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destined for Cheeks, U.S.A. I also asked him to find me a supply of the briefest possible bikinis. Nothing flimsy. Only high-quality merchandise.
    We rented a ballroom in the Lexington Hotel and arranged a style show to introduce our line. The hotel was accustomed to fashion shows and set up a catwalk for our models. The hotel supplied the bright, dramatic lighting. I hired a rock band.
    Most of the guests for the show were people from the news media: fashion writers, commentators on city life. We made them comfortable with generous drinks, and then started our show.
    I employed six models. To my surprise, Giselle decided that she wanted to model, so she made seven.
    Immediately I had a decision to make.
    The bikinis were brief. So were the panties. In those days it was unusual for a girl to trim or shave her pubic hair. Few of the bikinis of the fifties required it. When the first model came out of the dressing room in an iridescent white bikini, she was grinning and pointing down. At least a quarter of an inch of her thick, dark bush overhung her bikini.
    Her name was Melissa Lamb. “Do you want me to trim it, Mr. Cooper?” she asked in mock innocence, giggling. She was a charming girl. I would know her for many years and would never forget that day when she offered to trim her dark pubic hair.
    For a moment I could not answer. My attention was focused on her luscious breasts, which were spilling out of her bikini top.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “How do you feel about it?”
    “I don’t care. I’ve posed nude a lot. My pussy doesn’t embarrass me.”
    I may have been influenced by Giselle. I will never forget the first time I saw her nude on the stage. She’d been shaved, and her fleshy nether lips showed. She spread her legs without hesitation or embarrassment, showing her dark slit and the shiny pink parts outside it. Strippers today are close-trimmed, if not shaved, and flaunt their pink and glossy parts. The mere suggestion of it was shocking when we opened our stores. So has the world changed.
    “No, Melissa,” I said. “If it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me.”
    I had to see the reaction. If it had been negative, I would have sent the girls scurrying back to the dressing room to shave.
    But it was not negative. The style columnists and suchlike people gasped when Melissa appeared with that generous blossom of dark hair showing above her bikini bottom, plus strands showing around the sides. But then … then they applauded!
    As model after model appeared, each showing more or less, interest grew. The musicians, who had been blasé about this gig, became spirited, as did their playing. Their beat dominated the room. I had a microphone, but I didn’t have to say anything.
    Each model showed a bikini. Then they began to show lingerie. When Giselle appeared in the black bra-and-panty set, with her shiny nipples peeking out through the holes in the bra, some in the audience actually stood—though whether it was to pay tribute or to see better, I couldn’t say.
    The next day the models gathered in a photographer’s studio and were photographed in the things they had modeled.
    I had invited Buddy to stop by during the shoot. He was no innocent, but he was rattled when he found himself sitting in a huge room, sipping Scotch, and watching naked girls running around, changing in and out of things and having body makeup patted on their skin. He had, of course, seen Giselle nude in Paris, but she was thirty-five now, and my wife, and I think it made him a little uncomfortable.
    I ordered big color prints made of the photographs. They would become the basis of the décor in our first shops. Notice I say they were the basis of the décor in our first shops. We did not put them in the windows, and in fact they were not visible from the streets.
    My wife’s photo appeared in each of our shops.
    We were demure. We kept drapes closed over our show windows and displayed nothing in them but walnut plaques