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.