Word: custine
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...very biggest names will disappear: Bonwit Teller. For most of its 80-year history, Bonwit's specialized in dressing well-heeled women in genteel elegance. But the store moved from mere affluence to a position of real fashion influence in the 1960s, when its sharp-tongued president, Mildred Custin, decided that Bonwit's should take the lead in promoting the designs of such emerging ready-to-wear pacesetters as Calvin Klein and France's Andre Courreges and Pierre Cardin. Says a Bonwit's buyer, recalling the glory days: "We were trying to be a store that...
...After Custin left in 1970 to form her own consulting firm, the store floundered. Over the next eight years Bonwit's owner, Genesco, the Nashville shoe manufacturer, brought in five different managers who came and went. After earning a $5 million profit in 1970, the Bonwit chain ran up a series of losses-$4 million last year on revenues of more than $110 million. The revolving-door management made store executives fearful of innovation, and Bonwit's identity as a fashion authority gradually faded. Says a security analyst: "The times changed, and Bonwit's didn...
...sell similar merchandise, it is special consideration, quality of service and a good image that attract the quick-roving customer. Courteous salespeople are, of course, the first line of defense, and many aggressive merchandisers now hold training classes, insist that clerks learn everything about the stock. President Mildred Custin of Manhattan's Bonwit Teller trains each salesgirl to telephone special customers when interesting new merchandise arrives...
...company is headed by President Helen Van Slyke. "Women who are interested in a career and have a feminine viewpoint," says Jarman, "usually have intuitiveness as well as good promotion and advertising sense." Casting around for a new boss to replace resigning William L. Smith, Jarman quickly picked Mildred Custin for the $60,000-a-year...
...Fifth Avenue, but it was once the fashion leader. In spite of exclusive designs from the U.S. and Europe, the store does not attract as many as it would like of the fashionable women who set style, does not have a reputation as a fun place to shop. Miss Custin intends to spruce up outside and inside, as she did in Philadelphia. "Display," she says, "is the showmanship of retailing." She will add boutiques to show off the 20% of avant-garde items that persuade shoppers to pause for the other 80%, will also goad buyers to create a common...