Why does Nothing Fit

Or

WHY IS MACY’S TAKING OVER THE WORLD, okay, USA

Let’s face it, I have a body that no designer would love.  Furthermore, no designer designs for it.  I am of peasant stock.  Perky breasts now droop, my 22-inch waist decided it was too small for my hips.  To sum up, I’m dumpy.

But should that mean I can’t find a single thing to wear?  Land’s End and LLBean my only option, meaning getting all gussied up is out of the question?

I’ve always had a hard time making my body look admirable.  Could it be why I took up sewing and could make a perfect a-line that dealt with the hip issue?  Still, there was a time when shopping for clothes wasn’t a chore, and there were places in which a girl like me could wallow.  Let us step way way way back in time to my high school years, when New York City was just a bus ride away.

Unlike the Fifth Avenue of today, filled with chain stores and Trump Tower, back then it was a marvel, containing a plethora of department stores. From 34th up to 60th, what a series of enticements, with different stores offering different looks.  Fun times for my girlfriends and me.  We’d get off the bus at Port Authority and tramp down to 34th.  No, not to Macy’s or Gimbel’s.  Ohrbach’s was our destination.  If you couldn’t find it at Ohrbach’s, you couldn’t find it.  Not only did they have a junior department but they also had a department that no longer exists.  Half-sizes.  That was for short, old ladies with hanging bosoms and hips.  I was comforted with the thought that I’d always have something to wear in old age.  Note:  No half-sizes left!

Leaving 34th, we’d trudge to Fifth, skipping stores like B. Altman’s and Bonwit Teller.  Their merchandise just didn’t speak to us.  Dare I say too white, too subdued, to Peck & Peck, which we also skipped?  Not like, yes, Lord & Taylor!  Oh the ambiance.  Waft us in on your perfumed tresses up to the dress department. The elegant Bird Cage for a light lunch?  Did we ever eat?  I can’t remember.  Knowing us, we must have, but I doubt it was at the Bird Cage.  Most likely it was a pretzel or a hot dog from a street vendor.

Passing the New York public library and the greatest outdoor newsstand ever, we paced ourselves, as there was a long day ahead.  Oh, the relief of sighting the indentation to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to know that just south of it we finally arrived at our temple of worship, Saks Fifth Avenue.  I bought my wedding dress at Saks.  Of course, not while I was in high school.  It was a white cocktail number, fitted at the hips with over-panels.  Yes, the seams at the hips had to be taken out a little.

Onward up the avenue, past killer shoe stores and jewelers.  Did we ever shop at Tiffany’s?  You’re joking.  Would they even have let us in?  Besides, another adventure awaited.

Fifty-ninth, time to make a detour to Third.  Yes, Bloomingdales, before it became a thing.  I liked shopping there more in college than I did in high school, but we didn’t dare give it a miss, even as fatigue set in.  Alexander’s we skipped.  To us it said—schlock.

How did we survive all that walking?  You’d think the walking would do wonders for my thighs. Fat chance. Yes, emphasis on the fat, although now, looking at photos of me from back then, I think to myself—hey, you were HOT!  Too bad at the time no one saw the flower beneath, ready to bloom.

I’m sure at the end of our jaunt we took the Fifth Avenue bus down to 40th, getting off at the magnificent public library, where we would then trudge past Bryant park making our way back to the Port Authority in time to catch a Red and Tan back to Rockland County.  The seats on those buses were narrow.  We liked to sit together, because, if you sat with a man, inevitably he would move closer and closer and closer, and it was not accidental.

I miss those shopping outings with my girlfriends of yore. After high school we dispersed, and I have no idea what happened to them.  But we all had dreams.  Mine was to get out of town.  My best friend Marcia’s dream was to marry her boyfriend from West Point, and she did.  Diane wanted to be a rabbi, while Ann wanted to be a nun, and Marian an artist.

The trouble with women is that we get married and change our names, so I can’t even use all the social connections we now have to find out about that gang of mine.  But I’m so grateful I had them—and Ohrbach’s.