Best Reason To Believe In Old-Fashioned Service

We'd given up on getting anything other than attitude from men's department sales clerks until one recent afternoon, when we stumbled into Macy's at the Biltmore in search of a new necktie. We left with armloads of trousers, a new pair of Santoni loafers and a renewed respect for retail sales help -- all thanks to Gordon Joines, whose warm, gentlemanly assistance harks back to the days when Dad shopped in finer establishments in towns more stylish than this one. Gordon manages the nearly impossible: He points us toward more and better purchases without a single sales pitch. We leave feeling like we've had a pleasant visit with an old friend who happens to have impeccable taste and a store full of menswear at his disposal. During our first encounter with Gordon, he surprised us by knowing our collar size at a glance, and astonished us by gently suggesting a cut and color that proved more flattering than the costly rag we had planned to buy. We sometimes shop elsewhere, but we never find service we like as well as that provided by this stylish Southern gentleman.