“Oh me oh my….oh yes!”, Gladys exclaimed as she looked at her adorable and adoring self in full length..
“This peach is perfect with this wine rose silk…mouth watering, even if I do say so myself!”
Gladys always felt she was the author of her own “look”, her personal appearance, her curated Self, the one she took daily and moment to moment pleasure in every time she walked out her butlered and portico- ed front door.
Gladys was a production. More to the point, Gladys was a production number, complete with melodic score, from head to toe, perfect hemline to each intricately pressed pleat of her cunning skirts, of which she had a closet full, since clothing -or Costume, as she preferred to think of all the wearable fabric in her life : since Costume was Gladys, and Gladys was Costume! Every little nothing meant a special little something ( as the popular song lyric of the day went, or something like that…she never really listened to the words, only danced to the tune)), and Gladys was a joyous curator of detail, in life as well as in art…..her art…the art of being gorgeous.
Gladys had been raised to be beautiful.
And the efforts had been entirely successful, totally productive, flawlessly achieved.: Gladys was the front page beauty of her day, the irresistible eye candy of the Roaring ‘20’s scene, every man’s desired date for a successful Saturday night at The Sugar House, The Cotton Club, The Stork, The 23 Skidoo, or at the Follies Bergere, depending on what city you happened to be in that night .
Gladys was portable. She was everywhere, went everywhere. And she never paid her own way.
Her fun beauty, peerless sense of what to wear and how to wear it, demanded that others always pay .
And so they did.
Not that Gladys Richmond Morgenflower needed others to pay her way, since her Daddy’s vast fortune kept her in silk stockings and jeweled chemises, but her sense of self, her knowledge of her worth, expected that others’ money pave her highways into Society. That was her job. That was how she made her world and her appreciative Daddy’s world work: Gladys as commodity. Gladys as the ultimate investment. Vestment. Perfect word matching her love , here need, for superlative clothing……costliest shoes…..rarest of perfumes….and most clear cut of jewels.
She was taught when she was a baby that the word “ glad” , to be totally happy, rejoicing in life’s gifts…that that exact word came from her name. Her Daddy told her he demanded that the then President make the word official on the day his little pea pod was born: Gladys Day,,,,,the day that “ glad” was born!
Of course he never met any President, much less demanded anything of the sort, but that did not stop her believing that she was the reason people experienced happiness, felt Gladness, celebrated Life.
All she had to do was wear the right shoes, the sweetest flow of satin and velvet, the ideal ruby, and make sure people saw everything each time she appeared in public .
Her job…that was her job.
She liked it.