Carriage Trade (2 page)

Not Without His Critics

Such personalized and idiosyncratic storekeeping earned Silas Tarkington his share of critics, however. “The so-called Tarkington philosophy is nothing but a gimmick,” said a Fifth Avenue retailer who asked not to be identified. “It's a gimmick to get women to buy on the basis of cost, not on the basis of quality or brand name. Since a lot of his suppliers, both on Seventh Avenue and in Europe, create special lines just for Si Tarkington, he gets his so-called ‘Ours Alone' label. It's impossible to tell what his markup is, though I'm sure it's more than the normal 50 to 60 percent. I've seen merchandise in his store that seemed to me ridiculously overpriced. But he's created this mythical aura that if it's from Tarkington's it's got to be the best, and his customers have fallen for it. He's made it chic for a woman to be ripped off. It's a gimmick that worked in the spendthrift 80's, but it will be interesting to see how it works in the belt-tightening 90's. Also, it will be interesting to see what happens now that Si is gone.”

Indeed, there is already much speculation in the fashion industry as to who will succeed the founder. “He
was
the store,” one longtime employee told
The Times
today. “Nobody could do the things he did. His personal touch was everywhere.” Often cited was his habit of telephoning favorite customers to say, “Darling, I have something new in from Paris that I want you to be absolutely the first to see.” There were customers who insisted on being waited on by Mr. Tarkington personally and would accept help from no other salesperson. Though the store never opened in the evenings, closing its doors promptly at 5 P.M., an hour earlier than most New York retail establishments, favored customers were given special keys so they could enter the store after hours and shop undisturbed. The late Greta Garbo was known to do this; Miss Garbo was often seen leaving Tarkington's late at night with an armload of garments to try on at home. Those she decided against were picked up by a store messenger the following morning. The store received some unwanted publicity in 1987 when the
Daily News
reported that Miami socialite Mrs. Curtis LeMosney returned a $15,000 ball gown to Tarkington's a full two years after she had purchased it, demanding a refund. Mrs. LeMosney received credit for the cost of the gown.

Specially favored female customers were also invited to use Tarkington's sumptuously decorated fitting and dressing rooms to change clothes for dinner and the theater. In these dressing rooms, cocktails and light snacks were served by a maid in a black uniform with white apron and cap. How many of these small personal touches will be retained by whoever succeeds Mr. Tarkington is a much-discussed question. It has long been assumed that Mr. Tarkington's hand-picked successor was Thomas E. Bonham III, the store's executive vice president and general manager, who has been with the company since 1970. Mr. Bonham, 44, a neighbor of the Tarkingtons on Long Island, reached at his home, was asked whether he would be Tarkington's next president. “That's an inappropriate question at this time,” Mr. Bonham told
The Times
. “No one can replace Si Tarkington.” Mr. Bonham declined further comment, beyond adding that the store will be closed today in the founder's honor.

“Last of the Dinosaurs”

Others emphasized the unique role that Silas Tarkington played in New York retailing. “He was the last of the dinosaurs,” said Eliza McCamber, president of the New York Fashion Group. “In my lifetime, I've seen the demise of any number of great specialty and department stores. Altman's is gone, Bonwit's is gone, Best's is gone, DePinna and Arnold Constable and Franklin Simon are all gone. I can remember when the Gimbel family owned Gimbels, the Strauses owned Macy's, and Andrew Goodman owned Bergdorf-Goodman. Now they're all parts of chains and not nearly as good as they once were. The personal touch is missing. And Saks, which was also run by the Gimbel family, now belongs to the Sultan of Dubai!”

Adding to the feeling that Tarkington's was run as a kind of paternalistic oligarchy was the fact that, in addition to their Long Island home, Mr. Tarkington and his wife maintained a 22-room duplex apartment on the top two floors of the Fifth Avenue store. Because New York building codes prohibit anyone other than a janitor to live in a building where dressmaking or manufacturing takes place, Mr. Tarkington and his wife are listed in the city registry as “janitor” and “janitress.” “It made it such a cozy place to work,” said one longtime employee, “with the boss and his wife living over the store.”

Mysterious Origins

And yet, for all his fame and fortune, Silas Tarkington remained an elusive, even mysterious figure. Very little about his actual origins is known. In 1956 he seemed to appear from nowhere, full-blown, on the New York fashion scene. That was the year when, using capital from an unknown source, Silas Tarkington purchased the old Truxton S. Van Degan mansion on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, which was about to be razed. Initially, Mr. Tarkington used the various rooms in the mansion to lease small boutiques to other fashion retailers, retaining only the former foyer of the house for his own operations. Then, gradually, he took over these leases. Even today, the store's floor plan creates the feeling of walking from one small boutique to another.

In 1967, needing more selling space, Mr. Tarkington added considerably to his store by building an L-shaped addition to the mansion's northeast corner, an area that had originally contained the Van Degans' carriage house and gardens. This move aroused the ire of preservationists, who argued that the addition destroyed the mansion's setting and scale. However, since the mansion had never been given Landmark status, Mr. Tarkington was able to proceed with his plan.

“He was the most gracious and charming of men,” said a former associate who asked not to be identified, “but at the same time he was a man of mystery. He never talked about his youth or early days. That was part of his fascination.” Not even Mr. Tarkington's exact age at the time of his death is known, though he was assumed to be in his early to mid 70's. He studiously avoided the press and successfully resisted the efforts of a number of would-be biographers, sticking only to the scanty facts published in his company's 1975 “official” corporate history.

That corporate history,
Only the Best
, omits the founder's date and place of birth, his parents' names, and other vital statistics. The corporate history merely speaks of the founder's “Horatio Alger-like rise from poverty to fame and fortune.”

Because so few hard facts are known, gossip and rumors about the man behind the facade have proliferated over the years. It has been said, for instance, that Silas Tarkington was not his original name. It has also been rumored that at some point in his career he had underworld connections, but no proof has been offered to back these allegations.

An Aloof Executive

As an executive, Mr. Tarkington was so aloof as to be almost invisible at times, making his presence known only through terse memoranda. “He was always very courtly and attentive with his special lady clients—and we were always to call them ‘clients,' never ‘customers',” said Mrs. Estelle Winfield, a longtime Tarkington's salesperson, “but when he walked through the store there was never much more than a polite nod to any of us. His office door was usually closed, and often no one was sure whether he was in there or not. Or we'd think he was there, and we'd find out he was actually in Paris or Rome or Tokyo, scouting new designers. One day he suddenly appeared with an armload of the most beautiful hand-knit sweaters I'd ever seen and plopped them on my counter. ‘Where did these come from, Mr. Si?' I asked him. ‘I brought them back with me from New Zealand last night,' he said. New Zealand! We didn't even know he'd been out of town.

“And the apartment! That was a really mysterious place. None of us was ever invited up there. I don't think even Mr. Bonham was ever there. The apartment was kind of a secret, sacred place, just for Mr. and Mrs. Tarkington.”

“A Shy Man”

“I think my father was essentially a shy man,” his daughter, Miranda, 24, told
The Times
today. “I think he enjoyed the perks that went with being rich and powerful, and having rich and powerful clients, but he never got used to being in the limelight. He hated it when flashbulbs went off.”

Indeed, Mr. Tarkington was famously averse to being photographed. Though he often spoke in public, he did so only after being assured that no cameras would be allowed in the room. And when he and his wife appeared at social functions and cameras appeared, he frequently nudged his somewhat taller wife to the front, saying, “Photograph her, she's the beautiful one, not me.” He once declared, “I see no value in personal publicity,” and for news stories concerning him he usually insisted that one of a series of “official” photographs, taken in 1970, be used, rather than anything more recent. Similarly, Mr. Tarkington refused to be listed in
Who's Who in America
or other biographical volumes.

The Perfect Wife

Mrs. Tarkington was considered the perfect wife for a man in her husband's business. She is the former Consuelo Banning, one of a trio of sisters whom the press dubbed “The Beauteous Bannings,” and who were belles of the Philadelphia social scene in the 1960's. The Banning sisters, Consuelo, Katharine and Lucinda, were the daughters of George F. Banning, a socially prominent Philadelphia attorney, and all three made socially auspicious marriages: Katharine to Andrew W. Mellon III; Lucinda to Nicholas de N. du Pont; and Consuelo, the youngest, to Mr. Tarkington.

With her porcelain skin, blond hair, pale blue eyes and model's size 8 figure, she became an ideal showcase for the designer fashions sold in her husband's store, and for a number of years her name has appeared high on lists of the world's best-dressed women. She has toiled for prominent charities, is a highly visible figure at New York's most fashionable restaurants, and when designers show their collections Mrs. Tarkington is always seated front and center.

“She's Tarkington's merchandise personified,” says a friend who insisted on anonymity. “And having all those Mellons and du Ponts as in-laws didn't hurt Si's business either, in terms of attracting the kind of customers he wanted.”

Mrs. Tarkington was in seclusion today and could not be reached for comment.

A Regal Life Style

Mr. and Mrs. Tarkington enjoyed a regal life style. In addition to Flying Horse Farm in Old Westbury and the New York apartment, the couple maintained homes in Lake Sunapee, N.H., and Palm Beach, Fla., and a pied-à-terre on the avenue Foch in Paris. Whenever Mr. Tarkington and his wife appeared in public, Mr. Tarkington, a man with an erect carriage and a full head of silvery hair, was always immaculately groomed and impeccably tailored.

Whatever his detractors may say about him, few would disagree that Silas Tarkington created and leaves behind him a retail establishment that is perhaps unique. In 1990 Mr. Tarkington received the Merchant of the Year award from the New York Retailers Association. In 1987 he received a special award from the Fifth Avenue Association for having done the most to maintain the tone of the street. Past recipients have been Pierre Cartier II, Dr. Aldo Gucci and Harry Winston.

Mr. Tarkington's interests, other than his company, included racehorses, which he bred and raced in Britain, Ireland and France. Though he declined to race any of his horses in the United States, one of his stallions, Flying Flame, won the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in 1971 and went on to win other important purses before being put out to stud in 1975. Flying Horse Farm, the Tarkington estate on Long Island, was named for this stallion.

Mr. Tarkington also amassed an important collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. It has long been understood that the Tarkington collection will be left to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “That has been our informal understanding,” Philippe de Montebello, the museum's director, told
The Times
. “But we shall have to see the terms of the will before we know whether the gift is a fact.”

Shock Expressed

Friends today expressed shock at Mr. Tarkington's sudden death. “I saw him Friday at the Athletic Club,” said one. “He looked to be in the peak of health and good spirits. He was always exercising. He'd never had heart trouble that any of us knew about. He must simply have overdone it, doing his daily laps in the pool.”

Mr. Tarkington is survived by his wife and daughter. A previous marriage ended in divorce. Cremation took place Saturday under the auspices of Frank E. Campbell, and interment at Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn will be private. There will be no funeral service, though the family suggested that a memorial service may be held at a later date.

Part One

MIRANDA'S WORLD

1

The Lincoln Building at 60 East 42nd Street is one of those solid, dependable New York office buildings, put up between the two world wars, which manages to confer upon its business tenants an aura of instant sobriety and respectability. No one flashy would ever lease space here, the building seems to say; no one who was the least bit sleazy would be comfortable. Stepping through the big bronze-and-glass doors into the marble elevator lobby, the visitor is immediately surrounded by a sense of probity. You are expected to be on your best behavior here, the vaulted ceilings of the lobby whisper almost audibly.

This is not a fashionable address; it is merely good. Forty-second Street isn't what it once was. Across the street, behind the imposing granite facade of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt's Grand Central Station, the homeless curl asleep in corners, looking like bunches of rags dropped from a great height. But from the twentieth-floor windows of the law offices of Mssrs. Kohlberg, Weiss, Griffen & McBurney, the blue-and-white flag of the Yale Club can be seen proudly flying above its Vanderbilt Avenue entrance, and it is from the Yale Club, and luncheon with his legal peers, that Mr. Jacob Kohlberg, senior partner of the firm, has just come for his two o'clock meeting. The
Times
obituary of Silas Tarkington is spread open on his desk.