Breakfast was a cup of piping hot black coffee with a teaspoon of sugar and the newest Anthropologie catalog: page after page of models in lovely, stylish clothing, frolicking in cardigans and wide legs, tunics and flouncy skirts through a grand English cottage among piles of books, chairs on the lawn, shoes in haphazard piles -- as if in the midst of trying to get a mansion-load of old things ready for a surrealist yard sale.

It's a wonderful story, especially since I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to clean out a giant farmhouse full of furniture. The house was part home, part set dressing: a tableau of a hoped-for life as well as a lived-in one. It was full of old furniture, amusing props, droll little objets, and piles of antique books — inspired, either consciously or not, by scenes from Anthropologie catalogs gone by.

On paper, shot by a professional photographer, staged by a smart designer and team, the catalog is a far more attractive, fairy-tale version of the truth. And ironically my house, with its old wallpaper, fusty, crooked moldings, and upsy-daisy floors, was a possible candidate for an Anthropologie shoot some years ago. I'd gotten an in through a studio prop stylist; she was about to put me in touch with one of the corporate art directors.

However droll and amusing it all looks, however folksy and homespun and je ne sais, the catalog is the tip of a very lucrative iceberg. It's part of Urban Oufitters, Inc., a triumvarate of retail that has jumped to a nearly 30 percent profit in company sales in six years. Fiscal Year 2007's sales were more than a billion dollars.

In my head, my house is a topsy-turvy rabbit-hole of furniture upended and an endless tide of objects. I have no idea how I'm going to clear it all out in 30 days. Meanwhile, behold the lissome models in the catalog, all with charmingly long arms and Alice-in-Wonderland expressions. Dreamily, they wander from room to room, beautifully ineffective. A stick-figured, golden-haired model leans against a closet door, trying to keep its contents from tumbling back out into the room. See pages 32 to 33.

Did she really think she could get any work done in a snow-white, popcorn-stitched cardigan and yellow T-strap sandals? Of course not. It's all a lovely dream, and that's all it has to be: The 30-to-45-year-old women Anthropologie aims at are a well-read, well-traveled, boho-moneyed bunch, know that. And just as the stores were brilliantly designed as unique emporiums, each one rich with different, fanciful displays, chockablock with everything from soap to earrings to bedspreads to velveteen jackets, the catalog does the same thing.

About to look away from the girl against the closet door? Just across from Miss Uh-Oh is a page of wallets, all sizeable, with substantial locking mechanisms, in fanciful, eye-catching patterns. No better way to keep her daydreams intact.

Jana Martin is finally ready to stand up and share.