A saleswoman was assigned to me. She walked me to a small sofa in a dark corner of the salon, and then the questions began: What colors do you like? Do you want a print? Full or straight skirt? Strapless? What size are you? When I told her I was a 10, she smiled and said, ‘I think perhaps a 12.’ I hated her but she was the one who had access to all those wonderful, beautiful Magnin clothes that were kept behind closed doors. She was my key to glamour.
Pat Steger (1932-1999), San Francisco native and society columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, 1974-1999.
Ms. Steger is recounting her experience shopping at the iconic San Francisco store, I. Magnin. She wanted something special for her senior high school dance and the third floor of I. Magnin was the place to go. This would have been in the late 1940s when there were no racks of clothes for customers to sift though. Instead the clothes were kept in the back and saleswomen would pull out items they felt were to the customer’s taste. Ms. Steger goes on to say that after rejecting six or seven selections, the saleswoman presented the perfect dress – a teal strapless evening gown by Ceil Chapman, in a size 10. Suddenly she loved the saleswoman.
I found this quote in a most interesting book all about the history of I. Magnin – A Store to Remember by James Thomas Mullane (Falcon Books, 2007).
We wear what everyone else wears, but that in turn is constantly undermined by changes which take place in society. In the 1950s, that “everyone” was in twinsets and pearls; a decade later, it was miniskirts. The radicalized 1960s was a decade whose true and enduring revolution was the sexual one. Clothes were part of the physical liberation of the body, the undoing of what Dior had made twenty years earlier. Chic, elegance, style, femininity were no longer the measure of how you dressed. You dressed to feel free inside, and feeling free, perhaps you could actually make yourself (and others) free. You cannot take part in a demonstration in stilettos. 
I was in Silicon Valley and with a lot of senior, grown-up people, not the Millennials. I was out there for a couple of days and it just struck me that they didn’t see it, but they all dressed exactly alike – they all wear jeans, they all wear navy blazers, they all wear shirts without ties. If you’re a multi-million-dollar-a-year Silicon Valley executive, you dress like a civilian because you’re wearing jeans, but you’re wearing $2,000 brown Italian shoes … that’s how you express your individuality. 
What’ he’s doing at Marni feels more than what the big brands are doing. We have too many clothes, and it’s wonderful to see a young designer giving value to things, making them less throwaway, adding a story to the workmanship. 
OverDressed for Life 