Clothes And Paris

It is something like this: You have been hypnotized before, and you vow you won't be again! You make up your mind that you are going to get a black dress and a dark blue—and nothing else.

You enter the lower reception hall and mount the bronze balustraded stairs half way when already Mlle. Marie is aware of your approach. She greets you not only as though you are the only customer she has ever had, but as though your coming has saved—just saved in time—the prestige of the house.

She tells you breathlessly that you are just in time to see the parade of models; she puts you where you may have an uninterrupted view. She then begins her greetings all over again by asking not alone after all the members of your family and an extraordinarily long list of friends, but makes a solicitous inquiry after each dress that she has ever sold you. " Did Madame like her white velvet? " she coos. " Was it not most useful? Was not her black lace charming? And the bisque cloth—surely Madame had found great satisfaction in wearing the bisque cloth? " But your ears are as stone to her blandishments! As a traveling suit, bisque-colored cloth had not been serviceable! Black lace with a cerise velvet under petticoat might be effective at Armenonville, but it had seemed queer, to say the least, at the tennis match in August. No, you are at last immune from any of those sudden attacks of new fashion fever that result in loss of judgment. You open your little book and consult your list.

" I should like, " you say, " a navy blue serge trimmed with black braid or satin or something like that; a black crê pe de chine absolutely plain; I really need nothing else."

You do not look at Mile. Marie's crestfallen face, you watch the procession of models. But the old spell works. Besides zebra stripes and gold shot with cerise and purple, you think an emerald green charmeuse is really a perfect substitute for the plain black crê pe de chine you had in mind. You show that you are hypnotized by remarking absently, " It is the color of the grass."

Instantly, Mlle. Marie, the most skillful vendeuse in Paris, becomes radiant. " Listen, Madame, " she says to you in that insinuating, confidential, yet humbly ingratiating manner of hers. " Let me explain, Madame, —the idea of dress this year is altogether idyllic! Never has there been such charming return to nature. The great originator of our house has taken his suggestion—but yes! from the little animals of the fields and woods—from Nature herself! Our dresses this year are intended to follow the example of all the little animals dressed to match their backgrounds. Is not that thought exquisite? Is not that delicious? Is an emerald lizard conspicuous in the tropics? Is a zebra even seen in patches of sun and shade? And in the snow, think of all the little animals who put on white coats in winter! Obviously white is the color intended for winter wear. And for the spring, green. Emerald green assuredly. It is as Madame herself said, the color of the grass. The emerald charmeuse on a lawn in summer would be a poem of harmony. The cerise for afternoons at sunset; this orange shading into coral embroidery to wear beside the fire. The dark blue chiffon embroidered in silver is for night. All the colors that Madame at first found so bright—they are but the colors of a summer flower garden. What would Madame wear in a flower garden? Black crê pe de chine? Assuredly not! See this shell pink chiffon, how lovely it would look under trees of apple blossoms. Blue serge! Oh, what an escape. And now if Madame will permit me to suggest? —the green, but assuredly! and the orange and coral, and the pink chiffon garden dress, and the zebra, for travelling, and the blue and silver...."

However, to be serious, people do go to Paris and buy their clothes—beautiful clothes! Of course they do; especially those who go every year. But the woman who goes abroad perhaps every four or five years is apt to be deficient in a trans-Atlantic sense. " Match backgrounds, like charming little animals? " Never! Oh, a very big Never Again! And yet the next time shall you not find it a temptation to go just out of curiosity to find out what the newest artfully enticing little tune of the Pied Pipers of Paris will be!