduced me to its many brightly, plumed characters. Fashion was, paradoxically, everything I always thought and hoped it would be, but also an unexpected surprise and journey…                           The End