Postscript
Great frocks
Patrick Marnham
°There is no doubt that Porter enjoyed the Young Designers' Show at the Park Lane Hotel; although this is the first time he has been out of the office since the All Clear sounded in 1945 and his impressions were rather confused.
The show opened with three short girls, all in black and wearing dark glasses. They were joined by two taller girls without glasses who looked rather more confident. Porter assumed that the two taller girls were there to prevent the three blind girls from falling off the catwalk. More and more blind girls in black then flooded onto the ramp to the sound of bongo drums and Porter announced that this must be a funeral. The girls certainly looked miserable enough but I thought this was more to do with the fact that they had been dragged out of their gym slips and forced into all these black silk and suede dresses. I told Porter that blind girls get jolly cross about 'that sort of thing' and he agreed.
The lights dimmed again, the bongo drums were succeeded by a voice wrongly identified by Porter as 'that young French thing, Edith Piaf,' and the high point of the evening arrived — the collection by Con- suelo Fraser, who works with Lily Johnston. All the girls sitting around Porter stood up to get a better look and when a plain fitted and lined grey velvet short jacket and skirt, with slashed kimono shaped shirt with small mandarin collar ap- peared, cheering broke out from all sides of the hall. Even the models started to smile. I tried to explain to Porter that Consuelo Fraser had not designed the whole show, and that the work of several other designers was on view, but he had been introduced to Consuelo and Lily before the show and after that he seemed to lose interest in addi- tional information. Porter appreciated the leopard skin hats worn by some of Con- suelo's models. 'Women like a bit of red meat,' he muttered. Fortunately before he could pursue this train of thought the cheer- ing rose again to greet a black velvet A-line lined jacket with high silver lame collar.
Later in the show a number of mini skirts were modelled and Porter noted that he was getting quite attached to the backs of some of these girls' knees. He added that he sup- posed that you could get attached to anything if you concentrated on it for long enough. Then a tall blonde girl dressed in scarlet walked on, dragging a young man in mohair by the ear. Then a young man look- ed rather anxious and so did Porter. 'He's rather under the cosh, isn't he? said Porter. 'He needs to take more exercise. What's happened to his muscles?' The girl sitting next to Porter said that muscles were not being worn this year but the old chap just gave one of his queer little smiles and flexed his artificial hand.
In the world of Porter there is no equivalent to the Fashion Show. About 1,000 people, mostly young girls, gaze with unblinking attention for about one hour at other young girls who keep on appearing in different clothes. Each time they reappear they have changed the whole outfit, right down to different shoes. Porter has been wearing the same clothes since Mr Baldwin was elected and he couldn't make head or tail of it. He said that it was refreshing to meet so many young girls who weren't always tugging at your sleeve and asking for more pennies. I told him to wait till the show ended when the order books came out and the phone started to ring (01-352 7092) at Consuelo Fraser's show room at 70 Limerston Street, London SW10.
When the show ended he had to be drag- ged back to his cardboard box in the office basement. As we left, in the deserted chang- ing room used by the models, a lone model was weeping in the corner, hunched over one black lace shoe, unable to find the other, and inconsolable. 'Those photographers took it', she kept saying. 'I know it was those photographers'. And every time her boy friend tried to comfort her she hit him with the remaining shoe. Women can get quite upset about 'that sort of thing'.
Previous page
