West Side Canvas: Silhouettes and Profiles, Alterations and Restorations

Silhouettes and Profiles
By Robert Beck

One of their customers suggested that I paint at Silhouettes and Profiles, a business whose clients are the fashion world, museums, and people looking for a high standard in clothing alteration and restoration.

When the owner, Irene Cherniakhovsky, showed me around the busy second-floor suite on 71st and Broadway, she opened a book on fashion published by the Met to a picture of a gorgeous vintage dress that had come to her in fragments. The restoration was astonishing. Another book showed a pair of exquisite blue gloves that had their yellow-and-black butterfly decoration shredded. They are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, fully mended. Irene told me about being called back from a trip to alter a gown that would be THAT dress at an inaugural ball.

I hoped to do a painting of a gown fitting, but schedules didn’t align, and I was away for Fashion Week when the place is bonkers. I would love to paint that. I set up in front of a vintage wedding dress on a mannequin and painted while they took care of scheduled customers, incorporating the beautiful orchids near the window and a rack of colorful garments along the wall.

Every time I looked in that direction, there seemed to be another customer. A professional woman came in with outfits needing alterations. Her stylist was with her. She was concerned about the length of a dress and stood in front of the mirror, turning one way and then the other. Her stylist said it should be shorter. Irene said it was fine—they just needed to take it in around the neck. The woman nodded and put on the next one.

A man had his new suit fitted. A woman arrived with some formal dresses needing attention, also with a stylist. A young woman had an expensive pair of designer jeans that had to look right when she was wearing her studded boots as well as when she was just in socks. Another came with a bunch of quirky tops and skirts that needed to fit together. When customers told Irene what they wanted done, there was always a small question mark at the end. Nobody’s opinion on how things should look was more important than hers.

I waited for a fitting to be completed before packing up. The other two rooms were buzzing with people making the repairs and alterations. The clients had all been treated with the same deference. It was the garments, the statements of fashion and personality, that mattered. As I carried my kit to the door, one of the staff grabbed a long rod with a magnet at the end and swept it across the floor like a magic wand, picking up the loose pins.

You can see all of Robert Beck’s Upper West Side paintings, with links to the Rag essays, along with his other work at robertbeck.net

Suggestions for subjects that matter to the UWS community are welcome, including quirky, behind-the-scenes places and events.

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