Shoppers not fortunate enough to have connections often have to resort to baser methods, such as those employed by musician Harler. She boasts that on a recent Basement voyage, she had a leotard among the stockings. The next day, when the price had fallen 25 percent, she came back to buy it.

Kurt Lawrence praises Harier's approach. "If I can hide something I will," Lawrence says. "You stick it in the wrong rack and you can save $25 or $30 by waiting."

Of course, there are some drawbacks to shopping in Filene's Clothing often is defective and there are no fitting rooms, customers complain.

Some people get around that problem by using a coat or a parent as a dressing curtain. But many other shoppers say they are too shy to undress in a room full of strangers and so they just take chances and wait till they get home to see if it fits.

For teenager Pfiliades this is no problem in fact, she says, she thinks it's fun to have to try on the clothes on the selling room floor. As Harler says, "This is a drawback only for people with weird bodies.

And beyond and that, Filene's which is just off the Washington Street Red Line subway stop, is as much a part of Boston as the Bruins Says DelTergo, "Filene's has been here at least as long as I have When I was barely big enough to crawl, I was dragged here by Mommy and Daddy to buy school clothes."

One woman who works upstairs in the more civilized--and expensive--regular part of Filense's says she has been shopping there for 23 years, ever since immigrated to America. First introduced to Filene's by her classmates at Boston University she recalls, "Students would hit it like a tourist attraction."

Now, she shops downstairs with her 18-year-old daughter and says that little has changed. It's still like a flea market atmosphere, but people are spending big bucks."

It may have all the allure of a bus station and all the grace of a fallout shelter, but Filene's basement is as much a part of Boston as the Bruins