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startled-looking young clergyman I have never seen. Clare was fingering the cassock and trying to make him understand that she wanted to buy it. "Acheter -- acheter," she said, again and again. Finally, he saw the point. He indicated that we should "attent un petit instant," which we understood, and disappeared inside the cottage. A moment later he came out carrying the cassock.. Clare bought it and we rode off in triumph.

She transformed the design of that garment into one of her most striking successes, a line of beach robes.

I relate the bicycle trip to illustrate the point that a designer may stumble across the idea for a design almost anywhere. To be sure, we looked at the Breton and Norman costumes, the stained glass windows in churches, and searched for inspiration in all the likely places. But the most important discover for Clare was the cassock that passed her on a counyty