1936 On the Continent

“The more you love, the more you love loving; and the more you eat, the more you love eating.”
    Is it then a passion, a dangerous rival to other delights?
    As Voltaire said: “The love of good food is the last love, which consoles one for all the others.”

CLOTHES AND THE WOMAN
    Despite the devaluation of currencies, despite the dressmakers abroad who cleverly get away with sketches of Paris models before they even come out, Paris is still a paradise for women who like to dress well and in the latest fashion. It is full of subtle temptations which Eve can never resist, and poor Adam raises his eyes to heaven and takes his note-case, from his pocket for the hundredth time.
    Dressing and clothes may be looked at from two quite different angles: the wearing of the clothes and their making. Paris is a delight from both points of view, though I have often heard visitors refuse to admit that the Frenchwoman dresses any better than the women abroad or in his own country.
“Chic” is in their Blood
    Personally, I think that the failure to admit the excellence of the Frenchwoman’s taste comes from a fundamental misunderstanding. The Englishman or American is probably right when he looks round him in the streets of Paris and says or thinks that in his country the girls are far smarter. So they are, on the average. The girl who works in an office or factory in America or England is far better paid than the French girl. The standardised level of taste is therefore higher. But where France wins every time is first in the highest domains of dressmaking, where only the rich may tread, and secondly whenever the less fortunate Frenchwoman has time to think out and maybe make her own dresses.
    Every Frenchman who visits New York or London is struck by the high standard of neatness and even chic he sees in the girls going to work or coming home from work in the subways or tube. But he is also struck—and Frenchmen have an eye for these things and for women which the English and Americans find rather shocking in a man—by the sameness of it all. In Paris he is accustomed to seeing each woman dressed quite differently, even if utterly failing in her effort to be smart in an individualway, and to seeing every now and then something almost perfect in conception, though perhaps not in quality of fabric, on some quite poor little working-girl or harassed mother. That is Paris. A rather low standard of general elegance, but absolute perfection in the heights and flashes of genius even in the depths!
    As far as dressmaking is concerned, let us start with the “Haute Couture” and the well-filled pocket books. The dressmaking centre, dressmaking being essentially a mobile art, has followed the general movement of decentralisation in Paris from the Opéra towards the Etoile, and everyone with a name in the creation of fashions can be found somewhere between the Madeleine and the Champs Elysées: Rue Royale, Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, Avenue Matignon. It is in that small radius of a mile or so that the wonderful creations, which make women dream the world over, are planned and carried out.
Famous Dressmakers
    If you are very young, very slender, and are not afraid of being a little unusual, get yourself dressed by Marcel Rochas, the youngest of the advance-guard dressmakers of Paris. He will leave you youthful and svelt, while at the same time giving you some ingenious and paradoxical touch as tenuous and as hard to define as an intuition. If, on the other hand, good dame nature has made your lines sculptural, go rather to Mme. Besançon de Wagner, the artist who presides over the destinies of the House of Maggy Rouff, and whose models are always so lovely and have such a noble bearing.
    If you are looking for something to wear at tennis, golf or skating, there is nowhere else to go than to Madeleine de Rauch or her neighbour Vera Borea; for a smart and yet slightly unconventional afternoon tailored costume, the best house is Molyneux. Evening dresses are a speciality of a Madeleine Vionnet, for whom the art of draping has no secrets. Your evening wraps and day coats should be made at Worth’s, where the taste is so absolutely sure, both respecting the established traditions and yet open to the adventurous fashion of to-morrow.
    Finally, if you are fond of the throw-back to the fashion of 1900, go chez Schiaparelli, that marvellous creativeartist who has just revived the tulle train and who reigns over the dresses of Hollywood