Designer Knockoff by Ellen Byerrum Read Free Book Online Page B

Cinderella.
    In spite of the hard work, I love to go to the factory because sometimes Hugh Bentley comes by to see how we’re doing. He works down the hall in a glassed-in office, which is nice so that we can see a real live man in the henhouse. He said someday I can show him my designs! Of course, “someday” hasn’t come yet.

    Glory
    Honestly, dear Mims,
    January 12, 1943
    If I have to hear “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” one more time I am going to scream. Marie of Rumania-remember my landlady? — has posted that sign everywhere. And just try asking for seconds. We have to turn over our ration tickets to her; it doesn’t seem fair. After working all day, a girl gets hungry!

    Your Starving Glory
    Lacey wanted to read more, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She tucked the remaining letters into her purse to read at work the next day. When she fell asleep a little later, the wartime slogan Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without was ringing over and over in her head like a nursery rhyme.

chapter 4

    Lacey’s story on the hearing, “Bentleys Present Uniform Testimony in Olive Drab,” complete with photos and the exclusive interview with Hugh the B, “First Lady to Open Museum in Bentley Design of Vintage Silk,” were splashed across the front page of the Wednesday LifeStyle section of The Eye. The sidebar on the Bentley’s robbery was tucked in nicely. Lacey checked The Post: a perfunctory couple of paragraphs on the museum and the First Lady’s surprise letter. The Washington Times had even less; their angle was Senator Dashwood’s sudden reverence for the taxpayer’s dollars. She had scooped them both with her Bentley interview—not that it mattered to anyone but her. She folded the paper and yawned.
    “We keeping you up, Smithsonian?”
    Lacey opened her eyes, stifled another yawn, and looked into the smooth, caramel-hued face of her boss, Mac, his bushy black eyebrows drawn together like caterpillars huddling. Her foe, her friend, and sometimes her nemesis. In other words, her editor. She was on the verge of nodding off when he interrupted her reverie. “I hope your column won’t put us all to sleep.” This was Mac’s stab at humor.
    “It’s riveting, Mac.” She squinted at the screen. Her “Crimes of Fashion” column on the boutique bandits filled one line so far. “Armed in Armani? Or, is it chic to rob Versace wearing Gucci?” It was a start. She hit Save.
    “Good. Johnson called in. He’s afraid you’re wreaking havoc on his beat up on the Hill. You seem to frighten him.”
    “Freak. I merely wrote this little story about the rag trade. And Hansen did a nice job with the photos on Cordelia Westgate testifying before the Senate committee.”
    Mac picked up the paper and grunted. “She’s got a lot of hair,” he said before he departed.
    Lacey didn’t choose fashion. It chose her. Or rather, Mac, with inscrutable editorial wisdom, had thrown her into the beat a couple of years earlier, because it was expedient at the time. He had one dropped-dead-of-a-heart-attack fashion editor on his hands and a looming deadline. Lacey, then bylined as L. B. Smithsonian, Mac’s newest city reporter, strolled innocently into his field of vision and voilà! Instant fashion reporter. They had fought about it ever since. She yearned for a real beat. He was happy having her fill the fashion slot. Readers loved her and hated her, but they read her, which was all Mac cared about.
    “Crimes of Fashion,” by Lacey Smithsonian, and her dosand-don’ ts pieces, “Fashion Bites,” sold more than a few papers. So she was stuck. And Lacey wasn’t even privy to the usual perks of a fashion reporter’s job. The Eye Street Observer was too poor—or too cheap—to send her off to cover the real fashion world in New York, Paris, or Milan.
    She had to make up her own beat out of whole cloth—so to speak—in Washington, D.C., The City That Fashion Forgot. Lacey believed