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Many people will prefer to use this rather than to wait for an elevator, especially if it is centrally located with a generous curving balustrade at the bottom and if it is broken half way up with a landing from which ascend two half staircases, one at either side. An example of this is shown, and it not only adds to the interest of the front half of the lower floor, but acts as a dividing point between the front and the rear, which are differently
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THE DECORATION OF SHOPS 109
designed, in widely separated periods and color treatments, the front being used for the display of hats, the rear for furs, while the second floor is given over to gowns.
Since so many of our modistes have rented what were formerly private residences and have occupied them without much structural alteration, it has become quite common to receive the public in a series of separate rooms, each decorated after its own fashion and without a too commercial appearance. The merchandise is not displayed until it is called for and the rooms have somewhat the appearance which they might have if no business at all were conducted in them, except perhaps for a rather superfluous supply of variegated chiffon curtaining which is usually in evidence, and less frequently what seems to us men a needlessly riotous collection of French flowers. But this employment of real rooms, individually designed, is a very vast improvement on the still customary commercial loft, and even an existing loft can be divided into rooms that give an excellent effect. One wholesaler possesses a series of three oval chambers leading into one another, the center one a mass of soft colors and the two end ones kept in a neutral tone and a conservative design.
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