The Fashion Dictators
By A. V. DAVIS
tt this very moment," moans a fashion=writer at the premiere of Lanvin's winter collection. She is cover- ing the shows- for a chain of Los Angeles newspapers, and her pale blue notebook exactly matches her suit: Heavy-eyed and dyspeptic, a swarthy man with oiled black hair stares blankly through rimless spectacles at the lowered hemlines, the huge Cavalier cuffs of ocelot, the mink tails linked into a necklace. He fans himself delicately with a little pink fan. EE, I wish I was sitting at Rumpelmayer's oppowzite, " Number seexty. . . . 'Pardon.' Erreur Rectification ! Number one 'undred seexty. . . . Tailleur-Battle Jaquet a blouson tres trona, manches trois quarts, poches en biais. . . . Robe Sappho en inousseline de deux tons. . . . Les chapeaux sons de Paulette, les bijoux de Scentama, les para- phdes de Vedrenne, les Baines de Scandale." Going the rounds of the haute couture houses is an exhausting experience. The fight for seats, the lack of oxygen and the hysterical excitement are enough to undermine the strongest constitution. It is not long before one is thinking of nothing but tea and aspirins. The mannequins are in better shape than the audience. Two hundred outfits are shown at most presentations, but the girls know the name, number and material' of everything they wear. Fifty times in two hours they close the door on the bickering and pandemonium of the changing-room, and saunter out, aloof, as great ladies, trailing coats on the floor with studied negli- gence. In spare minutes they relax with their feet on the dressing-table, clad in minimum underwear. Their iron resis- tance is built up with coffee-cream sponge-cakes. Wilting in the heat but tense with concentration, the buyers from the world's wholesale firms try to jot down their impres- sions. Among the four thousand creations shown in the salons of the couturiers, a dozen will become the prevailing fashion, worn by women all Over the globe. The buyers' skill lies in spotting the winners. It is inadvisable to show interest in the gowns they intend to purchase. Applause is reserved for the freak whimsies. " Enchanting ! Ravishing ! Monsieur is an artist ! " they exclaim, watching the reaction of their busi- ness rivals. " I'm wild about that fish-tail line. It's a bargain at two hundred thousand francs."
All the models have names---Clarinette, La Fourmi, Tabor,. The hats have names—Rue Royale, Soir de Fete. Even the colours have names—Boiled Lobster, Katydid Blue. Ukelele Green (muted). Schiaparelli gives us another green named Grass (very new this), while Paquin presents a novelty called Chestnut Whisky. In every satin-draped salon the air is heady with the scent of Arpeke, Ever After, Bandit. Shocking and Dans La Mat. It is very confusing. One needs a notebook handy the whole time.
If Madame Schiaparelli's decrees 'are followed, a plague of grasshoppers will jump around Paris next season, haughty but humorous, wearing winged' garments rather like men's tail coats. Phweet ! Avenue Matignon. Phweet ! Place Vendome. Phweet ! Rue de la Paix. Shopping will be a pleasure. The house of Heim has given us seduction in every seam and a fox's-head neckline with ears sticking up. We have admired the pipe-line silhouette and the tulip skirt. We have see women turned, into lighthouses, turtledoves, mermaids and rainbows. And we have enjoyed a few lighter moments. At Maggy Rouff's opening three dancers from the corps de ballet de l'Opera displayed some exclusive stockings. Late one evening, at milliner Chabaud's gala, a vivacious young woman recited a poem with declamatory gestures and much eye emphasis.
Skirts are longer, but nothing alarming threatens us except Dior's 1880 profile. Elegance, he says, will always command attention. And so he transforms women into dignified little grandmothers, poker-backed and forbidding, with balloon sleeves and canvas crinolines at the front of their skirts. " Comme c'est simple ! " breathe the rich customers. " Mais quel gofer ! As for hats. Madame Suzy's are small and plushy; Simone Cange's are sideswept, hiding an ear. There are tambourines and -turbans. military caps and .mob-caps. embroidered with metal, shunning veils and feathers. ' Dior gives us fruit hats and little bare-headed coronets. Ali, la jeunesse !. It comes but once. For the sophisticated, a young Dane named Svend shows the Sphinx line, pronounced Svenx, in which the fore- head is uncovered and the back of the neck hidden by pleat- ing. " Now that's '.had I call priddy ha-a-andsorne." remarks a Canadian buyer with a crew hair-cut, holding a glass of very good champagne. " But haven't I seen it some place else ? " He certainly has. On the Svenx.
This year the French couturiers are wooing Latin America. Chet Dior. Balniain. Worth and Rochas one meets the same oil-kings from Venezuela, the same meat-millionaires from the Argentine. Madame La Presidente of Brazil is guest of honour at all the leading houses, giving precedence only to Madame La Generale Ridgway. Everywhere -one meets well-barbered men in heliotrope suits, whispering compliments in Portuguese. They may be members of the Brazilian Embassy. or dress- makers, or representatives of the cotton industry. They all look alike, and can easily be confused with haute-couture designers from Rome and Barcelona.'•who have flocked into Paris in large numbers.
It might be imagined that the last thing a rich South American would want to hear in the French capital is a native band specially flown from Brazil. Au contraire ! At Madame Scap's fete galante the Latins went wild with joy. Their blood leaped, their shoulders twitched and they taught the cabassa to the French aristocracy. As an added incentive, there was Miss Ginger Rogers dancing with passionate enjoyment, not ginger-haired at all but a radiant blonde, while twenty-six photographers climbed around with bits of wire and clusters of flash-bulbs. The grasshopper parade took place in the flood- lit courtyard, the windows of the house ablaze with turquoise and pink lights, with grotesque animal statues peering over the sills. Afterwards there was a dense throng round the champagne in the garden, and no one thought of leaving until past three o'clock. The same band played at Jacques Fath's £75,000 party in his chateau at Corbeville, when a thousand guests were taken by chartered autocars to assist at the presen- tation. They were in fancy dress, disguised, as one might have predicted, as Latin Americans. Madame Scap went as a yellow parrot: famous screen stars went as Mekican maidens, and the musicians had a marvellous time collecting autographs.
A most pleasing feature. of all the dress-shows is the high standard of elegance which prevails. Late arrivals are apt to be mistaken for mannequins, and often get their skirts nipped by covetous fingers. The plump bare shoulders of the Southerners are a-glitter with jewels even in the morning, and the international buyers are always decked out regardless of expense accounts. The fashion writers are equally smart, by* having travelled light, they wear the same clothes everywhere. As the days pass. they smell increasingly continental with intoxicating perfumes syringed upon them in two-dozen different salons.
Many of the foreign experts have been coming to Paris twice a year for the past thirty years. They know everybody— designers, vendenses. publicity agents, writers. " Why look, here's Hattie.... And Seymour ! . . . And Larry ! . Alt Lucien, c'est twits ! " Gossip is exchanged: hands and cheeks are kissed, and it is quite a family reunion. " See you in the Ritz bat in half an hour.... We're all going on to the George Fifth . . . to the Elysee Park . . . to the Crillon." There is barely time to eat a solid meal and still less time to sleep. Everyone is suffering from a surfeit of cocktails and buffet dainties. And as for sending stories home, there is just no time to write them.
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