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Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929

Bernays Papers. Typescript on Art in the Fashion Industry, 1923-1927: Cheney Brothers: a machine-readable transcription.
CHENEY BROTHERS

CHENEY BROTHERS

America became more nationalistic, more self-conscious after World War I. This new awareness of ourselves we expressed in new art, literature, music and drama. We declared ourselves independent of Europe. America wanted Self-sufficiency not only in chemicals but also in cultural values and ideas.

Though this feeling extended to American fashions, we felt less secure here than in other matters. We wanted to declare our independence of Paris, but were afraid to cut ourselves loose. American women wanted American fabrics, but they must be made with more style. Drab designs were not good enough.

And these new demands of the consumer were extending into other consumer fields. Art in industry must not be restricted to textiles. It must extend into kitchen gadgets and furniture, into everything that went into common use in the home and outside. We began to realize that a machine made product need not be ugly.

I participated in the transition during the period 1923-1927. The combined resources of Cheney

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Brothers, an old New England silk firm, in South Manchester, Connecticut, the brilliant French art director of the company, from Alsace Lorraine, Henri Creange, and I, as public relations counsel, worked closely together for five years to gain acceptance by America of this new approach, art in industry. I think we had considerable effect.

For even though we went to France for inspiration, the impact was that of an American creation influenced by a French accent. The overall impact of this pioneering affected the field of art in industry, and accelerated American industrial creativity.

Cheney Brothers, old, stodgy and respected New England manufacturers, stemmed from the Cheneys who came to South Manchester in early colonial times. The Cheneys dominated the town economically, socially, politically and ideologically.

In the United States, we think of people as individuals, not as members of families with well defined traits. But in Europe, many families, royal and commoner, maintain a definable pattern. Some, of course, have retained special characteristics in the United States. The Adams, Cabots, Rockefellers,

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Guggenheims and du Pont clan are such families. The Cheneys, too, carried forward in a distinct way certain virtues and vices in the New England tradition.

The Cheneys had a Puritan conscience, an inbred nature, inhibiting restraints and the ego-motivated self-centeredness and superiority of the New England upper class. Charles Cheney, head of the clan, exhibited this tribal pride in the introduction to a pamphlet about the family. The name Cheney was in French origin, he wrote, and still exists in France. A Cheney had emigrated from France to England at the time of the Norman conquest of Britain. The reclining effigy of Sir John Cheney (as the English spelled the name) can be seen in Salisbury Cathedral clad in armor with his legs crossed above the knee, indicating that he had been to Palestine twice as a crusader. The Cheneys came to America in the 17th Century, settled near Boston, trekked from Massachusetts through the wilderness into Connecticut and settled in South Manchester. For seven generations the family had lived on the same land.

Ralph, Ward, Frank, Rush and Charles founded

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the original Cheney Brothers, with John and Seth as silent partners. Many contemporary Cheneys carried these names.

The piece was written with the serious self-sufficiency of the Plantagenets or the Tudors.

I have never known another hierarchy like the Cheneys. Three brother kings, one in New York, one in Paris, and one in London, ran the tight Cartier monarchy. But this royal family of Americans stayed so closely knit for generations that they permitted the burial only of direct descendents in the cemetery of the family at South Manchester. Those who married into the family, men or women, were buried outside. The family expected Cheney male scions to enter the silk business. Those who didn't became, in a sense, outcasts. Two Cheneys, one a painter and another a theatrical producer suffered almost ostracism from the family.

The top Cheneys who ran the organization had lips, puckered as if from eating aloes, through which human feeling was scantly and infrequently expressed. They showed no outsider what went on inside. They were self-sufficient.

As is the custom in New England, the treasurer,

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not the president, headed the firm. Charles Cheney concerned himself with broad policy and maintained relations with the banks. Small, wiry, forceful, with a beak nose almost eagle-like, his grayish skin was tightly drawn over his face, a gimlet expression lurked in his eyes, his lips were even more tightly pursed than those of the rest of the clan. He was as cool as a school of fishes. Seldom, if ever, loquacious, he arrived quickly at the nub of any matter we discussed. No extraneous conversation was ever allowed to retard his getting to the point.

When he made a suggestion to me in a letter he wrote, "It appears to us that this might properly be made an object of further publicity." I learned this was his way of issuing a command. This euphemism was typical. I seems to me now a polite arrogance that the absolutist of the time used with those he thought were his subjects. I have worked with other New England industrialists in whom I have observed the same trait. Its impersonal approach, its impeccable logical sequence, its indirection are typical.

I did not see these subtleties then. I was rather flattered that the high command of Cheney Brothers should recognize the value of publicity, when

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they had stuck to the secrecy of the medieval guild system for over a hundred years.

Horace Cheney, brother, equally inhibited, supervised distribution, advertising and publicity. He ran the general sales manager in New York, who directed the salesman who sold to wholesalers, the cutting-up trade and retailers. Perhaps the influence of his wife, a quiet, poised woman produced an occasional touch of humanity. He often discussed with me, almost tragically, the defection of his son Bushnell.

Bushnell Cheney, Yale 1921, resented spending his life in silk. He decided to organize the Jitney Players. It was his own idea. No one had thought of anything like it before. He built a stage on one of his Ford trucks. He then assembled a theatrical company and planned for an itinerant career, giving plays under a tent, carried in the truck. The other players, of course, travelled in their Ford automobiles.

After I had been retained as public relations counsel, his father, Horace, asked whether I would be willing to help him as a beau geste. He was wise enough to realize he could not induce his son to go into the silk business and making the best out of a bad bargain, decided that he would help the boy follow

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his own choice. But he was too thoroughly a Cheney to contribute face to face to his son's delinquency. He asked me to do it for him.

I talked to the idealistic, highly inbred, and sensitive, young man. I got him Wells Hawks, whom I had known since my press agent days, as a co-manager. Bushnell was happy with my choice and toured the East.

They gave their opening performance at a garden party at the Maxwell place at Rockville, Connecticut on July 4. Bushnell had assembled an extraordinary group of young actors. He himself had been in the cast of Peer Gynt the year before. The company included:
Alice Keating, Bushnell Cheney's wife, who was with John Barrymore in Hamlet; Francis Simpson of Hartford, who was in R.U.R., The Lucky One and Peer Gynt; Patricia Barclay Riordan, daughter, of Mr. and Mrs. James Riordan of New York, who was in Peer Gynt; Ilse Bloede of Baltimore, who studied with Dullin at the Theater Montaigne and danced in Paris; George B. George, understudy during the preceding season for Donald Brian in Budies; Arthur Sircom of the Yale Dramatic Association and leader of the Yale Orchestra,

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and Hardwicke Nevin, who had been connected with Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon and other productions, and produced The School for Scandal at Princeton.

They presented some one act plays, including Gilbert and Sullivan's Creature of Impulse, Pan Pipes, by Constance Wilcox; James Branch Cabell's The Jewel Merchants; Raggle-Taggle Gypsies and The Word, the Law and the Prophets; by Alice Keating.

The Jitney Players received national publicity as the result of a shattering earthquake that took place in Japan in , I suggested the first benefit performance of the players for the almost destroyed city of Tokyo. I placed at their disposal a large park area at Jackson Heights, whose housing development we were promoting. Bushnell accepted the suggestion, and gave the performance. Overnight his Jitney Players became known throughout the United States and the Japanese received the gate receipts.

I seldom had contact with other Cheneys, brothers, sons, cousins, nephews, and second cousins. Charles and Horace assumed the burden of travelling west to New York and then back home east as soon as possible.

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Cheney Brothers thrived on silk, believed in it, identified themselves with it as they had done for over a hundred years. In the early 1800's, they brought the mulberry trees to the United States to see whether they couldn't raise their own silkworms and produce their own raw material. When scientists in the 20th Century began experimenting with strange synthetic yarns, Cheney snooted them. They called the product these men created artificial or imitation silk. Haughtily, they stuck to silk. Those who wanted to might bother with science. Cheney's strength and redeemer remained the silkworm.

The Puritan spirit undoubtedly played a part in curbing their interest in style and fashion. But their disdain for women contributed too. In 1923, no woman held a responsible position with the firm, although most of their manufactured products were bought by women.

Staple colors and serviceable prints for women made up their fashionable line. Brocades in conventional designs, made on Jacquard looms for upholstery, they thought, satisfied the public's needs. While Cheney's were sticking to tradition, competitors, notably Mallinson, were looking for new art inspiration

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for their silks. Others in American textile circles were following suit. Reluctantly Cheney Brothers began to see that they might have to pay some attention to this post-war renaissance if they were to preserve the firm for the oncoming generations of the family.

About this time, Henry Creange, French industrial art designer from Alsace Lorraine, was

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looking for a new connection in the United States. In France, he worked in several industries, related to the arts. As a designer of pottery, he was Art Director of the Royal Ginori Porcelain Works of Italy, developing art products and ceramics for U. S. consumption.

As president of Henry Creange, Inc., in Europe, he directed three factories in France, among them the celebrated Abby works; five in Italy, one in Bavaria, one in Austria and two in England.

Now in America after World War I, he started life anew. He and the Cheney Brothers met. They recognized they needed {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}their need for{end handwritten}{end inserted text} each other and joined forces. Creange became Art Director of Cheney Brothers, although he had never worked in this medium. {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}silk.{end handwritten}{end inserted text}

And to buttress themselves in their attack on the problems Cheney Brothers were facing, they engaged our services.

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Creange, a self-centered bachelor, lived in a world of his own creation, concerned primarily with his own advancement. He regarded me and others who worked with him as tools to satisfy his drive to achieve his ambition, not money or power, but the satisfaction of having himself pointed out as the man who made Cheney Brothers the style leader in the United States, the symbol for art in industry in the U.S., "I am the man!"

I was willing to be his tool, when it advanced Cheney Brothers. I enjoyed working with the man. He stimulated me. He accepted the ideas I gave him, often immediately. He translated them into action. Sometimes he told me of some fantastic idea he had conceived. Our discussion shaped it to a practical one. I found we were both relating silk to social, political and ideological situations, making it part of the stream of life itself.

I suppose my satisfaction came in part, from participating with him in translating abstractions into realities.

My discussions with Creange on how to go about meeting our objectives resulted in a plan, a ground-work of philosophy for everything we did. The New England Council published the plan in a pamphlet entitled

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The Three Phase System for the Mass Production of Style Goods. "A Plan for Lifting New England Manufacturers Out of Price Competition."

Creange's 3 phase system of production appeared simple. Phase 1 of style production consisted of novelties; phase 2 of the development and improvement of the preceding year's successful innovations, including staples; phase 3, staples.

Creange felt that this system fitted boots, shoes, automobiles,textiles, hosiery, clothes, art, metals, pottery, paints; any industry in which a

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distinguishing feature is needed to recommend it to the public.

The plan, Creange felt, was practicable and brought comparative safety for really creative work in large production in art industries.

Creange added two ideas that gave a clue to our work. America should now take her place "among those nations bent on expressing themselves, and New England can lead America in this." And second, that greater recognition and support should be given the French for their creative initiative.

In my section of the pamphlet, I emphasized how drama superimposed on a sound idea, could gain public visibility and acceptance for it, and referred to my campaign that had given large hat an impetus as the result of a fashion show.

My thesis was that more than the origination of a new style is essential to validate the three

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phase system. We must gain acceptance for the new idea. Then I described the rationale of public relations and pointed out how public relations counsel helped get new ideas accepted.

I did it as if I were delivering myself of a tract to proselitize the heathen. Why should I have cared about the point I was trying to make.

As a matter of fact, I had no interest in style as such. Style was a social phenomenon concocted in part s of a man's desire to see women in a fresh light from time to time and a woman's desire to appeal more strongly to her contemporaries, men and women, accelerated of course by the desire of those in the women's wear trade to make a profit.

The plan provided the foundation for much of my thinking in this field--a kind of intellectual guide. I didn't think of silk designs--I thought of

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phase 1,2,3 whenever I saw a beautiful painting, a lovely building, a provocative sculpture. I tried to evaluate the inspiration it might have for silk. Sometimes the color of a dress worn by my dinner partner started a chain reaction later reflected in a Cheney innovation. I kept closely in touch with aesthetic trends, trying to anticipate what impact new ideas in one field might have in another.

Of course, the application of the 3 phase system to Cheney Brothers could not come about overnight. We laid the foundation for our plan in intensive work, building up relations of Cheney Brothers with the trade and the opinion molders and group leaders. We organized a network of fashion news and interpretation to establish the authenticity of what was to follow. A free style service gave the fashion editors of the country authentic news about silk usage and style in Paris and New York. We sent out croquis, drawings of dresses, to newspapers. We photographed pretty girl models in Cheney silks and sent their photographs to 150 rotogravure sections of newspapers. We added a free mat service for 300 small newspapers. The editor merely had to send the mat to his stereotyping room. We correspond with hundreds of newspaper editors.

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Favorable reaction similar to that we received for the Liveright press materials came to us from the Cheney Brothers. The newspapers used the features, the news and thanked us for the material besides.

The French influence still set the pace. We were tying to combine the best features of French inspiration with those of South Manchester, Connecticut. We often used French terminology, for instance, the word "croquis" for fashion sketch." We labelled our folders "Chronique de la Mode," and under it, "Cheney Style Service," a form of snobbism, I suppose.

We used all possible avenues to our publics. We made up fashion information bulletins for salesmen in department stores, who, after their perusal would talk more intelligently about yard length silks for dresses which they tried to sell their customers. We tried to get purveyors to Cheney Brothers to project Cheney Brothers patronage in their promotions. We wrote to a list of manufacturers from which Cheney had bought pencils, electrical supplies, ball bearings in the machinery that wove the silk, tags, shelving, billiard tables and vacuum cleaners, telling them we were willing to have them mention our name as users of their product in publicity and advertising. Wide-spread

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publicity for Cheney resulted.

In that first year of 1923, we never got down to cases in our three phase system plan. But we injected

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some life and overtness into Cheney silks by our press campaign.

The first build up for style leadership took the form of an old fashioned press agent stunt, presenting the wife of the President with American made silk lengths for a dress.

Doris and old workman from South Manchester went to the White House. The happening was reported in the newspaper on February 14, 1923:
"GIVE TO MRS. HARDING SILK FOR STATE DRESS"

A piece of silk, recently on exhibit at the Silk Show at New York as one of the highest examples of American weaving, was presented to Mrs. Harding today as a tribute from the silk art a sans of the country. Consisting of white taffeta, richly embossed with flowers in gold bullion, the silk was specially woven for Mrs. Harding to be worn as a

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State dress."

That worked out well. We tried a variation of this idea. I knew that a prophet, to be honored in his own country, must be honored in another. I arranged with the Textile Museum in Lyon, France, the great city of silk, to accept three lengths of American silk made by Cheney Brothers for inclusion in their exhibits.

Delightedly, the museum accepted the gift. We sent this news back to America, where the newspapers printed it. Cheney Brothers gained recognition by the coals to Newcastle route.

We had another early opportunity to dramatize Cheney Brothers' leadership in fashion. We capitalized on the nationwide interest aroused in the Tut-ankh-Amen discoveries in Egypt. All America was agog at the findings bord Carnohan {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}the Earl of Carnarvon{end handwritten}{end inserted text} had made when he uncovered the tomb of an Egyptian king of an old

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dynasty.

Mallinson's recently had created a stir by publishing a series of prints that showed American shrines; Washington's home at Mt. Vernon and the Grand Canyon. Nobody had thought if anything like that before. Style leaders eneered Mallinson's Americanism. Cheney had to meet this challenge.

I telephoned Creange, "What would you say to giving a young American woman designer a scholarship to take a trip to Egypt to study the Tut-ankh-Amen excavations and come back to America and work up some silk designs inspired by what she saw. Certainly remote Tut-ankh-Amen in Egypt has as much glamour as the Grand Canyon or Mount Vernon."

Creange was elated. In a few days Hazel Slaughter, a charming young American girl who had won prizes at the textile exhibition and at the Art Student's League, became the recipient of the Cheney

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Brothers Tut-ankin-Amen award. Horace B. Cheney presented her with a scholarship at the Silk Exposition on February 12, 1923 and the New York Times, in a two-column headline announced. "Girl Designer Awarded Scholarship to Study Fashions From the Tomb of Tut-ankin-Amen."

Overnight a little girl from Brooklyn became the heroine of a glamorous adventure that focused much publicity on her and on Cheney Brothers pioneering spirit in silk design.

She went to Egypt; and then returned. But by then the glamour of Egypt had died down. Nothing very much happened as far as silk designs were concerned, but Cheney's style leadership had been further validated by the widespread publicity the idea received.

Very often we can gauge the impact of a new idea, not by the outside public's attitude, but by internal signs. The publicity Cheney Brothers' dress silks were receiving made an impression on the cravats division, makers of stodgy ties for men for generations. Concerned because only dress silks were being dramatically promoted, they wanted publicity too.

Our first lines of silk ties showed the contemporary American influence. A variation of Indian

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motifs, suggestive of blankets, trappings, tepees, weapons and decorations -- invoked the spirit of our American aboriginees. Westerns went on shirt fronts instead of TV screens. With the stock market crash still six years in the future, we launched a line of bankers ties "for the man with a more conservative taste. Ties that go well with a grey, brown or blue business suit. Smart conservative ties."

We suggested that dealers, in arranging their window displays should "place a smart derby, a pair of gloves and a stick right in the foreground to suggest the solid citizen who wears this type of tie."

The submarines came in for an imaginative undersea series. And the preoccupation of the American people with the new gadget, radio, elicited a "radio series" of fast, vividly moving colors with the suggestion of "the mystery of the ether" the snap of static, the world of sound." The names of these ties illustrate public interest in radio: --

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radiophoto, wave length, jazz music, radiogram, announcer, radio station, code static, dots and dashes, sounding off, criss-cross "He's in Paris."

We were making headway in gaining style leadership for Cheney.

We pushed art in industry through our newspaper campaigning. We wanted to advance that acceptance and I felt that public recognition of Creange's accomplishments would do this. Michael Friedsam, a distinguished old gentleman, President of B. Altman & Company Department Store at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue enjoyed basking in the reflected glory of public recognition for his own good works. In th Fifth Avenue Association, he assumed leadership in civic affairs. He interested himself in art and his Friedsam collection, presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one of

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its great treasures.

Creange and I went to see Mr. Friedsam in his office. We urged him to institute a gold medal to be given each year under the sponsorship and judging of the Architectural League of New York to the individual who had done most to advance art in industry. Creange and I both believed he would win the medal on the basis of his pre-eminence in that area.

In due course, the judges of the League made their choice. Creange won hands down. The Architectural League gave him an Art in Industry dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York. Abraham Flexner, Dr. Emanuel Libman, and Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute attended. Creange naturally thrilled at the ocassion and basked in the accolades of his friends and well-wishers.

What Creange called the ferroniere silks were a great success in 1924. He took the ironwork of a great ironmonger, Edgar Brandt, and translated it into silk designs. We showed the silk draped around pieces of Brandt's handiwork in New York, reaped valuable publicity, and, of course, advanced our standing in

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style leadership.

The ferroniere silks made a great hit. I recalled the impact the exhibition of our Cheney silks had made in America when the Lyon Textile Museum had shown them. Why couldn't we make a real impact by taking our French-inspired Brandt ironmonger prints and take them to France for exhibition at the Louvre?

I suggested the idea to Creange -- the first time American silks were to be exhibited there. Naturally he was enthusiastic.

Here we had a wonderful example of cultural cross fertilization, hands across the sea. American silks showed recognition to French art and France showed recognition to American manufacture.

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Retail stores publicly recognized their significance. One department store in Atlanta, Georgia, put an overriding caption on its advertisement. It referred to "interpreting a new modern art period introduced by the prints ferroniere." Another retailer, John Wanamaker, referred to a presentation of "exclusive printed silks which were inspired by a new art -- the ironwork of Edgar Brandt, the famous French artist, who is considered the foremost ironmaster of the age."

The students of perception have found that people see in art what their culture permits them to see. This is true of music and paintings, as it is of silk design. And what had been done of course was to get these department stores to make possible new perceptions to the Cheney silk, by tying it up with the new art movement.

Great crowds came to the opening in Paris which was given official sanction by the presence of our Ambassador, Myron Herrick, Paul Leon, Minister of the Beaux Arts, and hundreds of French and American notables. We sent Arthur Waldron to drape the silks. Newspapers reported the event here on February 28, 1925 and this in turn stimulated a whole flow of editorial comment.

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Charles Cheney, with pardonable pride, issued a statement, printed in full in the New York Commercial:
"Cheney Brothers are highly appreciative of the cooperative spirit shown by the French Government in arranging for the exhibition in the Louvre, in which the artistry of the French ironworker, Brandt, has been interpreted in textile design by the Franco-American textile artist, Creange. The common use of one inspiration by the iron and the silk industries shows the universality of art."

Cheney Brothers, despite its traditions, now accepted the principle of organized public relations. They set up a public relations committee which held weekly meetings at the company offices on 34th Street. Colonel Heckman, the sales manager; Ward Cheney, just out of Yale; Miss Goldsmith of our office; the advertising manager and I, discussed problems as if we were settling the affairs of the world at a summit conference. Our meetings had all the hallmarks of high diplomacy -- ego projection, retreat, politics, deals, and fulfillment of purpose to some degree. A log I kept of these meetings shows the variety of subjects covered.

We devoted one meeting to color indexes and

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just how we could get salesmen to describe specific colors to their customers, another to whether a new silk should be launched as yard goods or made in dresses by a dressmaker with prestige, or to what we should call silk weighted with metal? At one meeting we arranged to furnish Mademoiselle Dalroy, booked on the Keith circuit in vaudeville in a one act sketch, with eight-yard lengths of silk she could drape in different styles in her act.

At another we made plans for a history of textile design. It was written and Doubleday brought it out with advertisements of our textiles illustrating the book.

Once we resolved the problem of providing silk for gowns for a motion picture McCall's magazine was making with the cooperation of some French dressmakers. The prestige of the French dressmakers out-weighed McCall's lack of prestige.

To accelerate the acceptance of Art in Industry, Creange established a close entente with Charles R. Richards a wispy man, brittle and dry, who headed the American Association of Museums. Richards knew Secretary of Commerce Hoover and arranged for the appointment of himself, Frank S. Holmes of Lenox

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Pottery, and Creange, as Official U.S. Commissioners to the International Exposition of Modern, Decorative and Industrial Art in Paris, held in Paris in the summer of 1925. I was appointed associate commissioner. The planning of the trip was left to me - leavetaking and arrival publicity, events in Paris. My previous stays in Paris naturally helped me.

Our coming was big news in the French papers and the Paris Herald. Doris and I attended gala lunches, dinners, champagne receptions. We ate at numerous banquets tendered to us by officialdom, sipped wines, champagnes and liquers to the accompaniment of toasts to Franco-American friendship. In return, we planned events in honor of the high French government officials who dined and wined us. The American delegation to the Paris Exposition gave an official banquet on Friday, July 3 at the Hotel Carlton in honor of Paul Painleve, Premier of France, and members of his cabinet and high French officials.

Here too we drank repeated toasts to Franco-American friendship, to the President of the United States, to the President of France and gorged ourselves. We all felt it led to better Franco-American relations. I came to the conclusion the French emphasized ceremony and ritual so strongly that little

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energy or time was left to get down to the realities of friendship.

When we returned to America, we were still Francophiles. We had an inner glow of ego satisfaction at the VIP treatment we had received in France. And our only regret was that we weighed more.

The exhibition had crystallized in the minds of the delegation support for the modern art trend. Since its members were influential in many different areas of industry and the professions, they soon translated their new beliefs into action. Storewide exhibitions which demonstrated the influence of the exposition were held at Lord & Taylor's and Mercy's.

Cheney Brothers were moving into new headquarters occupying the lower floors of aa building at 34th Street and Fourth Avenue. Creange arranged for some Brandt ironwork, which had been the inspiration for the ferroniere silks, to decorate the new showrooms. We then planned inauguration ceremonies to dramatize the penetration of Brandt and other influences affecting art in industry in the U.S.

We organized an inauguration committee, representative of the groups we wanted to attend.

The combined forces of Cheney's financial

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and industrial contacts, and Creange's and our contacts, brought together an imposing list.

We listed the committee in the handsome fourpage invitation, with a color picture of the lovely Brandt ironwork doors tipped in on the front page. With the fulsome language of the period, it described these doors as "conceived in the spirit that animated Brandt's monumental contribution to the exposition of decorative modern industries, they blend warmth, delicacy and color, with the strength and massiveness of the metal; illumined at night, their mysterious beauty of design carries the charm of the distant ages metamorphosed into something new and dynamic by the vigorous contours of modernity with the strength and massiveness of the metal."

We sent invitations of the opening to 60 patrons of the arts. A protocol I prepared covered every detail from coatroom arrangement to the route of the guest tour of the building.

Adherence to detail makes an event. The big broad idea is of little value if the hats and coats are checked in a cul de sac from which people cannot retrieve them quickly when the event ends.

In 1927, four years after our start of the activity, we decided it might be safe to push an

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American artist and an American interpretation of art in industry. To be sure we were still attacking the problem obliquely. We weren't promoting an American design. We felt our public wasn't quite ready for that.

Creange had decreed that in 1927 colors instead of designs were to rule as the keynote for fashion. He asked me how I would dramatize out colors. I had seen the work of Georgia O'Keefe, a follower and student of Alfred Stieglitz, photographer, editor and author whose name had been linked with the gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue known as "291."

Young men and women, disciples of his, initiated the modern movement in photography and other arts. Stieglitz had become a living legend in his lifetime. A student of photography and chemistry at the University of B , he returned to New York in 1890, developed three-color photography and then founded several photographic publications and a photo organization.

Young artists flocked around him. Stieglitz nurtured them in many ways and encouraged them to express themselves.

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Georgia O'Keefe came to New York from the West. He discovered her. She painted flowers that had deep sexual symbolism, and western scenes. Her flowers were

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colorfully painted had no {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}without{end handwritten}{end inserted text} absolute definition. But they made the viewer feel he was looking into the mysteries of nature, of physical life and of significant forces of human existence. They created a furor.

People were talking about O'Keefe. She would be ideal to interpret Creange's colors. If Creange had always handled his activity logically, his colors would have stemmed from her work. But in this case we worked backwards -- created the interpretation after the colors of the silk had been created.

He enthusiastically accepted my suggestion that Georgia O'Keefe make five color plates for us -- her interpretation of his line. I would reproduce color plates from her paintings and we would use them in window displays, pamphlets and other promotional material. We would {ILLEGIBLE}

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I drove to the old Anderson Galleries at 59th Street and Park Avenue and walked upstairs. I found Georgia O'Keefe and Mr. Stieglitz sitting together in a large studio facing Park Avenue. Stieglitz was self-conscious, a dramatic looking figure. He had gray hair cut rather long, a slight build, a benign face. I had seen him out walking. He always wore an opera cape in the daytime and a black felt hat, round, with a flat crown. Nobody who had seen him once would fail to recognize him again. His bristly mustache was offset by his quiet face, so that it didn't appear to be bristly at all.

Miss O'keefe herself -- they married later -- had a brisk face that seemed to be highly polished. Her expression was immobile. I looked at her and remembered that I had her some days before walking down Park Avenue with a pair of trousers over her forearm, (they must have been his), taking them to a tailor. I told them why I had come. Both were astounded and remote. Mr. Stieglitz then went into a monologue deploring American society's treatment of artists, and especially of himself. He said he could not afford a studio for himself. I offered him a studio in my father's office building downtown. It was an offer I was reasonably sure he would not accept,

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for if he had, he would not have been able to deplore the fact that he had no studio and I was right. Miss O'Keefe said little.

I returned the conversation to our desire to have Georgia O'Keefe make five color designs for us. They said they would take the matter under advisement. Next day I telephoned. He told me she would be willing to paint five color placques--brown, red, gray, green and blue for $600.

Within the time specified they delivered the color placques. They were about twelve inches by twelve inches, on canvas, applied over a board. My first glance at them convinced me we had what we wanted. Creange and Cheney Brothers were delighted.

Folders impressed the O'Keefe color paintings on trade and public alike. The choice of the right colors set the fashionable woman apart. "The newest fall colors,' our Cheney folder said, "are certain subtle shadings of red, brown, blue, green and gray, specific shades new to fashion. So exquisite are these hues that a modern artist symbolizes their charm in a series of paintings."

"Swirls and strangely rounded forms" described the browns, "Like some part of the human body, like the curve of an ear. Or maybe autumn leaves or

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the brown of faded flowers." The brown to me represented "the bark of living trees or the rich or fruitful earth."

The blues, our folder said, looked like the "unfolding of many, many petals moving in undulating curves upwards and into themselves. They give a feeling of cool and restful serenity." The blue to me was "sailing on the Mediterranean or looking deep into a sapphire."

The greens in various shades seemed to express "the surging upward movement of all green things in curves, in angles and in ever changing shades."

The green was "spring or an enveloping river, the burgeoning grass or ocean water, or emeralds."

The grays were "more quiescent and in repose, a certain quiet and restrained quality."

The gray made me "feel as if I were lying on a lush grass meadow, or like seagulls moving against the sky or the grayness of a day in winter."

Some people said the O'Keefe symbol for the reds had the "restless fickle movement of flames." Others shuddered and thought they looked like the color of internal organs of some myserious kind. Others saw in it some reddish manifestation of nature. They didn't know justwhat. One salesman almost fainted.

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Others swore there were red germs moving under a microscope.

The red startled me. It showed the essence of life itself.

Altman's put th plaques in their Fifth Avenue window against a background of silks. Marshal Field's in Chicago showed them.

After we had finished with our showings, we stored the color paintings with letters in the files at Cheney headquarters at 34th Street and Madison Avenue as a proforma matter. Some months later, Stieglitz telephoned me. "Will you please return the paintings?" he said. I said, "What paintings?" He said, "Oh, the paintings Miss O'Keefe loaned you." I said, "Loaned us? Cheney Brothers paid for those paintings." Steiglitz said, "Oh, no, never. We gave you reproduction and lending rights." The paintings meant little to Cheney Brothers, keeping them was unimportant. It was not worth fighting for. The file clerk returned the paintings we had bought from Miss O'Keefe.

Put things in writing and avoid misunderstanding, I learned.

Creange returned from Paris in 1927 excited about a new painter who appealed to the haute monde,

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Kess Van Dongen. His modern portraits of chief Parisians flashed with vivid color. "Great bubbles of color, saffron yellow, fire red and violet, burst like magic waves upon a dark background," said one critic.

American women might find it equally exciting to wear silk that Van Dongen had inspired. Vicariously they would associate themselves with Parisian high life. Creange designed Van Dongen silks, inspired by the new modern painter.

We rented a studio at the Anderson Galleries, as with the O'Keefe opening. We showed Van Dongen paintings that inspired the silk and the derivative silk in draped hangings over the paintings. Before the showing we covered the art magazines and the art columns with material about him to build him up here. We sent a book about him to the art critics of the most important newspapers to encourage recognition of Van Dongen before the silk exhibit.

Now I tried to find other manufacturers willing to use Van Dongen for inspiration of their product.

I induced the Almco Galleries, lamp manufacturers, to make "lamps inspired by Kees Van Dongen, the French impressionistic genius whose influence has been so dominant in the world of modern art...."

They used Cheney silk shades or shades of parchment

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with the designs faithfully reproduced. Lamp departments in department stores distributed folders titled "Van Dongen expressed in Almco Lamps."

We persuaded Broadway publicity men to cooperate with us by having their stars wear gowns made with Van Dongen silk.

We sent the Van Dongen exhibit touring in art galleries through the country as far west as San Francisco. Leading department stores showed the silks with the panolly of promotion, newspaper advertisements and news space to mail to their customer.

In 1925 when I was in Paris, Ruth Harris, Paris art critic of the New York Times had introduced me to a young Hungarian painter, Ladislov Medgyes, who lived in a Latin Quarter attic. He did pleasant paintings of flowers and blew charming little Venetian glass animals as an avocation.

I liked Medgyes. He was friendly and personable and I enjoyed his fractured English. He made a meager living competing with hundreds of artists from all over the world who centered their activities in the Quarter.

Medgyes' glass animals, I thought, might be transformed into animals on silk. I suggested this to Creange. Creange accepted the idea.

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Before he came to the U. S. in 1927, we promoted a Medgyes exhibition in New York. We then exhibited the silk Medgyes had inspired. A Cheney broadside now went to the trade to emphasize his accomplishment and publicity value.

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In 1927 another {ILLEGIBLE} French artist, Marc Chagall, not as famous as he is now, inspired a new line of printed silks, delightful and spritely floral patterns. The flowers seemed warm, colorful and gaily arranged in provocative designs that would seem to bring them right into your spirit. Our {ILLEGIBLE} Van Dongen {ILLEGIBLE} exhibition had been so successful that we tried to repeat. Chagall's paintings were exhibited at an art gallery opening, draped with silk he inspired. Today I wish I had bought some of these beautiful flower paintings. But at the time the strategy of projecting new ideas effectively meant more to me than ownership of even Chagall's paintings.

The consistent pattern of art in industry and style leadership Cheney {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}had{end handwritten}{end inserted text} followed over the next {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}preceding{end handwritten}{end inserted text} few years made {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}was making{end handwritten}{end inserted text} its impact. People were looking to Cheney for leadership in beauty and style. The firm was receiving the accolades it wanted and now deserved. Cheney Brothers, the stodgy old New England firm, {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}had{end handwritten}{end inserted text} became Cheney Brothers,

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the great fashion house that combined the best features of Paris and New York. We had proved the validity of our three phase approach and the effectiveness of dramatizing the launching of new styles.

Creange had not remained unaffected by the to-do. His restlessness and eagerness remained with him. He was achieving his ambition and basking in the reflected glory of his own kudos.

As for myself, I saw continuing proof that overt actions that jutted out of the routine changed attitudes and behavior.

Cheney Brothers promotions were now so well established that trade, public, editors, expected new drama from us just as they would new ideas from a book publisher or new plays from a theatrical producer. And we did not disappoint them. In October of 1927, Creange introduced Cheney crystals, exquisitely sophisticated silk, inspired by the glass flowers sponsored by leading dressmaking establishments of Paris -- Chanel, Worth, Lanvin and others. These flowers served as inspiration for floral designs.

By now the country was following these new ideas of ours closely. As an example, the Sunday Journal of Dayton, Ohio, of October 8, 1927, used three ecstatic columns to describe the crystal silks. I

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pondered about what it was that made these silks so newsworthy. It seemed to me that human beings went to see more than their unaided eyes reveal to them and that some unusual method has to be used to help them achieve their desire.

If these silks had simply had glass designs on them, the public would have accepted them in terms of what they saw. But as soon as they knew that these glass designs had been inspired by the fashionable glass flowers of the famous dressmakers, that was another matter. They saw a great deal more.

With leadership in fashion so well established, we could explore other fields. I felt for a long time that clothes were so intimately a part of a child's life that I wondered whether something might not be done to relate them more intelligently to the psychological needs of the child. I carried on a survey among psychologists to tell us what they thought about relationship of clothes to the idea of play.

"Possibly," our letter read, "we could transfer a child's interest in animals or flowers to clothes. Should we have a colored design of a fish or elephant on a dress or some floral figures?" We raised the question as to what thoughts the design stimulated in the child. Why couldn't we make a psychological study at some school to pursue the matter? And that is just

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What we did.

The release we sent to the newspapers after the experiment was over tells the story:
"An experiment was made recently in the Larchmont Public School with children from kindergarten age to twelve years, to get their reactions on different types of designs, colors, etc. in connection with wearing apparel. The tests were supervised by Edna Brend Mann, director of the Child Welfare Department of Success Magazine and on the Speaker's Bureau of the Child Study Association of America. While the experiments were primarily made with girls, the votes of some boys were taken as an interesting sidelight.
"For the tests the "Toyshop" series of Cheney silks, including all-over designs of small elephants, ducks, fish, orange trees, clovers, bowknots, etc., was used,; and several staple designs which had no pictorial meaning. The staples included polka dots. The small children from four to seven, overwhelmingly chose Toyshop, and strangely, 50% chose the fish design and 25% the duck design. The only connection between these two choices was that both the fish and dusks swan in water, though we have not been able to attach any psychological significance to this. The third choice was the elephant design.

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"It was brought out that the small children had no discrimination on the basis of the artistic merit of the design, but chose completely on a pictorial basis and naturally reacted more strongly to pictures than to polka dots and the other conventional designs. At the age of seven there appears to be a definite break away from animals to conventional floral designs, such as clover, but the choice is still with the very staple type of design rather than the more elaborate designs that are seen in grown-up's dresses. The trend toward conservatism becomes developed as the children grown older. Perhaps it is the age of self-consciousness that makes them wish to avoid appearing conspicuous."

These comments were interesting news, but we thought we should go further and sent them to leaders in psychology for their comment. John B. Watson, at that time with J. Walter Thompson, wrote us:
"I think you have struck a very interesting line. In addition to the kind of work you are doing on color and design I wish somebody would begin to study the problem of designing clothes which are suitable for young infants to wear. I have raised my general objection to infants' clothing in some articles for McCall's Magazine . These articles begin to appear in September."

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Creange did follow up with a children's pattern based on the Noah's Ark motif so that there might be a tie up with the toy department, book department and children's dress department. But when I suggestion that animals be made in the modern spirit done by modern artists, they felt that was a bit too much for them.

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