The Business Of Decoration Previous Page (37)
And now comes the question as to how the decorator's prices compare with those of frankly commercial shops, department stores and the like. This is important for the public to know and it seems to me that the public should be informed by the decorators collectively, for the fact is that in a surprising number of cases the interior decorator receives and asks less for at least as good merchandise as can be found elsewhere. Some of the department stores and strictly furniture shops have in the past few years added to their stocks a number of really fine hand-made pieces of furniture, lamps and incidental decorations. I have almost without exception found that they charge more for these really good pieces than the decorators do, and naturally they are neither equipped for nor desirous of furnishing the amount of service that the decorator does. Even the antique dealers are frequently less
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44INTERIOR DECORATING
expensive than the one or two department stores dealing in antiques.
The commercial future of the decorator evidently depends upon convincing the public that it pays to employ decorators. That is the only hope of making the business a thoroughly sound undertaking which will appeal to a very large number of people. Many a decorator today is a highly gifted and capable person, both as an artist and as a man of business, yet his clientele is circumscribed and he can reach only a tiny percentage of the public. His ideas, his designs are executed once or twice and then set aside, and only a few friends of the fortunate recipients know of the fine work which his organization is able to perform. The effort of such a man must naturally tend toward the achieving of a wider and wider public; not only those few who are personally recommended to him by his clients but the real public, the great thousands and tens of thousands throughout the country who are able to have beautiful homes and who are willing to enjoy them.
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