Opportunity Knocks in Curtain and Drapery Sales
In comparison, the chain's drapery business increased only 2% to 4% last year, hurt by the new popular curtain and hard window treatments, he said. Going forward, though, the chain is inserting new patterns and styles in drapery to excite the business, like a foam back textured drape in new pastel colors.If Caswell is remembered at all today it is for his popular anthology of autograph poems, Canadian Singers and their Songs (1902).(f.3) Yet, during his lifetime he was considered "[o]ne of the best living authorities on Canadian literature."(f.4) Because of his advocacy and promotion of Canadian writers, Bookseller and Stationer, the Canadian book-trade paper of the day, suggested in 1908 that he should "qualify as the patron saint of many struggling Canadian authors."(f.5) In his heyday his literary network included, among others, Catharine Parr Traill, William Wilfred Campbell, Charles Mair, Mary Agnes FitzGibbon, Ethelwyn Wetherald, John W. Garvin, Katherine Hale, Robert Service, J.D. Logan, Marshall Saunders, Nellie McClung and Agnes Laut.The priscilla assortment is now being expanded 20% at Zayre with the addition of 12 sku's, following a 25% increase in sales in that category, said Crowley.The Connecticut-based chain is supporting the upgraded merchandise program with a new department layout and fixturing, due in all of its stores by fall.The fast pace and small budgets of those days taught Ford to film quickly with a minimum number of setups, using stationary cameras. He rarely employed close-ups or a moving camera, but he had an exact sense of framing and composition. Likewise, he rarely shot anything that wasn't necessary to construct the final film; it was sometimes said that all an editor needed to do on a Ford film was string together the day's clips."Caldor, for example, in its pursuit of a higher end curtain business targeted at the department store shopper, has added a priscilla program by a department store resource that previously wouldn't sell to them, said divisional merchandise manager William Hannafin.II"We think our curtain and drapery business is a tremendous opportunity for us. As department stores one by one walk away from it, we are trading up our assortments,' said Caldor's Hannafin. "I think there's a big piece of business out there that's up for grabs.'Despite the infusion of new styling, most chain buyers agreed their basic business remained in tiers and, especially in New England region stores, Cape Cod curtains. The most popular colors continue to be in neutrals like white, off-white and pale blue."We're in the process of upgrading our assortments from a styling point of view, yet we're walking, not running,' said Crowley. "We believe our customer is more price conscious than style conscious.'From 1930 to World War II, Ford often made three or more features a year; his work included Arrowsmith (1931), The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941). Ford entered the Navy in 1941 and spent the war years as head of the Field Photographic Unit, which he had formed. (He filmed The Battle of Midway in 1942.) After the war, Ford would make more than 30 more films, including My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), The Last Hurrah (1958) and Donovan's Reef (1963). He shot his last film, Seven Women, in 1966. All told, he directed more than 130 films.Discounters have found a window of opportunity in curtain and drapery sales.The elder Caswell's clerical calling kept the family on the move in Ontario, successively taking it to London, Toronto, Middleton, Cavan, Ancaster, Ashfield and Lucknow. Educated in public schools and by private study, in 1878 Edward joined the staff of Lucknow's local newspaper, the Sentinel, a typical four-page weekly containing a standard mixture of news, advertising, poetry and serial fiction. Its anonymously authored articles obscure whether Caswell contributed to its pages or was solely engaged in learning the printing trade; however, he was acknowledged as an occasional contributor to the Sentinel in later years.(f.9)Photo: Caldor's newest curtain and drapery presentation, seen here in Levittown, N.Y. (top) imitates the at-home effect and emphasizes new looks in valences and ties. Gemco's Duarte, Calif. store (right) features a display of priscilla curtains overPlexiglas bins. Ames' presentation (bottom) is more traditional, with prepacked merchandise stocked below displays.John Ford was born Sean Aloysius Feeney (or O'Feeney, among other spellings) in 1895, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, just a few miles down the coast from Portland. His father, Sean (or John) Feeney, and his mother, Barbara Curran, had come separately to America from Ireland. Feeney senior owned several saloons in Portland, and the family was modestly prosperous - "lace-curtain Irish."The chain recently added a balloon treatment and a tier decorated with antique-look bows from Howard Curtain. In Cape Cod tiers, the chain's best-selling style, the color palette was broadened to include corn silk, mauve and ginger hues.Zayre is broadening its color palette in curtain panels and tiers, and is adding more decorative tiers, said buyer Leo Crowley. The chain, though, is reluctant to push up ceiling price points until it measures consumer reaction to the new assortment additions.Other chains like Gee Bee and Ames--which redesigned their departments over a year ago--are expanding colors and styles in top treatments and priscilla assortments. Ames is also seeking to speed turns by lowering its stock level and increasing reorder frequency, said buyer John Ferry.This new look includes, for example, replacing curtain tables with a cube system which features dressed display frames and color sorted merchandise stackouts. The decision to take the new look chainwide follows a successful six-store test which the chain has been conducting for most of the last year.Along with the new curtain and drapery assortment, the chain is preparing to roll out this fall a redesigned department that has already been tested in six Caldor stores, said Hannafin.At their best, Ford's movies are lifted out of the realm of the ordinary by this sensitivity to the complexity of life. That he works large themes so unaffectedly into his stories and tells those stories so well visually makes his films, for all their flaws, truly outstanding.Ford's elder brother Francis left Maine around 1900 for New York and the theater, where he began to work with Gaston Melies, a director who made western serials. Francis changed his last name to Ford and lost contact with his family. In 1909, when Melies moved his enterprise to California, Francis went with him, becoming part of the new movie industry.At Ames, buyer Ferry also sees growth opportunity from the insertion of color as fashion appeal. Overall, Ferry projects department sales will increase 8% to 10% on a comparable store basis. The mix includes knitted ninon panels in six colors and Cape Cod curtains in seven colors. Ferry said he included lilac and gray in the mix.Egan noted other chains set tier action price points in the $3.99 to $5.99 range. But at Caldor, the bulk of the tier business is at $9.99. The chain does offer one tier at an opening price point of $4.99, "just so we don't tell the customer she can't come in.'Most of Ford's earliest films were shot without scripts. He and Carey would sit up nights making up the narrative between them, then shoot it the next day. Although Ford later would work with writers, he almost always exercised control over the script, frequently using only parts of it or simplifying it for his purposes.In 1881 he moved to Toronto and the Methodist Book and Publishing House. A diverse operation variously engaged in commercial printing, retail and wholesale bookselling, and periodical and book publishing, the MBPH's publications included the church's weekly newspaper the Christian Guardian, a number of Sunday school periodicals and the monthly Canadian Methodist Magazine, a journal devoted to the "promotion of religion, literature, and social progress." Caswell joined the House's employ just two years into the distinguished 40-year tenure of Reverend William Briggs (1836-1922) as book steward (general manager). Two literary nationalists, the Reverends E.H. Dewart (1828-1903) and W.H. Withrow (1839-1908), were also in place as the House's official editors--the former looking after the Christian Guardian and the latter the Canadian Methodist Magazine and the Sunday school periodicals. In 1864 Dewart and established a place of historical sigficance for himself by publishing the colony's first anthology of poetry, Selections from Canadian Poets. His determination "to rescue from oblivion some of the floating pieces of Canadian authorship worthy of preservation in a more permanent form; and to direct the attention of my fellow-countrymen to the claims of Canadian poetry" marked out his personal commitment to raising awareness of literary achievement in the colony.(f.10) For his part, Withrow was a prolific author of biography, travel writing, fiction and history, and was highly regarded by his contemporaries. Like Dewart, he was committed to nurturing a national literature for Canada. In the initial editorial of the Canadian Methodist Magazine in 1875 he set forth as one of his objectives the publication of articles which would "have a distinctly national flavour"; they would, he asserted, reflect "an indigenous growth" and be "racy of the soil."(f.11) Dewart and Withrow's belief in Canadian literature struck a responsive chord in the young Caswell, encouraging him in his own strongly patriotic and nationalistic feelings.Still other critics distrust Ford's reverence for military honor and discipline - evident in films such as They Were Expendable (1945) - and feminists do not like his handling of women and relationships. Ford does have strong female characters in his films, but their strengths and their lives invariably are expressed in terms of their children (especially their sons) and husbands - they have no independent existence. (The possible exception is The Wings of Eagles, in which Wayne and O'Hara develop a subtle and nuanced relationship.) More appreciative commentators such as Lindsay Anderson describe Ford as a split personality - embracing simplicity and realism, but deliberately expressionist in style.Neglect of Caswell is due, in large part, to the lack of mention accorded him in the published histories of The Ryerson Press. Until very recently, Lorne Pierce's celebratory volumes, The Chronicle of a Century (1929) and The House of Ryerson 1829-1954 (1954), and the introduction to W. Stewart Wallace's check-list The Ryerson Imprint (1954), have served as the Press's most authoritative records.(f.6) Focusing attention on the official book stewards and editors--that is, the prominent clergymen elected by the church conference-these studies fail to acknowledge the contributions of non-clerical employees. While the need for brevity was likely a consideration for both Pierce and Wallace (The House of Ryerson was 52 pages long and Wallace's introduction a scant seven pages), Pierce's personal acquaintance with former employees such as Caswell and S.B. Gundy, and his access to oral and written recollections of those affiliated with the House, make his passing and inadequate reference to such figures conspicuous and disappointing.(f.7)Back in Cape Elizabeth, young Ford gained admission to the University of Maine but either didn't enroll or stayed only three weeks, according to different accounts. His mother had seen Francis on the big screen at a local theater, and his father tracked down his lost son through a production company. When Francis returned in triumph to Maine, John caught Hollywood fever. He left for Los Angeles in July 1914, going to work for his brother, who had begun to make his mark as a director of silent westerns.Many category buyers expected sales to increase by as much as 10% this year, with most of those sales to be generated from tiers, priscillas and top treatments like balloon
valances. These looks, they add, are often being used to soften and adorn the stark look of hard window treatments like the popular mini- and micro-mini-blinds.At Zayre, Crowley expected curtain and drapery sales to increase by 10% on a comparable store basis this year. This should come mostly from an expansion into more fashion goods in certain categories, like priscillas, and from a broadening of color offerings.
Photo: Caldor's newest curtain and drapery presentation, seen here in Levittown, N.Y. (top) imitates the at-home effect and emphasizes new looks in valences and ties. Gemco's Duarte, Calif. store (right) features a display of priscilla curtains overPlexiglas bins. Ames' presentation (bottom) is more traditional, with prepacked merchandise stocked below displays.
