Women at a recent showing in Sophie Gimbel's dress salon at Saks Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, may have wondered what the three burly men on the front-row love seat were doing in such svelte surroundings. Obviously, they didn't belong there.

The three were TIME Senior Editor Joseph Purtell, Business writer William Miller, and Robert Boyd, TIME'S picture editor. They were there for a final checkup before doing the Sophie Gimbel cover story (TIME, Sept. 15) on women's fashions and the New Look. As far as the three of them were concerned, the showing went off without a hitch--except for a passing remark by Boyd that one of the elegantly organized models' slip was showing. It turned out that it was a lace-trimmed petticoat--and it was supposed to show.

For all, this was the end of a careful, lengthy investigation of the fashion industry. Since Mme. Schiaparelli appeared on TIME'S cover in the issue of August 13, 1934, no fashion designer had landed there. Early last summer, however, it appeared to Purtell, who keeps his eye on the world of fashion, that the new styles were about to become big news. Obviously, that was a Business story. After a candid examination of the industry, Designer Sophie Gimbel was chosen to illuminate what fashion was up to this time. The cover was scheduled for September, the month that ushers in the new fall styles.

To get ready for it, Purtell and Miller frequently visited Sophie's workshop across the street from the TIME & LIFE Building and watched each step in the manufacture of her "creations." Says Purtell: "It was much easier than, say, trying to learn all about the auto industry in six easy lessons." Soon Miller was able to remark to Sophie with some assurance: "That's Italian satin, isn't it?" and to hear her reply: "You're learning fast."

With editor and writer decided on how the story should be handled, Researcher Mary Elizabeth Fremd took over. Unlike her male confreres, she was on familiar, everyday ground. After reading a mound of material on fashion's past, she set out to investigate its present--from Sophie's Fifth Avenue salon to Nettie Rosenstein's ("they call it showroom in this neck of the woods") among the pushcarts on Seventh Avenue. In examining the mechanism that was creating the New Look, she quickly concluded that "I definitely had the Old Look."

One question she tried, and failed, to get the right answer to is: Who are they?-- the fabulous anonymities people refer to in saying, "This is what they are wearing." Was it Mrs. Harrison Williams, Wallis Windsor, the French designers, the Sophie Gimbels? Finally, she asked Sophie: "Are you a they?" Said Sophie: "We'll soon know. If I can resist the very long skirt trend, I'll be sure of it."

Researcher Fremd "ahed" and "ohed" over dresses with many of Sophie's customers, ate corn-on-the-cob (grown in the garden of their country home) at the Gimbel home on East 64th Street, talked with some 60 experts in the fashion industry, of whom, she estimates, 40 contributed directly to the cover story. One of the editors' concerns was to reduce the feminine double-talk of fashion to the language of a TIME business story. That meant finding out enough about the subject to be able to explain even the most esoteric points to Writer Miller. In the end, she turned in 69 pages of research, a record for TIME researchers.

The incident that pleased her most was a pleasant conversation with Sophie's mother, Mrs. Carrie McLeay. After discoursing informatively about her daughter for an hour, Mrs. McLeay turned to Miss Fremd and said: "And now, my dear, what about our interview? When shall we have it?" Said Researcher Fremd, beaming: "We just had it."

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