Stout Women

Lane Bryant, dressmaker made rich by the stout women she has dressed stylishly, addresses her customers intimately: "On most subjects I prefer to speak modestly, for there is so much in life that is yet to be learned, so much that is yet to be done.

"But there is one subject on which I feel it is my duty to speak emphatically-- and so, with all the emphasis I am able to command, I wish to repeat--of course we can fit you!

"My assistants and myself have studied every type of stout figure, and so, whether you are tall or short, whether you are large in the bust, with small hips, or small in the bust, with large hips, whatever your figure, we know we can fit you. . . .

"No matter what your proportions may be, we have models which will give you an air of modish slenderness--and which we know will fit you.

"The organization which I have built in these 27 years is today the foremost in the world, and is the largest in the world devoted exclusively to the study of the full figure and to the service of stout women. . . ."

Proud now as well as modest is Lane Bryant. Also is she potent in women's wear.

But 27 years ago a meagre, slight dress maker, she crouched with pins in her mouth at the feet of a fat woman. The client was standing on a low fitting-stool, and from her rotund torso hung the drapes of a negligee that stubbornly would not seem stylish. Dressmaker Lane Bryant sat back on her heels and studied the paunchiness; she stood up and walked meditatively around it. She saw where she could alter the hang, and, stooping over, with swift fingers pinned folds here, there. The negligee fit smartly. Lane Bryant slipped it off her customer; basted it; stitched it quickly. And her home work room -- hung with the musty odor of thread, cloth and warm flat-irons -- became the core of seven large and busy specialty stores -- hung with the musty odor of face-powder, perfume and new clothes.

For Lane Bryant, dressmaker, had a shrewd idea that appealed from its start to all women of ample figure. Says she: "It was my firm belief that fashion was slighting such women, was making smart dressing difficult for them. Merely supplying 'large sizes' of current styles was entirely wrong. What the woman of ample figure wanted, what I feel she must have, was a redesigning, a restyling of current fashions along slenderizing, beautifying lines. That was the simple idea that prompted me. . . . That is the idea which is today carried out in every garment we make."

"We" were first Lane Bryant and her husband, one Malsin, dead these four or five years. Miss Lane Bryant, dressmaker, made negligees for fat women; Mrs. Lane Bryant Malsin, dressmaker, made garments to "conceal the condition" [of ma- ternity]. Lane Bryant, Inc., with stores in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore and Chicago, make fashions "which slenderize and flatter your figure . . . sizes 36 to 58 bust. . . ."

And 850,000 weighty women last year sought out those seven stores. Saleswomen, robust like themselves, and no chits, give them courteous attention. They dare try on dresses without the fear of splitting sleeve-seams or waistbands. They can slip into dresses without standing on tiptoe to draw their hips narrower.

Purveying such special wear for fat women brought the stores--during the eleven months ending April 30, $10,299,566 business. The net profits, slim, were $363,588.

Such income and earnings provided "window dressing" for refinancing Lane Bryant, Inc.'s capital structure. President Harry Liverman of the Corporation and Mrs. Lane Bryant Malsin (second vice- president), her eldest son Raphael B. Malsin (secretary),-- and others, the middle of May notified the Secretary of State of Delaware that the company had increased the number of its no-par-value shares from 50,000 to 150,000.

And last week two investment banking houses (Merrill, Lynch & Co. and Kelly, Converse & Co.) were preparing to sell the public $1,500,000 of preferred stock in this specialized fat women's wear corporation.

*She has another son at Yale; a son and a daughter in high school. They all live in a tidy home at Mt. Vernon, N.Y.