Deadlines were more important than the process that led to the deadlines. Schor is a handsome, vivacious, articulate woman of sixty-seven. Schor was wearing Eileen Fisher clothes. Where the male C. Old, Rowe, and I followed her into a spacious room with a kitchen at one end and beige sofas and armchairs and side tables with books and magazines and attractive objects on them at the other.
Two cats curled up on cushions completed the picture of pleasing domestic comfort. I noticed a third cat on the outside of one of the French doors that lined a wall—standing on its hind legs, its paws eagerly pressed against the glass—and asked if I should let him in. She explained that this cat was never let into the house. He was the bad cat. He had once lived in the house with the other cats, but he had fought with the second male cat and peed all over the floor and when the housekeeper threatened to quit he was expelled from the house and now lived outdoors.
He was begging not to come in from the cold, Eileen said, but to be fed. A meeting was going on in the room where we had eaten, and I was led to an upstairs room, lined with racks of Eileen Fisher clothes, all in gray, black, and white.
Eileen, again, looked beautiful and elegant in a black ensemble of trousers and scoop-neck sweater. She has gone to China and to meetings of the Clinton Global Initiative. In the studio, she spoke of another influence on her design that had almost the significance of the Japanese one: her Catholic-school uniform. The school experience itself had been less edifying.
It was always risky to speak at school. There was yelling. They would humiliate you and embarrass you. Eileen asked if I would like to drop in on the meeting downstairs. In the lunchroom, the long table had been pushed against a wall, and ten or twelve women wearing Eileen Fisher clothes were sitting on chairs arranged in a circle. They spoke in the same coded language that Eileen and Old fell into when they talked about the company.
What were they talking about? The meeting ended when an elegant older woman held up two bronze bells connected by a cord and rang them. Then an object, a sort of gilded gourd, was passed from hand to hand. Each woman said something as she received it. The book proposes that organizations conduct their business in circles.
You sit around in a circle. This eliminates hierarchies. Everyone is equal. Back upstairs, I asked two questions I had been somewhat nervously planning to ask. The first—yes, you guessed it—was about the cat. In the weeks between my visits to Irvington, there had been a spell of exceptionally icy, windy weather, and I had thought of him miserably huddled under the house in the low temperatures.
Had she relented and let him in? No, there had been no reason to do so. It was painful. Every time it would snow or rain I would feel terrible.
One freezing-cold day, I thought, Oh, my poor cat, and picked him up. On another freezing day, I let him into a stone entryway. I thought I would just let him be there, and he kind of walked around a bit and then he stood by the door so that I would let him back out.
I asked my second question: Why were Old and Rowe present during my interviews with Eileen? I found myself babbling about the ethical dilemmas of journalism, about the risk subjects take when they let journalists into their houses and the pangs journalists feel when they write their betraying narratives, and saw Eileen and her colleagues looking at me—as I had looked at them when they talked about their company—as if I were saying something weird.
We were in different businesses with different vocabularies. I turned to Eileen. At the celebration, Eileen was waiting for me at the door in an especially fetching outfit of black harem pants, boots, a charcoal-gray cardigan over a gray asymmetrical top, and a light-gray scarf.
The store was full of people, some sifting through racks of clothes or waiting in line for a dressing room and others conversing, with glasses of champagne in their hands. It was a nice occasion. Eileen made a gracious speech of greeting and introduced a dance performance by students and teachers from a local dance studio.
After the performance, people came up to tell her how much they loved her clothes and admired her. A woman with a cane who said she had just turned eighty-five was among them.
She was wearing Eileen Fisher clothes from another time, which suited her well—an unobtrusive outfit of slacks, shell top, and jacket of an easy fit. It occurred to me that Eileen looks better in her clothes than anyone else.
What she selects from her little closet and puts on for the day is a work of design itself. Country Selection. United States. United Kingdom. South Africa. United Arab Emirates. Press Tab to continue to the main text, or press enter to skip to the list of locations by country.
Womens Ankle Pants. Womens Lace Up Boots. Kids Short Boots. BareTraps Jaci Sneaker Booties. Combine casual and athletic and you get the Baretraps Jaci. This sporty look on a hidden wedge compliments any active outfit. Get back up and moving with Baretraps Rebound Technology that combines cushioning, flexibility, arch support and a slip resistant View Product. A rich suede upper cover this sleek silhouette with a subtle western metal rand at the toe cap.
A stacked block heel, inside zipper for easy entry and Sporty, hiker-inspired sneaker booties with a hidden wedge. Eileen Fisher is a name that conjures peace. The kind you get from living somewhere with an abundance of trees, and from wearing elegant, unrestrictive fabrics.
When I first moved to New York, I went to a party with a coworker where we met a girl who worked at Eileen Fisher, in the corporate office on Fifth Avenue.
My friend and I were publishing assistants at the time, working far more hours than for what we were paid, for people who made several times more money than we did. Tasteful trousers, silk box tops, and linen dresses made us feel more in control and dignified than our circumstances allowed us to be. Five years later, my former coworker really does work at Eileen Fisher, after searching fruitlessly for a promotion as an editor. Maybe that used to be true. A certain stereotype that your mom shops at Eileen Fisher endures.
And then there is the allure of Eileen herself. In an era in which women are still trying to figure out how to work and live and look, Eileen the concept has become a kind of refuge, a mantra. And the fashion world is finally catching on.
Textile production creates 1. It took them back and resold them at a discount, cleaned or repaired. Last year, the brand collaborated with downtown cool-kid brand Public School on a line of upcycled garments, including a felted cap. Among the trees, I arrived at the Tiny Factory, the former warehouse out of which the Renew program is based, in the car Eileen had sent for me. The brick building is on a commercial street near the pristine houses and front yards of Irvington the white picket fences here are literal ; a few miles downtown and on the river is the Lab Store, where EF customers can buy items from regular collections as well as Renew pieces.
The space was clean and brightly lit, though so full of material that we seemed to be actually inside one of those bags you drop off at Goodwill every six months. Boxes of returned items come in from Eileen Fisher stores, around 2, pieces a week a little less than in Seattle, the other Renew base ; the boxes are then opened and sorted. A woman and man were quietly handling items on tables in the factory as we walked by—they supposedly know the material so well that they can tell linen, cotton, and wool blends simply by touch.
Bedoya explained that Eileen Fisher clothes are more suited to recycling than others because they have long been ethically sourced, organic, and free of the harmful dyes that would make it difficult to clean them en masse, and reconstitute them.
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