I know that most of you have heard me talk about Grace Jones of Salado, our iconic fashion maven from Texas. In the 1960’s, when Grace opened her famous salon, no one would have guessed that this small limestone building in little Salado Texas, completely away from the major fashion arenas would become so successful and legendary. Only a handful of salons in the entire United States could compete for the exclusivities that Grace garnered so easily. Valentino, Christian Lacroix, Dior, Geoffrey Beene, Lagerfield, Ungaro, Louis Feraud were only a few of the couture collections that competed for her attention. Her clients flew into Salado from all over the United States and Europe, finishing the last leg of their flight on a helicopter-landing pad that Grace had built in the back of her salon on the bank of the creek. It was nothing unusual to step out of the buzzing helicopter and walk straight in to a wandering cow, much to the surprise of her European clients who had never seen a cow before! The famous designer Count Sarmi squealed when he first saw the farm animal meandering around the outdoor runway built to show his newest collection. “Eewww…a coo, a coo, a coo!” Grace loved to tell this story, laughing at the inexperience of this aristocrat.
But her collection of friends were truly her best acquisitions, treasured companions…Loretta Young, Liz Carpenter, Erma Bombeck, Jane Sibley, and many many others who loved to share their lives and stories.
As notable as this second half of her “life well spent” was, Grace had already proved herself in many ways before her career in fashion. In World War II, Grace Rosanky Jones was among the elite flying squad of the WASP, the female pilots who risked their lives delivering combat planes.
Grace’s story is wonderfully rich. On February 16, 2008, Grace passed away, very quietly. I was fortunate to have known her and to have shared these past eight years with her. Grace knew that I was working on my master’s thesis, which was going to be a book about her, and she was generous enough to give me every morsel of her written collections…. her photographs, her publicity, her fashion show tapes, her conversations, her correspondences, her WASP collection, her thoughts, and her philosophies. She was truly an enigma, growing up in a ranch atmosphere, giving absolutely no indication of the future that she would mold for herself. I miss her terribly.
Most younger fashion students have no idea who Grace Jones is, and it would be well worth their time to study her life and career.
I had just graduated from The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and returned to Austin with all sorts of awards for my creations. Even with the accolades, I was still a novice and wanted to seek out mentors. I was too intimidated to call Grace Jones for an appointment, much less to even show her my collections to buy for her store. I was driving to Dallas to call on Neiman Marcus; I already had an appointment with the buyer. I decided to drop by Grace’s store, just to see what it looked like now. It never occurred to me that she would be in the store. Nevertheless, I stopped at a nearby gas station to change my clothes to be more presentable. I traveled in my regular clothes, so that my linens would not be rumpled when I called on my customers. So I took my white linen shirt and white linen pants, neatly pressed, into the restroom with me to put them on. I drove to Grace Jones on Main Street, and realized that I was shaking as I pulled into the parking lot. Who did I think I was? They are just going to laugh at me, and head me to the nearest K-Mart. It really took all of my nerve to get out of the car, and open those huge double doors into the salon.
Two women greeted me. One was quite petite, with long and elegant bones, and a short sleek hair cut, with a color that was a strawberry light blonde brown. Very attractive in an aristocratic way. She had on a short dress and she had great slender legs; it was the eighties and she was in the newest look. One gold bracelet; a gold pair of clip on earrings, and one gold ring. Her dress had a high collar. I asked if I might see Grace Jones, never imagining she was standing in front of me.
“I’m Grace Jones.” Her voice was old money; fine wine; rich thoroughbred; cashmere; melodic; King’s English spoken southern style. She reached out to shake my hand. I liked her instantly, and my raw nerves left me. I told her that I had a aunt who shopped with her, and that I had just started my own line of clothes and would love to make an appointment with her, at her convenience, of course, sometime in the future, to talk with her about fashion.
“What’s wrong with now?” she shot back to me. “Why don’t we go upstairs and I will show you around.”
If I was following the Queen of England, I would not have been more aware of my manners; my posture; my grammar; and last, but definitely right at the top, my own clothes! She asked her assistant to bring us a ginger ale (hadn’t had that in years…must be what the rich drink). We went into a salon hidden on the second floor that was right out of Paris. She told me that the clothes downstairs were merely decoys to satisfy the tourists, who wanted to say that they bought something from Grace Jones in Salado; but that they were not for her real customers, and her real customers knew it and appreciated it. The salon, the private showing arena for individuals, separated from other salons for private individuals, were all upstairs and decorated with the most sumptuous fabrics. The outer walls had chairs and Victorian couches, while the center of the room was used for display and alterations. Surrounded by mirrors on three walls, there was a wooden elevation, used as platform to stand on. Each room was it’s own little mini stage, complete with spectators. The assistant brought in beverages and we settled into a conversation about people we both knew, and then onto fashion. She brought out a dress that she described as a little something that one could throw on to go to the Beauty Parlor. I glanced at the price tag. $2400.00! Holy….! I could buy a car for that! But I kept my shock to myself. I talked about the hem and the line of the dress, sticking to what I knew best, and we quickly found a common ground.
That afternoon, Grace spent three hours with me, alone in the salon. Her assistant had gone home, and Grace was still eager to talk about what she had learned and to hear what I thought. She asked me if I would show her my collection, which I did. I brought it upstairs to the salon, and with all of the courage I could muster, I presented my collection as if I had been around the fashion world and back a dozen times. And Grace loved it! She ordered the entire collection, and even bought extras for herself!
Twenty years later, after Grace had retired, and had closed the store, she turned the building over to her nephew, John. The day Grace closed the store, after her last customer left, she locked the door, and went home. Everything was left just the way it was on the last day. John and his wife, Rhonda had cleaned most of the store. But Grace’s office had never been touched. He asked me to help him clean out this last vestige of Grace’s occupancy, because he thought I would know what to keep and what to throw away. There among the most fabulous Geoffrey Beene gown I have ever seen, along with Valentino jackets, Carolina Herrera, Anne Klein, was the suit that she had ordered from me for herself. Pinned to the wall was a picture of Grace at her home, wearing that suit. John gave the picture to me, and kept the suit for his daughter.
As the years went by, I would call Grace to invite her to market and to see my collection; but she usually went to Europe or New York and because she never called me to visit her at her salon, I never called her either; thinking that she had only bought my collection out of politeness that day.
Twenty years had passed, and I was teaching Fashion Design at the University of Texas, and I knew that Grace had retired. I called her, to re-introduce myself, and to ask if she would be a judge at the Senior Students final runway show. She was just as eager to help me, as she was the first time. We talked for a while on the phone. I was sure that she was pretending to remember me, but I was wrong.
“Mary Margaret, let me ask you something. Why in the world did you quit showing me your collection? I really would have liked to have had it for my customers, but you just gave me up.”
I explained that I had called her many times to come to market, but that she never came, and I just did not want to seem too persistent. She told me she never came to the Texas Market, and that she wanted me to call on her personally at her store, since she had had so much fun talking years before. She invited me over to Salado to spend the afternoon, and this time I went. We had a wonderful afternoon talking about fashion and designers and what the kids wear today. She took me into her dining room to find some stories that she had cut out of the paper about her retirement, and that is when I found out an even more incredible story about Grace Jones. There lying on the table, in boxes, under the table, in chairs was this unbelievable rich history of a young girl from Texas, who was among the first women pilots in World War II; followed by a career as a model working for the most successful modeling agency in New York; and ending with the Grace Jones of Salado Boutique. And in between these triumphs were a series of heart breaking disappointments that Grace never told the public.
Mary Margaret Quadlander
Labels: austin school of fashion design, grace jones of salado, mary margaret quadlander
