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Show & Vagaries of Fifme's Fashionable Customers, --"i """". ib me legend aboe a daintily decorated, mirror lined shop within a stono's throw of Fifth aenuo, botweeu Thirtieth Thir-tieth and Fiftieth streets, In New Yoik city. Fillmj or some other French given name belongs bv right of adoption to an Irish, Scotch or Swedish modiste mak-Im: mak-Im: from $3,000 to $25,000 annually because of her artistic talent and sympathetic manner. Into her ears women pour the tale of their troubles with sennnta, husband and klnfolk; their friends' private pri-vate affairs; prattle of entertainments past and to come; repeat the gossip of the guesU, at their last luncheou, dinner or week end party; tell what the bride elect thinks of her mother-in-law-to-be and sister-lu-law-to-be and what the mother-in-law-to-be and her relations think of tho bride elect and her famllv and the "arrived" woman of humble extraction, pt-V- milling herself to relax, revert to the diction of her youthful and unaspiring days. And Fltlne, always bright, cheerful, up to date. "Jollies" the depressed, Hatters the conceited, advises tho uncertain, is all thiugH to all women. Often pretty and occasionally handsome, Flflne shows otT her clothe? so well that not infrequently Hhe Uterallv takes a gown off her own back to sell it to a enstomor who Insists upon having that garment and none other, because bc believes thnt In It she will look as Hinart us does the dressmaker. Because she numbers among her friends a score of customers from various parts of tho country' with whom t.he runs about New York, Paris and London, ns well as high class dressmakers, milliners, cor- setiures nnd physical eullurists, she has a bowing acquaintance with the family skeleton of the promi nent persons of many lurse cities She knows that some women partly pay theli dressmaker and mllll-nors mllll-nors with the money entrusted to them for charltablu distribution, from the sale of discarded garments, by shaving on tho price of furnishings and foodb for their households in fact, that they resort lo any scheme to make up the difference between tho sum allowed thorn for clothes and the amount which they spend for them. When a woman canuot make up this deficit Mme. Flflne sends her long overdue bill directly direct-ly lo the husbnnd or father, for he generally will pay In order to avoid the notoriety of a law suit. Certain of the "Four Hundred" consider It their privilege to tnke their own time about paying for their gowns. One widow of large independent fortune recently re-cently walked Into the shop of a Flllne and said: "I've received every one of the bills you've been "ending to me for tho lust three years, and still have the first of them. When J get ready to pay 1 shall do bo, and not one moment sooner. Don't send me another bill unless you wbh my account to be cloyed." A fear of having a valuable account closed has . financially ruined many a Mme. FItlue, and not long ago a mlddlu aged woman, who had struggled up the ladder from stock girl to shop owner, failed' because be-cause of the ?0G,000 owing to her bv the wives -and daughters of New York niultimllllonnairea. Climbers throng Flllne's shop, where desirable per- ; sons are to be encountered. A bored customer awaiting her mm to bo Interviewed getc Into conversation with another (.UKlomer. the acquaintance ripvus Jnlo an exchange of visits, and If th woman of good position posi-tion happens to bp lmpecuuious she will puh the other socially, gottlng her "rake-otf" in cash, while Flflne gels a little present from both parties to the agree- me nt Flfinc's moat troublesome customers are the atnr actress, hard to please and slow to pay; the dealer in antiques, rare lnces or curiosities who disputes iter bills In violent terms and with much coarse vituperation, vitupera-tion, the lady prone to sudden attacks of fnltncss while being fitted, nud only to bo revived with numerous numer-ous cocktails; the giddy matron with a train of admirers, ad-mirers, all of tbein well known to Flflne, who secretly dreads the possibility of belnc drawn into a dlorce cane, and her beautiful erstwhile saleswoman, who bus captured the affections of a wealth broker and comes to her one time employer for row ns olely for thf purpose of being insolently patrohtzlug. Wlulo the wouihu of acknowledged position Is In the iittlug room with Mme. Fiflne the lady whose po "itlon is dubious awaits her turn in the ontcr room The boheuiian Is perfectly garbed and groomed, nsu-ally nsu-ally jouug and pretty, and knows more about smtirt society than smart society knows ahout Itself She knows who Is .0ung Mrs. Fastfllrt's preferred ai-mlicr, ai-mlicr, why Billy Gayboy is dhorclng or being divorced, di-vorced, whose establishment Is financed by old Ton-Mllllons-a-Ycar, who pays for the upkeep of Mrs. Spwitte's Hmous-lne. and why the pretty, untalented nctvess at the X Theatre always has a good part. So well does- Fiflne understand the mental processes , of tho emotional nature that when one of these cus-tomnr? cus-tomnr? Js temporarily without a rccular income she has her as n model when exhibiting at Newport, Palm Bench or the Ilot Springs of Virginia, whero her beauty of fnce and figure are certain to attract to her d wealthy admirer. And the emotional one proves her gratitude by procuring well-to do bohemlan customers tor Fiflne and sometimes loans her enpltHl with which to extend hei business. |