The Catalog Lady’s Still Limbering Up
Just for fun, I counted the number of catalogs that have jampacked my mailbox since summer: August, 51. September, 55. October, 70. November, 82. Of course, the Lillian Vernon catalog is represented in the tally.
While we were on the phone, Vernon, 70, summed up the popularity of catalogs in one word: convenience. “You need a special pot to warm your milk or your butter. Where the heck you going to find it? Not everybody’s got a Macy’s basement near them.”
A successful catalog business may not necessarily have been on her mind when Vernon composed an ad at her yellow Formica kitchen table to sell monogrammed purses and belts in 1951. She ran the ad for $495 in Seventeen magazine and received $32,000 in orders. In 1997, her company’s revenue was $240 million.
Vernon’s new company headquarters in Rye, N.Y., includes a fitness center for employees. She exercises at home (Greenwich, Conn.) by swimming, walking and lifting weights with a personal trainer three to four days a week.
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Question: What’s your routine at home?
Answer: I start 6:15-6:30 and finish at 7:30 in the morning. I do stretching and weightlifting. And sometimes I do it at my apartment in New York--I use my greenhouse.
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Q: That stretching keeps you limber, doesn’t it?
A: I’m very limber and I think that’s very important. In fact, I get massages too because I just feel that you need all these things.
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Q: Anything else on exercise before we move on to food?
A: No. That is a terrible subject.
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Q: Which--food?
A: Yeah.
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Q: Why?
A: I like to eat.
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Q: Me too. Do you diet?
A: I diet. I watch what I eat.
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Q: Let’s hear what you eat.
A: At breakfast I like to eat a half a bowl of bran flakes, dry cereals. Lots of coffee, which I know I shouldn’t but I do. And then lunch--we have a wonderful cafeteria in our new building in Rye--I have either a salad or vegetable soup.
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Q: Are you thin?
A: I weigh anywhere from 118 to 122.
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Q: You’re a little thing.
A: Well, I’m short. I’m no more than 5-1. I want less weight and more height, but I’m not going to have it.
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Q: I guess you don’t do any snacking between meals?
A: No. I’m not a big snacker and I’m not a big dessert eater. Herring, smoked salmon, anything like that--salty, delicious, love it.
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Q: What about vegetables?
A: Not crazy about ‘em.
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Q: And what happens at dinner?
A: Big. But healthy. I may go out and have tuna tartare and then something not fattening at all. I really, really try.
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Q: Yeah, you do. That’s very modest fare throughout the day.
A: Because, frankly, I don’t want to be fat. I wouldn’t have married again if I was a fat, old lady. And I like being fit.
[In June she married Paolo Martino, founder of Paolo M. Salon in New York City.]
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Q: Congratulations on your wedding. What did you wear?
A: I wore a champagne-colored satin dress. I wore over it a jacket, sort of sheer, not tulle but chiffon, and it was all embroidered. I was really happy. I thought I looked great.
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Q: You said in your 1996 autobiography [“An Eye for Winners,” HarperCollins] that there were no female role models in the 1950s and that your work was considered unfeminine. Do you still run across that today?
A: Oh, sure. You still run across it. Not as bad. People used to come see me, and they’d say, “Would you take me to your boss?” So it’s really not as bad. But it’s there.
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Q: You have some famous clients.
A: I have a lot of them, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you.
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Q: Well, I’ve got some names, but I don’t know if you’re allowed to say what, for example, Hillary Clinton orders?
A: Lots.
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Q: Lots?
A: Lots. All things. She’s a very good client. But I really can’t tell you. You know, Frank Sinatra used to be a big client. Lots of gifts for his grandchildren.
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Q: One more thing--whatever happened to that kitchen table?
A: It’s still there, the Formica table. We just moved in this new building. I walked around, I said, “God, all my old furniture’s here. We give nothing up. Not a thing.”
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Guest Workout runs Mondays in Health.
