The Business Of Decoration Previous Page (21)
- A DISCUSSION on this topic was held by the Society of Interior Decorators, which contains most of the recognized and largest interior decorators in New York, and whatever effect it may have had on the rest, I must say that it thoroughly clarified my mind and convinced me that, however far we have advanced above the furniture dealers and upholsterers of thirty years ago, we are still very definitely business and not professional men.
It is undoubtedly true that many decorators could qualify as to their ability to furnish a high order of professional decorative advice. Many of them have had the best training that the world affords and have not ceased this training with the end of their college course or with their few years at the Beaux Arts, or even with subsequent travels in France and Italy and England, but have continued studying and reading all their lives; they are men highly equipped and highly talented, some of them with a wide range of information on the subject of structural problems, color, the historic periods, and all phases of manufacture. As individuals they may be far more highly developed than men in other fields whose labors are exclusively professional, yet the service that they render as interior
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BUSINESS MAN OR A PROFESSIONAL 27
decorators is a business man's service primarily and fundamentally, for they buy and sell goods for profit. That is, after all, the keynote of difference between the business man and the professional man.
The lawyer sells only his professional services supplemented by that of his office force. He does not supply his clients with law books bought at wholesale in quantities and retailed individually. He does not sell the paper on which his pleas are written nor charge a profit on the separate items of cost that go to make up his work. The reputable allopath does not any longer deal in the purchase or sale of medicines. The architect, likewise, according to the standards of the American Institute of Architects, ceases to be a professional man when he sells anything to his client except on an agreed-upon percentage which applies to the work done under him, or when he accepts a commission from any one other than his client.
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Bed In A Bag Sets Books - The Business Of Decoration
