Gifts by Mail

Tenable, not trendy, is the rule

For multitudes of happy souls, Santa Claus did not pop down the chimney this year. He squeezed into the mailbox. It was history's greatest mail-order spending spree, and despite the catalogues' enticements to decadence and conspicuous frivolity, Americans for the most part ordered up gifts that tended to be more tenable than trendy, disproving the adage that there's no fool like a Yule fool. Said Bergdorf Goodman Executive Vice President Leonard Hankin: "This was the kind of Christmas where people were investing in things because they were not so sure of what was going to happen to their dollars." Added Roger Horchow, owner of the zooming eight-year-old The Horchow Collection mail-order firm: "People are looking for good value, not whimsical merchandise. People are buying what they know will cost more later on."

To be sure, catalogue vendors lost no money on such stocking stuffers as a $45 sterling silver Perrier bottle opener with two silver bottle caps or a $140 one-inch-high sterling tea set. A $200 King Tut bust was bought by some 7,400 holders of American Express cards. Yves Saint Laurent's Opium perfume, at $100 an ounce, sold like, well, opium. Beverly Hills' David Orgell disposed of all 18 of his catalogue-advertised $750 sterling-silver telephones.

For the most part, however, mail-order buyers concentrated on lesser gifts that were both of practical use and lasting value. Five-year-old Atlanta-based Kaleidoscope Inc., which mailed 1 million catalogues, a weight of nine tons, found that an increasing number of women bought not only presents for other people but also a few gifts for themselves. Among Kaleidoscope's bestsellers: china, glasses, flatware, tablecloths. Also popular were luggage and other travel items. Several cataloguers reported an upsurge in sales of packaged cheese and fruits. A $5 chocolate bar divided into sections marked with their calories and called Sweet Revenge sold well, as did a $600 chocolate Monopoly set.

A husband in New York's Westchester County presented his startled family with a gift-wrapped sack of long johns from Maine's L.L. Bean, plus a chain saw so that the boys could provide wood for a warming fireplace to keep the Arabs at bay. The greatest yields from the Sears, Roebuck catalogue were in home improvement lines (tools, paints, fixtures), home furnishings (bedspreads were big) and save-work appliances like a microwave oven.

But who, with any romance in his/her soul, would present a loved one with a stove? Better a filmy negligee or even a velour shirt (both went well this winter). Better yet, a Fendi sable coat (Bergdorf's catalogue sold three at $18,500 apiece), a $500 cashmere robe or any ornament made of gold, the invaluable metal that fetched some $220 an ounce on the London market last week. Tiny gold pendants in the shape of oil barrels went for $850 and solid gold nuggets for $950. Tiffany's diamond-studded gold watch was a bargain. Its price: $ 14,500.

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