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For fifteen years Mrs. Storm had enjoyed the glow of satisfaction which comes from walking into a roomful of women and hearing spontaneous exclamations of admiration accompanied by the inevitable question, "Where did you get that adorable dress?"

But not until she began designing, making and wearing fiesta dresses did her friends insist on buying garments right off her back, and their friends begin clamoring for similar creations.

The fad for fiesta dresses has been one of the most durable to influence women's fashions in the last decade, and the end is not in sight, for as the gay, comfortable and almost-universally becoming fiesta dress is introduced into a new region of the country, its popularity spreads swiftly in a widening circle.

Most popular in the Southwest, where they originated several years ago, they seem particularly adapted to the lazy, carefree life possible beneath Southwestern sunny skies, and complement the patios and ranch-type architecture of so many homes of the area.

But the increasing appeal of garments inspired by Indian and Spanish dresses was recognized recently when New Mexico designers held a special showing of fiesta dresses in Santa Fe, an exhibit attended by buyers from all over the country, including the large Eastern manufacturing houses, and exclusive women's apparel salons.

ORIGINALLY A resort wear outfit designed with an adaptation of the voluminous skirts Navajo women have worn for more than 100 years, fiesta dresses at first were made of heavy cotton, usually in a bright, solid color decorated with multiple rows of braid and rickrack.

Manufacturers soon placed on the market cheaper reproductions of the original models, some of them striking and expensive, many of them cheap and shoddy.

Nevertheless, the fad spread because fiesta dresses can easily be made by home seamstresses, because they appeal to the love of color and yearning for individuality that lurk in the heart of every woman, and because of the flattering swirl of the full skirts. Textile manufacturers even placed on the market a special fabric called "squaw cloth."

The first fiesta skirts were "pleated" by being wrapped around a broomstick, tied at intervals and allowed to dry thoroughly. Later, someone discovered that skirts could be encased in nylon stockings and dry much faster, with smoother pleats, but it was not until a "secret" method of pleating was discovered by some clever woman (possibly even an Indian woman), that fiesta dresses really achieved the quality look.

And it was not until talented designers like Susie Storm turned their attention to fiesta dresses that their exceptional versatility became evident.

Mrs. Storm, who calls her fiesta dresses "Patio Charms," uses Japanese silk, pima broadcloth, combed lawn, powderpuff muslin, cotton prints, velveteen, cotton satin, or corduroy for her creations, and combinations of those materials with sometimes startling but always lovely results.

She designs two or three tops for one skirt, making it possible to wear the dress for daytime or evening, summer or winter by the simple expedient of changing tops.

In addition to a native flair for color combinations, line and texture harmony, Mrs. Storm has the good sense to use the finest materials she can buy. "Colors don't hold in cheaper materials," she explains, "and the coarser cloth does not drape as well."

ALTHOUGH SHE has had offers from manufacturers promising liberal commissions for mass production of her Patio Charm fiesta dresses and her equally striking "Susie Storm Originals," Mrs. Storm continues to buy material, design and sew her creations, using a sewing machine "and a needle."

Some uninformed makers of fiesta dresses have sought materials with "body" in the belief the pleats in the skirt would hold better, since fiesta skirts rarely are starched, and never drape as well when starch is used. But Mrs. Storm's experience proves that soft quality materials will accommodate themselves to fiesta-dress pleating much more effectively than stiff cottons and the heavier prints. "If you want your skirt to stand out, you can wear stiff petticoats, but the skirt itself should fall in soft, graceful pleats," she says.

Mrs. Storm's most successful creation was a silver Japanese silk with a seven-tiered skirt trimmed with black ribbon and silver metallic braid which measured twenty-two yards around the bottom, and was designed closely along the lines of the Spanish dresses, employing tiers instead of flounces. She paid $5 a yard for the material, and used 572 yards of ribbon and braid on it. She had no intention whatever of selling it, but one of her friends was so ecstatic about it, and so determined to own it, Mrs. Storm finally parted with it for $200.

She could keep busy every minute of every day and sell every garment she made, but there are limits both to her endurance and to the extent to which she wants to devote herself to creation and design. In a period of eight months in the latter part of 1953 and early 1954, she made and sold 152 dresses, sewing as many as six in one week, an exhausting feat when one considers the hundreds of yards of stitching required to put on braid, gather tiers, and assemble fiesta dresses.

MRS. STORM'S success, both in designing and in making and selling her originals, can well serve as an inspiration to the girl who longs for a career in the fashion field, for the Hobbs woman is entirely, self-taught. She has never even taken a sewing lesson.

When her daughter, June, was born more than twenty years ago, Mrs. Storm discovered she had a tiny mite to clothe. Her child was so small that at the age of four years, size one fit her. But of course, one-year-old garments were not designed for a four-year-old youngster, so mother began creating and making dresses, without any previous experience to guide her.

As she continued to create clothing for June, Mrs. Storm gradually began fashioning her own dresses. All through June's school days, and finally, when she was married, she wore clothing designed by her mother. Now Mrs. Bill Thomas, living in Odessa, Texas, and a mother in her own right, she still wears Susie Storm Originals. Otherwise, she would have a problem. She is a size seven, is only four feet, eight inches tall, and weighs around ninety-three pounds.

When Mrs. Storm, size twelve with a lovely figure, turned her attention to fiesta dresses, she was intrigued by their possibilities for originality, but soon discovered the limitations of those available on the market which were principally "play clothes" made for durability rather than unusual beauty and versatility.

She began to design garments which could move into the ballroom, as well as serve for daytime sports, spectator sports, and playtime.

Daring to depart from the basic "fiesta" design, she has incorporated features of Spanish dance frocks, gypsy costumes and pirate togs, along with formulas of design which are strictly a la Storm. The results are gay, chic, inspiring dresses with eye-appeal that give the wearer the feeling she is dressed for fun and admiration.

LAST FALL, Mrs. Storm went to visit friends in Houston, taking along five new dresses she had designed and made especially for her Texas trip. Soon after her arrival, she and her hostess visited an exclusive shop on River Oaks Boulevard, and the proprietor of the shop persuaded her to sell him her entire new wardrobe.

On another visit to Houston, when she and her husband, Lou, went to the Shamrock Hotel to hear their long-time favorite, Dick Jurgens and his orchestra, Jurgens visited their table and immediately commented on the dress Mrs. Storm was wearing.

"It's the prettiest thing I've ever seen," he declared. When he learned she had designed and made it, he persuaded her to design and make one for Mrs. Jurgens. Now the orchestra leader's wife and his brother's wife each owns two Susie Storm Originals.

Delighted owners in Hobbs, several other New Mexico cities, many nearby Texas cities, and in places as far away as California and New York own Storm Originals, and would like to own more. Mrs. Storm never sells two dresses alike in the same city. In fact, she dislikes duplicating a dress at all, losing interest in a design once she has executed it.

A dress manufacturer in Houston has offered to buy Mrs. Storm's designs if she will contract to design only for him, if she will purchase materials for the dresses she creates, and if she will devote more time to dreaming up dress innovations, but so far she has declined the offer, preferring to give more time to her husband, her home and her two sons than such an arrangement would permit.

Mrs. Storm's successes are not confined to the field of fiesta dresses. She recently filled an order for Iverson's in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which included only one fiesta dress, and she has agreed to stage a fashion show this winter for Hemphill-Wells, Lubbock, Texas, department store. She is not limiting herself to fiesta dresses believing that eventually, if not in the foreseeable future, the fad will wane; but it shows no sign of doing so soon.

Her other creations show the same originality that characterize her fiesta dresses, depending more on intricate and fascinating detail than on color for their distinction.

ALTHOUGH THERE is much actual labor involved in the making of a fiesta dress, the steps are simple, once the secret of pleating has been mastered, a secret Mrs. Storm has no qualms about revealing, since she had to work it out for herself.

First of all, she tears all materials for the tiered skirts. That's the only way, she says, of being sure the tiers are the same width all the way around. The number of tiers and their width depends on the height and build of the person for whom the dress is being made. Mrs. Storm uses three, four, five or seven tiers.

"Sincerely," she says, "I believe that anyone can successfully wear a fiesta dress if it is designed carefully. For example, a large woman, with big hips, can wear one if the first tier is made wider than it would be for a smaller woman, and if it is made fuller, too.

"That may sound wrong. You'd think, for a large woman, you'd use less material around the waist, but if you make the first tier full, the pleats will lie flatter and make her look smaller.

"For a short, chunky woman, I would design a blouse with lines to 'lengthen' her, and then make a skirt with three tiers, all the same width."

Mrs. Storm explains, too, that for large women, she would use less ornamentation on the blouses than for slender women. "The blouse has a great deal to do with whether a fiesta dress is becoming," she says.

FOR SKIRTS with seven tiers, Mrs. Storm tears material lengthwise, buying enough for two dresses so she will have a selvedge edge for the last tier and thus will not have the added bulk of a hem or binding on the bottom. Eleven yards are required for a seven-tiered dress, which will measure twenty-two yards around the bottom.

For dresses with fewer tiers, material is torn crosswise. When figured prints are used, care must be exercised in their selection because the close-lying pleats can greatly alter the appearance of a piece of material.

Using short lengths of braid, rickrack or ribbon (or a combination of all three), Mrs. Storm tries out her skirt and blouse decoration pattern until the sequence of bands pleases her, and the color combinations and contrasts are harmonious. She pins her trial pieces on cardboard which she can set before her as she sews.

Once having established the length the dress must be when it is completed, "getting the length" is simply a matter of computing the width of the tiers and the seam allowances which will add up to the required number of inches, tearing the necessary amount of material, sewing bands of braid on the unassembled pieces of the blouse and skirt, gathering the tiers, sewing them together, and fastening them to a band.

Mrs. Storm usually puts a band of contrasting material on the bottom tier of her less-than-seven-tier skirts, fastening it as though it were to be a facing, but turning it outward instead of inward and hiding the raw edge with the bottom-most row of braid, rickrack or ribbon.

FIESTA SKIRTS which must be pleated (the seven-tiered ones are not) must be made with a seam which can be opened from top to bottom each time the skirt is pleated. Blouse seams are carefully finished, being spread open with the edges turned under and whipped. Carefully washed and guarded against fading, Mrs. Storm says, fiesta dresses made of good materials should last for years.

The pleating is accomplished by use of a quarter-inch plywood board, painted to resist water penetration. Mrs. Storm's pleating board is thirty by thirty-six inches, which will accommodate a skirt up to twelve yards around the bottom. The rule of thumb, of course, is a board a little wider than the waistband of the skirt to be pleated, and a little longer than the skirt.

The skirt is hand-washed or thoroughly soaked in water (in the case of a new skirt) and carefully squeezed (not wrung) until as much water as possible has been forced out. Then the opened skirt is spread out on the board, with the waistband fastened securely to the top of the board with closely-placed, snap-type clothespins.

Tier at a time, the skirt is pulled downward, so that the cloth is pulled to its full width, each gather lying parallel with its fellows. When the entire width of the tier has been pulled into position, it is fastened with a three-inch strip of muslin which is fastened to one edge of the side of the board and pulled straight across and fastened (thumb-tacks work fine) to the other side of the board, being drawn tightly to hold the gathers in place.

After all tiers have been pleated and fastened down with muslin strips, the board is set aside until the skirt is thoroughly dry. It must not be placed in the sun, otherwise the finest dyes will fade, and the skirt will be streaked.

When the skirt is completely dry, it is removed from the board, the side seam is stitched up, and it is ready to wear.

If the skirt is carefully hung by the band when it is not being worn, and given plenty of closet space, so it will not be crushed, the pleats will remain in place through repeated wearings. Blouses, of course, must be washed more frequently than skirts, another argument for materials with fast colors, and for more than one blouse for each skirt.

MRS. STORM, size twelve, in making a dress for herself puts two yards of material in the first tier of a three-tier skirt, four yards in the second tier, and eight yards in the bottom tier. Those figures would vary according to the size of the person for whom the dress is being made.

She has found that braid and contrasting bands on the bottom tier only, tends to have a slendering effect on the wearer. She uses the automatic gatherer on her sewing machine to gather the material for the tiers, running test strips until she has arrived at the proper distribution of fullness.

Tiers for seven-tier skirts are not gathered as full as those for three-tier garments, only one and a half yards being used in the top tier (for size twelve). The increase in yardage at each tier, of course, makes the seven-tier skirt almost three times as full at the bottom as the three-tier skirt.

The New Mexico woman uses a zig-zag stitch to sew on braid and rickrack so that the trimming will not curl when it is washed. "Otherwise," she declares, "there is no trick to sewing on braid, once you have worked out your sequence pattern. It simply is a matter of stitching miles and miles."

After she went into the business of making fiesta dresses on a large scale, Mrs. Storm cut down costs by purchasing braids, ribbon and rickrack wholesale, but buys very little fabric wholesale because in order to do so, she would have to take more yardage of a single pattern than she requires for the one or two dresses of a kind she prefers to make.

She sells dresses for from $60 to $100, ordinarily, depending on how much time and material has gone into the creation. If more expensive material is desired, more yardage in the skirt, or more trimming than usual, the price is increased accordingly.

PATIO CHARMS and Susie Storm Originals have been placed before potential buyers in several ways.

Mrs. Storm lives in a region of the Southwest which is style-conscious, and fashion shows are among the more popular diversions for women's clubs, conventions of women's organizations, and even for mixed evening gatherings of men and women.

Using her friends as models, Mrs. Storm has presented a number of one-woman shows, both in Hobbs and in nearby cities. Such efforts always result in orders.

Even when they travel, her friends are putting on a show for Susie Storm, because her distinctive, colorful creations are eye-catchers. One of her most successful associations, with Iverson's in Tulsa, is the result of such a circumstance.

Mrs. Ralph Clarke, attractive Hobbs matron and long-time resident of Tulsa, visited her former home city and went into Iverson's wearing a Susie Storm fiesta dress. The store manager asked where she got it, and when he learned its source, appealed to Mrs. Storm to make some original creations for Iverson's. She has made both fiesta and non-fiesta types, now being engaged in filling Iverson orders for formals.

Mrs. Dick Jurgens' wide circle of friends, family and acquaintances have been good customers of Mrs. Storm, the most recent being Mrs. Jurgens' mother, Mrs. Ruth Davidson, who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but spends her winters in Florida.

She was so pleased with a cruise dress Mrs. Storm created for her she wrote that she would be glad to refer as many of her Florida friends to the Hobbs designer as the latter felt she could accommodate.

The designer, herself, however, has been her own most successful model. Her attractive figure, kept slim by her intensive industry, displays her gowns to maximum advantage. She has an erect carriage, is always beautifully groomed, and holds her head high. She wears her clothes with pleasure and assurance, so that when she enters a room, a restaurant, a ballroom or a night club, she commands attention.

The fact that she accompanies her busy husband on many trips throughout the Southwest has widened the scope of her potential market, and she has been careful to consider and follow up requests for creations.

AS HAS previously been pointed out, Mrs. Storm refuses to permit herself to be drawn into wide-scale commercial designing and manufacture, but says that if she were interested in a region-wide, or nation-wide market, she would show her creations at the fashion centers where merchandise displays are held regularly: At Albuquerque for fiesta fashions, and at Dallas for other types of creations.

She has learned one lesson she wants to pass along to other designer-creators. "If you live in a small city likes Hobbs, don't allow a local shop to handle your dresses. You are too 'available' to the women who buy your garments. They always are wanting another blouse, an alteration, or this, or that. If you sell your dresses away from home, you can forget about them."

In the case of Mrs. Storm's personal friends, of course, that rule does not apply. Many of them wear her creations, and have discovered that she, both good-hearted and perfectionist, voluntarily will go above and beyond the duty a sale implies to make a dress fit perfectly or hang exactly right.

FOR YEARS before she began selling dresses, Mrs. Storm was an office worker, first a bank teller, and then a bookkeeper. She much prefers designing and making dresses.

"There is deep satisfaction in creating something lovely," she declares. "If I had all the money in the world, I'd still get satisfaction from making beautiful dresses."

Her decision not to allow her career to rob her family of all her time is heartily endorsed by her married daughter, her two grandchildren, her five-year-old son, Lou II, her nineteen-year-old son, and especially by her husband, who is an independent petroleum exploitation engineer.

If there is a secret behind Mrs. Storm's success, in addition to a natural artistic bent and a willingness to work long hours at a sewing machine, it probably is her refusal to be daunted by the spectre of a difficult assignment.

She lives in an exquisite modern home featuring many full-length windows, a glassed-in patio, and the usual assortment of smaller areas of glass. When she learned that draperies for her new house would cost $600 for labor alone, she bought the materials and made them.