The Business Of Decoration Previous Page (36)
This, of course, is a very unenviable reputation for any group of men or women to possess, and it would certainly be a great accomplishment if the decorators could collectively get before the public a little truth about the matter. Not possessing a recognized professional standing and being, as most good decorators admit, essentially men of business, we cannot assume the exalted attitude of the architect, but we can call attention to some very salient facts. First of all, practically no interior decorator has ever become rich, at least not really rich in the sense that all sorts of men in other fields of activity have. The ten decorators doing the largest amount of work in the country cannot be compared in any possible way financially with the hundred men selling the largest amount of merchandise in any one of a hundred other branches of work.
A large part of the public still feels that interior decoration is chiefly a matter of bluff and that the decorator does not furnish much genuine service in addition to his merchandise. My own conviction, based upon an acquaintance with practically all the best known decorators in New York, is that there is
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A useful and decorative tidbit for the boudoir: a draped dressing table in taffeta, with two side cabinets of glass with gilded woodwork, and two basket effect wall brackets, all with a Louis XVI suggestion.
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Six table lamps and shades,
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DUTIES AND DIFFICULTIES43
no group of business men anywhere who supply an equal amount of service without any charge, in connection with the same amount of business. In what other type of shop can you spend a few thousand dollars and secure the amount of attention that you command at the decorator's? What other merchant will offer the voluminous designs modified and remodi-fied to suit your fancy that the decorator does? Who else will ransack the city for fabrics and small objects of a hundred kinds on which the profit is nominal in order to make your interior a success? The proof of the matter is to be found in the fact that the decorator employs more help and more specially trained help than probably any other type of business man doing an equal volume of work.
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Bed In A Bag Sets Books - The Business Of Decoration
