Designer Knockoff by Ellen Byerrum Read Free Book Online Page A

three-cent stamp contained old letters on blue stationery and written in blue ink. Lacey carefully unfolded the letters one by one.
    Dear Mims,
    February 13, 1942
    I still don’t understand what your job is at the high-and-mighty Office of Price Administration, but I owe you for putting in a word with Hugh Bentley. I won’t have to start on the factory floor but will work as a cutter and draping fabrics for new designs. He’s impressed with my skills. By the way, I thought you two were an item. What happened? What’s wrong with you? He looks like Tyrone Power!
    I’m a little afraid about moving to New York and leaving my friends, but I’m going to be a career girl in fashion design and that’s the place to be. Imagine trying to do that in our sleepy southern backwater of Washington, D.C.! I know it’s the seat of government, but those trousers are baggy, Mims. That’s a joke. Besides, I know you love clothes as much as I do. There’s a rooming house for a lot of the factory girls where I can live. I’ll write when I can.

    Love, Gloria
    Dear Mims,
    May 6, 1942
    I may have broken my first rule! Except it isn’t written down, so I’m not sure. I’ve been here two months and I haven’t said as much as “Boo!” Really. I have been a model of propriety. And Mims, I know you would be on my side if you could just see this silly smock we have to wear, a puffy powder-blue smock with patch pockets. It pouches in all the wrong places. I simply had to take it all apart and reshape the yoke, and take out some of the excess material. Now I look more like a designer and less like a clown. It fits so much better and looks quite smart when I fold the sleeves back into deep cuffs, even though deep cuffs are outlawed by the new clothing regulations. Can you believe it?
    Part of my job as a studio apprentice is to measure cuffs and the like to make sure we’re following the accursed L-85. I call it the collar-and-cuffs law, and I always wear my measuring tape around my neck or have it close by in my pocket.
    I’m just grateful that I don’t have to work on the factory floor Those poor girls have to wear drab green aprons and green makes me look so sallow! Anyway, my little blue smock looks so much better, and no one has said anything to me yet. Wish me luck.

    Love, Glory
    Dear Mims,
    July 10, 1942
    I know we have to do our part for the war, but day-to-day factory life is not my idea of the best way to do it. Please don’t ever think I’m not grateful for your help in getting this job. Because I am, and I know that it’s a stepping-stone. But how on earth do those girls in the airplane factories do it? It’s so hot that the sweat trickles all the way down my spine. My shoulders ache and my back hurts and I get so thirsty.
    Of course I want to do my part for the war effort. But I’ve got dreams, Mims. Someday the war will end. At night when I work on my sketches, somehow I forget about the day. I have to go. Five A.M. comes too soon; guess I’ll never be a “Morning Glory. ”

    Love, Glory
    Dear Mims,
    August 13, 1942
    I know I’m a dreadful correspondent. But truly, I’m so tired at the end of the day I can hardly keep my eyes open. Do you remember how I used to think about clothes all the time? Now all I think about is food! I’m so hungry and there’s never enough to eat. I dream of fried chicken and mashed potatoes the way my mother fixes it. I know I said I’d never miss anything about home, but now I do: home cooking!

    Love, Glory
    Dear Mims,
    September 6, 1942
    This boardinghouse is worse than a convent! We are not allowed to have visitors to our rooms except parents on Sunday afternoon. And men, if there happen to be any, must meet us in the lobby. We might as well meet in Grand Central Station for all the privacy there! My landlady, who thinks she is the queen of Rumania, warns us not to mix with the soldiers or sailors. Curfew is ten o’clock on weeknights and midnight on weekends. Boy, do I feel like