Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1948)

Elsie Brandt gives Terry Burton useful hints on buying intelligently. By TERRY BURTON Every Wednesday, The Second Mrs. Burton is visited by a Family Counselor. Through this department Terry Burton shares some of these visits with Radio Mirror readers. The program is heard daily, 2 P.M. EST, CBS. 70 ALTHOUGH my favorite hobby is planning clothes for myself and my friends, I sometimes have a little trouble managing the time. With a new baby on my hands and a home and husband to look after, creative designing sometimes seems like a piece of selfindulgence. After little Wendy was born, I looked forward eagerly to my long-planned trip to New York, where I was going to haunt the shops and see the new designs at the wholesale dress houses, and have a luxurious time altogether — and then it turned out that all I could spare was two days away from Wendy and Stan, and our life in Dickston. However, I made a special point of getting to see Elsie Brandt, promotionist at Capri Original, one of the famous wholesale establishments. Miss Brandt had been one of our most exciting Family Counselors, and had given my listener friends and me some pointed, genuinely helpful ideas about wardrobe-planning when she dropped by at our house during her visit to Dickston. She had said, for example, that women would do better to give more time to planning, and less to shopping around. A plan, written down in black and white, is the best way to avoid being side-tracked by a glamorous hat or pair of shoes that have no real place in your closet. And she emphasized, again and again, her ideas about economy. "Yes," she said, "a wardrobe, for the average woman, must be planned with economy. But economy, in my view, means just this: buying the best you can afford. Fine workmanship, good fabric, wise and intelligent design are longterm investments." I told her then — and I'd like to tell all of you — how much I agree! You see, I think what Miss Brandt said is just part of a wider philosophy. Getting and giving the best that is possible can be applied to every circumstance of your life. Friendship, truth — happiness itself — these items are not bought at a bargain basement or a fire sale. If you yourself are not generous with these things you will receive only superficial loyalties and half-truths in return. For women, whose lives are made up so often of small, everyday things, this philosophy must be translated into small, everyday uses. I feel strongly that a woman's clothes can be a valid expression of this attitude toward life. A determination never to be satisfied with anything shoddy can surely be extended to cover a refusal to have a closet full of cheap, flimsy garments when one may have two or three well-made, well-designed outfits instead. When I saw Miss Brandt's designs, in her workroom at Capri in New York, I knew that here was the concrete expression of my ideas about clothes. Any one of her gowns, from the most tailored to the most lush, would be an investment that would take you happily through many seasons. She cautioned me again — as she had cautioned our listeners when she was our Family Counselor — to avoid the pitfall of buying for a single occasion. Not only should your major garment, be it dress or suit or ensemble be bought with an eye to its fitness for your particular way of life, but all your accessories are best acquired in conformance with a long-range plan. That way, you don't suffer the tragedy of paying far too much for a purse or a pair of gloves that must hide at the back of the bureau drawer when it is not being worn with the dress for which it was bought. Flexibility, said Miss Brandt — and I agree — is definitely one of the requirements that accessories must fill in the efficiently-planned wardrobe.