Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1948)

no more space than one big, inefficient catch-all of a closet, but it does take planning. Mirrored walls are practically an occupational disease with Hollywood. As I have said before, they are lasting, they are useful and their decorative value cannot be surpassed. And in Hollywood, they hide everything. I’ve used Olivia de Havilland’s bed-sitting room as a charming example. Livvie has one high-poled closet for evening clothes and daytime coats; one doublepoled one for suit jackets, skirts and daytime dresses; one closet, hiding many narrow drawers for holding lingerie, stock ' ings, bras, gloves, and above them a small-poled space for blouses, a particularly well-planned arrangement for shoes and another for hats on hat-stands, all cleverly hidden behind mirrored panels. All this is a matter of pre-thinking and final execution. If you are building or altering, it won’t be cheap to install these closets, but it will be cheaper than buying” dressing tables, chifforobes and the like. rOR some tricks along these lines: Plan * as many shallow drawers as you have classifications of apparel. For myself, I have one drawer partitioned into squares in which I keep belts, one belt to each square. It keeps the belts from uncurling when not in use. It means you can select your favorite without upsetting the lot (just as Joan Leslie can get out one pair of shoes without having to smudge all of them). It also means you know where everything is at a glance. Have a deeper drawer for sweaters, which should never be hung; narrow ones, again for scarves, stockings and such. You can buy quilted satin in your department store. Cut yourself some cardboard backings, an eighth of an inch shorter than the inside measurements of each drawer. Cut the quilted satin to the exact inside drawer measurement. Using vegetable glue, which you can buy in any hardware store, paste the satin on top of the cardboard. Voila, you’ve got perfect linings to go beneath your treasured nightgowns and finest nylons! And they are easily lifted out for cleaning or dusting. Another nicety you may have, at penny value, is a fragrance that will greet you every time you open a closet door or drawer. You get this by painting the inside of all of them with liquid sachet after the regular paint is dry. This is colorless. You can get it at most drugstores or beauty parlors. Its scent lasts for months and when it wears out, you simply apply another coat. Now, in case you are muttering that mirrors are too high-priced for your budget, don’t think you can’t do closets of this type anyway. You can always paper the doors. Joan Crawford has done this so efficiently in her upstairs sitting room that you don’t even know the closets exist there. Or you can always cover them with the same material you are using for your window hangings. Either way, you have charm. Actually, it all boils down to using your imagination for living. Going back again to Jeanette MacDonald’s bath-dressing room, by putting that washstand behind mirrors, by using the otherwise useless space below a window, by boxing in her tub she achieved a delightful room. You, too, can live like a movie star in your home and go out looking like a glamour girl by using decorative touches like this. In fact, next month I’m going to tell you how to live like a glamour girl in one room. You really can. I’ll prove it to you. The End THE LOVABLE loves her i E^E-MONTH BRA MISS BEVERLY of St. Louis, Mo. BUR Dress by Martini Frocks You^ll be lovely^ too^ in a BRA Wear flattering Lovable Brassiere #960. I^Fqgbled panels are ’ circuiqr-stilched for greater support; lastex Unsert gives attractive ^.separation,^;: Nude, Black or White rayon tatin S'! .SQ LOVABLE BRASSIERE CO. 358 Fifth Avenue, New York 1, N.Y.