Here at Bergdorf’s, though, you get none of the kitsch, and all of the cream. Here’s a sophisticated holiday tale of true love Russian style as dramatized by glamorous American brides. Rhedd Lewis’s wedding feast for the eyes begins in the side windows of West Fifty-seventh Street, wraps around the front of the store on Fifth Avenue, and concludes in the side windows on West Fifty-eighth Street.
As our eyes follow the action from the first window, we see full-size, gilded wooden horses pulling magnificently costumed brides standing on enameled chariots and baroque sleds, festooned with jewels. Upon closer inspection, you see that the modes of transportation are decorated with actual jewelry-cabochon-laden earrings, gold necklaces that drip with chunky gemstones, gleaming cuff bracelets, and enormous dome rings, the effect of which makes a resplendent mosaic.
Fabergé eggs are cracked open in the foreground, spilling forth loose diamonds and pearls on a bed of wedding rice. Antique books are strewn on the ground, while loose pages float through the air. Window to window the pages and words change-there’s Dr. Zhivago (of course), Anna Karenina, The Three Sisters, The Brothers Karamazov, and War and Peace, appropriate for a wedding(!).
The backdrops are hand-painted murals of the Russian countryside, flat, squarish hills behind fields of white snow. These windows, sophisticated tableaux, actually tell a story, as the brides are surrounded by mannequins depicting working-class Russians-dressed in dull green factory jumpers, burlap aprons, and work boots over hand-knit woolen stockings. Dramatized as artists in service to the brides are seamstresses, orchid farmers, dressers, drivers, and yes, even a cobbler, who kneels and places a shoe (our Lola!) on a bride swathed in white velvet with an ermine headpiece.
The juxtaposition of the sophisticated brides portraying the very rich in love countered by the workers who facilitate their dreams is not lost on me. It takes many hands to create beauty. The brides wear elaborate gowns by great designers, including Rodarte, Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen, Marchesa, John Galliano, and Karl Lagerfeld. Their signatures appear in the corner of each window in gold.
The first bride, in a mélange of tulle over a satin sheath, wears the Ines, which peeks out from the hem of her skirt, lifted by the cobbler; the next window has a bride in white silk pants and a flowing blouse paired with the Gilda, whose mule shape and embroidered vamp are a sleek fit with the wide-leg pants.
She is followed by a bride with her back turned to the street. The bride wears a theatrical, fringed column gown with the Mimi ankle boot. Rhedd replaced our white satin laces with indigo-dyed hemp for a stunning contrast in texture.
The next window shows a bride in a minidress made of bugle beads and marabou feathers, standing en pointe in the Flora, with gold chains instead of ribbons crisscrossing up her calves. In the corner window, a bride wears a medieval gown with a square neckline and an elaborate bodice of enameled squares offset by long, sheer trumpet sleeves. The mannequin carries her shoes, the white linen Osmina with plain straps as she looks down at her bare feet in the snow.
But it’s the final window that means the most to me. The Bella Rosa is worn by a bride in a white wool traveling suit by Giorgio Armani. She holds a ticket in one hand, and a tiara in the other as she flees an unhappy romantic scenario on the streets of Saint Petersburg. The substantial shoe works fluidly with the tailored suit, as though it was made to anchor the ensemble.
I wish Costanzo Ruocco were here to see the Bella Rosa, but for now, I will hold this moment in my memory, and when I return to Capri, will relive it for him the best I can. In the corner of the final window, it says,
All Shoes Created by the Angelini Shoe Company
Greenwich Village
Since 1903
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Gram and I turn to see my mother hanging out of a livery-cab window. She leaps out of the car before it comes to a complete stop and joins us on the sidewalk.
I wondered what my mother might wear to view the windows for the first time. She does not disappoint. Mom wears a gray wool pantsuit with a fake gray leopard shrug slung over her shoulders. Her high-heeled pumps are dull silver, with large square leather buckles on the toe. I don’t know how she does it, but my mother manages to match the weather. She also wears a pair of large, black, oval sunglasses, an homage to Breakfast at Bergdorf’s no doubt. She holds a sack of bagels from Eisenberg’s in one hand and peels off her sunglasses with the other. She hands the bag to me and then runs down the block to take in the windows.
Mom raises her arms high in the air in triumph as she surveys the windows. She looks for our shoes, and when she finds them in the tableaux, she shrieks with joy. I’ve never seen her this proud, including at the culmination of Alfred’s astonishing college career, when he graduated summa cum laude from Cornell. This is another big moment for her. She runs to Gram and throws her arms around her. “Daddy would be so proud!” Mom wipes away a tear.
“He would be.” Gram straightens Mom’s fur shrug on her shoulders, which shifted when she ran.
“And you!” Mom turns to me. “You made this happen! You picked up the mantle of the Angelini family and you wore it…do you wear a mantle or do you carry it? Anyway, it doesn’t matter-you kept up our tradition”-she makes a fist-“and you persisted and you apprenticed yourself to the master and now look-you took all that hard work and you brought our little family business into the new century in a very public way. Bergdorf freakin’ Goodman!” Mom can’t resist being a home girl from Queens, even for just a moment. Then she continues, “Angelini shoes, side by side with Prada and Verdura and Pucci! Viva Valentine! I marvel at you. And I’m so proud of you!”
Sometimes when my mother fawns, I taste metal in my mouth, but not this morning. She is genuinely moved and full of love. Every mother should have this moment of glory, when her hard work is brought to fruition and the investment she has made in her children on a daily basis comes full circle, the results on display for the whole world to see.
This moment isn’t about branding, or profits, or marketing. It’s about our family and the tradition of our craft. It’s about what we do. These windows are about our commitment to beauty and quality-every stitch, seam, lace, and binding made by hand and perfected with the skill that can only come from practice, technique, experience, and time. We have been recognized and rewarded in a world where the concept of built by hand is fading fast. Imagine that.
The sun, as white and pure as a full moon, pulls up and parts the gray clouds over the glass buildings on the east side of Fifth Avenue, creating a glare on the store windows that turns them into mirrors. In an instant, the images behind the glass are gone. We can’t see the brides in the snow, or the jewels and the eggs, or our shoes made of leather and suede and satin and silk. All that remains is our reflection, mother, daughter, and granddaughter, this morning an unbroken chain of the finest Italian gold. I wish I could hold on to this moment forever, the three of us, here on Fifth Avenue. But, I can’t. So I do the very best I can and take my grandmother’s hand in mine and slip my other arm around my mother, and wait for the pale winter sun to move so we might revel in our good fortune once more.
Acknowledgments
My mother, Ida Bonicelli Trigiani and her sister, Irma Bonicelli Godfrey, have vivid and wonderful memories of their father, Carlo, to whom this novel is dedicated. I used the terrain of their childhood freely in this novel, bringing me close to the man, my grandfather, whom I never met. My deepest gratitude to them!