The Glass of Fashion

by Cecil Beaton

  Few individual men have influenced fashion since Beau Brummell, for ridicule or scorn often reward those who turn off the modern highway of conservatism. Perhaps only those in positions of power or who possess great social prestige can defy fashion successfully. The Duke of Windsor, when he was Prince of Wales, defied convention. He wore straw hats instead of the customary Englishman’s felt hat in summer, loud checks and suède shoes and resented stiffly starched shirts for evening. With a real goût de scandale he would appear at a formal reception in lounge clothes. If the ordinary man today were to appear in some of the unorthodox hats and highly coloured tweeds that the Prince modelled he would doubtless become an object of ridicule.

  If every muscular movement of the body is the result of thought, then people may well think themselves into different sizes and shapes. Just as the latter-day breeding of roses affects the size and shape of the petals and the colour of the bloom, so, too, women have been fat or slim, hyperthyroid or splenetic, sallow or pink-cheeked, slouched or erect, according to the prevalent notions of beauty. I know little about the theory of genetics whereby a change affected in a living organism is transmitted from generation to generation; but these outward physical changes seem to last only as long as the current notion of beauty dictates.

  At the end of the last century women thought of themselves in terms of being well covered: they wished to have a wonderful décolletage and would have been ashamed of hollows in the neck as deep as salt cellars. But nowadays ladies are so intent on being thin that a scraggy décolletage has become inevitable.

  Not only have they made themselves half the weight they were three or four decades ago, but they have also thought themselves into entirely different contours. With whalebone corsets that ruthlessly laced the human figure into an hourglass shape, Victorian waistlines became as small as sixteen inches. But though a small waistline was essential, the flesh above and below had to be full, of a Renoir-like voluptuousness. The mature women were handsome, the younger ones demurely pretty; nowadays women are neither demurely pretty nor handsome. Those fabulous professional beauties for whom people stood on their chairs in the park were Juno-like goddesses with great, carved features, chiselled nostrils, and prognathous jaws—a type that today would be considered too monumental for the average man’s taste. Men have come to accept as a premise women who look more like young boys, with thin and flat hips, who have even adopted blue denims, blouses, and short skirts and haircuts. Women, likewise, have accepted a lankier male to take to their breasts with a pitying, motherly interest.

  Our pace of life has quickened so that women’s features now reflect the frenzied, insecure age in which they live. Women’s eyes used to be wistful. Today few possess serene eyes; they do not mind creases in their brows and often wear a frown on their foreheads. Young girls are proud of their high cheekbones and a flat hollow in their cheeks, whereas fifty years ago cheeks were fully rounded. Latterly the rather prehensile mouth have replaced the rosebud of yesterday. Whereas make-up was used only by cocottes in the Victorian and Edwardian heydays (ladies used to slap their cheeks and bite their lips before entering a ballroom to obtain a higher colour), any woman without lipstick today appears anæmic. Hair dyeing has become so general that it is not kept a guarded secret. Eyebrows, instead of being arched or wearing the old-fashioned startled look or the look of pained surprise, are slightly raised towards the outer edges, even acquiring a mongolian look. After twenty years of eyebrow plucking, eyebrows do not grow as thickly as they did.

  Perhaps women’s hands have changed more than any other feature. Thirty years ago pudgy little hands with dimples and pointed fingers were admired. Today the joints of the fingers are clearly discernible, and dactylar reactions are more nervous, highly strung, like those little wooden hammers that appear if the corresponding piano key is struck. When a woman holds her handbag it is with her thumb sticking out at a tangent. Thirty years ago the thumb would not have been noticed, for it was discreetly hidden, with the purse held daintily by the tips of the fingers, the little finger crooked like a handle.

  It would be difficult to trace the causes of some of these physiological transformations. Easiest to understand is that changes in weight are undoubtedly a result of modern diet. Science has taught us much about balanced meals, starchy foods, and overeating. At Victorian dinners nearly everyone overate. But the present generation eats less because it has come to think of eating less. Vitamin discoveries and various diets have also influenced the slimmer contours of today.

  Even the appearance of food itself has changed: it is now considered old-fashioned to garnish and overdecorate a dish. Escoffier’s famous cookbook seems appallingly rich and heavy to us: who today would want or could possibly afford to spend five hours on one sauce? Courses are fewer, their colours less vivid, and their serving less elaborate.

  But if we have become healthier through our more scientific regimes, stance and posture have both deteriorated. Henry James could write of his turn-of-the-century Madame de Vionnet that “she was the kind of woman who could put her elbows on the table between courses and still appear graceful.” But the habit of slouching, lying on sofas with legs tucked beneath, or sitting on the floor has become general; and few women, once addicted to these bad habits, are able to break with them. The result is that they now have a total inability to sit up straight, have become hunchbacks with a tendency to rheumatism.

  Ever since the Boston Tea Party, America and England, mutually interdependent in worldly affairs, have been travelling on their separate paths. Yet their cultures have become strikingly different. In one sense this difference has a healthy effect on the fashions of both countries, but they still cling to certain prized idiosyncrasies. Perhaps no two peoples of the Western world misunderstand each other’s tastes so much as the British and the Americans, who guard their habits with a staunch, national pride.

  It seems to me that in America materials are always pristine, shirts are newly ironed, collars starched, and dresses have the air of being fresh from the seamstress’s needle. Surface qualities and packaging are always appetizing. By the time the first crispness has worn off, objects are taken away to the incinerator, rarely in America is one allowed to see something in its decline. There can be no more striking example of this than theatrical bouquets. European actresses are said to preserve their floral tributes long after they should be thrown out. But there are never any dead flowers in the dressing room of American actresses.

  One has, indeed, in America, the notion that objects are whisked away before scratches, wear and tear, or mildew are allowed to blemish the patina of life.

  Englishwomen, by contrast, appreciate something with a patina on it. In certain well-regulated houses in Britain oak tables are polished every day, until years of care give them the deep, nut-coloured sheen and the rich quality that can come from age alone. Americans create objects with a ready-made finish or eggshell patina, and from that moment onwards, the dégringolade begins.

  At its best the taste exhibited by Englishwomen has a certain “literary” quality; almost, one might say, a Virginia Woolf appreciation for clothes that possess the association of ideas. They are less interested in the outward appearance of the merchandise and scarcely think of an object in terms of the silk paper surrounding it, nor the allure of its newness. Old things have a certain romantic quality about them, and Englishwomen of high taste appreciate this. Far from preferring a trim, neat look, they incline more towards the picturesque. They appreciate well-tailored suits, but they like hats to have brims: they love picture hats. Other penchants are sashes and waistbands, possibly with roses tucked into them; they are also fond of gloves, not necessarily new, even old garden gloves. This constitutes a sort of romantic garden-party way of dressing that is perhaps more nostalgic than applicable today. Likewise, in the gardens that they love and where they work so earnestly, they prefer the rustic interpretation of their taste rather than blue jeans and a more utilitarian approach and will wear a garden hat wi
th a huge brim not merely because it keeps the sun off, but also because of the sympathetic and romantic mood it creates.

  But if English ladies like to wear clothes that suggest a mood and create an atmosphere for them, one has a very contrary impression of American clothes: they seem to have come out of a refrigerator, and, like American bread or butter or foodstuffs in general, are often wrapped in cellophane.

  Climate no doubt affects costume as much as any other factor. Englishwomen have always worn shawls and always will wear them, which may perhaps be attributed to inclement weather and draughts. Not so long ago, when Paris innovated shawls once again, an American editor of a fashion magazine remarked, “Heavens, Englishwomen have only just got out of shawls, and now they’ll get back into them!”

  French or Italian tastes are again a whole law unto themselves. But since France is the acknowledged centre of Western fashion, its taste is naturally quickly absorbed by other nations and does not for long remain insular. Yet many French innovations are too fleeting to have a serious appeal outside that country.

  Italian taste has had a wider influence than its quiet approach would indicate. The elasticity of the Italian temperament, combined with thousands of years of invaders, can readily absorb all outside influences and yet rise above them and conquer with its own individual expression. The Italians have always been great craftsmen, ever since the first architects, landscape gardeners, and cabinetmakers were imported to England as far back as the Elizabethan age. Today, in Italian fashions, we recognize the same quality in their suits, their coats, their shoes, and their sandals, and they quietly set a standard for others to follow.

  Typical of the taste of Italian women are the picture dresses, the semi-dirndl skirts, the long earrings, and sandals. Black has always been a favourite colour among Latin people, and both the Italians and the Spanish have periodically re-emphasized funereal values of colour. Equally assertive, however, is the Italian taste for harsh colours and vivid stripes, which on that peninsula are worn with a sophisticated insouciance.

  In many ways France, Italy, and even to some extent England have resisted the pressures of a technological society and realized that the way of life exemplified by America, for all its value in raising the general standard of living and promoting a luxury for the many that was never before possible, still carries with it a deadly virus: the virus of standardization. For Americans this argument may not count for very much, particularly at a time when Western unity is essential. But if we value that which Western individuality has produced in the past, we may well have to pause to examine the conscious or unconscious extent of our own betrayal. No one can blame America for perfecting a science that has given much to the world and has helped in such a degree to alleviate the human condition. But we can all seriously appraise the vices as well as the virtues inherent in new trends of living, and must fight to preserve, or incorporate in the new, the cultural values of generations of Western life. Our ancestors would have wanted us to do no less.

  CHAPTER XV

  KING PINS AND NEEDLES

  FRANCE is proud of the talents of her artists, whether they be great sculptors, cooks, or dressmakers. The artist is pampered and spoilt and protected against so many of the obstacles which, particularly in England, assail him and obstruct the execution of an inspiration. In England today the mere effort of living partakes of much creative ability. In France the artist is a sacred monster, a being apart; his energy is left unimpaired for his creative work, and there are many who are willing and proud to help him, to carry a bag, to prepare his evening meal, to transport his work to headquarters.

  Typical of the reverence in which the talented are esteemed in France is Christian Dior, who is treated as the national asset which he undoubtedly is. Nancy Mitford tells how, soon after Dior had opened his own dressmaking establishment, she was sitting in a taxi, on her way to a dress fitting at Dior’s, when the driver turned round in his seat and announced proudly, “At last we have another dressmaker to rival Monsieur Balenciaga!”

  Monsieur Balenciaga’s “rival” has passed into legend since Nancy Mitford’s taxi ride. The name of Christian Dior, the Watteau of contemporary dressmakers, has become among women in every country of the Western world a byword for chic: but little is known about the man himself.

  In appearance Dior is like a bland country curate made out of pink marzipan. His apparent composure is a deception that belies an innate nervousness and tension, which result in almost total prostration after each new collection has been created. After the openings Dior looks to his country house at Milly for salvation. There he can rest between bouts in one of the world’s most arduous and competitive professions, puttering in the garden, sometimes making an excursion to the local antique shop to bring back a bit of Sèvres china or the chair that he has long been promising himself: but his purse strings are carefully guarded by his secretary.

  Dior enjoys the trimmings of life. A bourgeois with his feet well planted in the soil of reality, he has remained as modest as a sugar violet in spite of eulogies that have been heaped upon him. His egglike head may sway from side to side, but it will never be turned by success. Dior does not make the mistake of believing in his own publicity, though when he arrived in New York he received as much newspaper space as Winston Churchill. He is grateful that when fashion tires of him (and even the greatest can hold the throne for no more than several decades) he has been lucky and wise enough to save a nest egg on which to retire to his farm and cultivate his gardens.

  There is a wide basis for Christian Dior’s great reputation. After a gloomy interval of war he brought back to fashion an air of excitement that it had been missing for too many years. Far from being a flash in the pan, Dior’s initial success was founded on a talent for the fresh and the unexpected that has been sustained through each succeeding collection. He seems to possess an inexhaustible vitality and zest, infusing his work with a radiating vigour. To see a collection of Dior’s dresses filing past gives one the pleasure of watching a romantic and spectacular pageant. With an impeccable taste, a highly civilized sensitivity, and a respect for tradition that shows itself in a predilection for the half-forgotten, Dior creates a brilliant nostalgia. He can effect a mood by his personal colour sense alone and has put his authentic stamp on certain shades of lily-of-the-valley-leaf green, grey-yellow, pale apricot-rose, or nacreous grey-greens. From this spectrum he creates his reverie, making a rhapsody out of flower-strewn chiffon, while even the most useful of his day suits evokes a certain empathy.

  When he was young, he never thought he would be a dressmaker. “Naturally,” he says, “I was impressed by women’s appearance. Like all children, I inevitably looked at an elegant lady with admiration.” He distantly recalls the fur wraps, the paradise feathers and amber necklaces, the Boldini-like gestures, but, he explains, he would have been greatly surprised if someone had predicted that one day he would spend his time studying the complex details of fabrics, drapery, and the intricacies of cut.

  It was chance and necessity that led Dior to create his initial sketches in 1935. He had just recovered from a long illness, and his finances had taken a turn for the worse. For the first time in his life Christian Dior had to think seriously about a career. Previously he had led the leisurely life of a dilettante, had developed his æsthetic tastes, dabbled in the arts, had known a number of painters and musicians, and had even run a picture gallery to “sell the paintings of my friends.” But though of Norman stock, Dior had never developed a practical sense, and the gallery failed.

  Jean Ozenne, a friend of Dior’s suggested that he try his hand at designing clothes. Dior attempted some first sketches, and although the draughtsmanship was groggy he submitted them to a large dressmaking house. To his astonishment, they were accepted, but he realized there was a long row to be hoed. Dior made hundreds and hundreds of drawings, stubbornly and patiently attempted to learn, to understand, and to intuit. After two years of labour and research, working night and day, he had fin
ally attained his end: he had become a good dress designer.

  During those early years Dior kept a sharp eye on the work of other designers. “Nothing is ever invented,” he readily admits. “You always start from something. It is certainly Molyneux’s style that has most influenced me.” He also admired Chanel, who “with a black sweater and ten rows of pearls” had revolutionized fashion.

  Later, when he became involved with matters of technique, Madeleine Vionnet’s dresses proved a valuable lesson. The more he learned the trade, the more he understood how exceptional and admirable she was. “No one,” Dior asserts, “has ever carried the art of dressmaking farther than Vionnet.”

  By degrees a number of well-known dress houses bought Dior’s sketches, though he often said that the finished products were much better than his originals. Janette Colombier, working for Marie Alphonsine, said to him one day, “Seriously, you don’t pay enough attention to the back or the sides of your dresses! You may be satisfied if they seem all right from the front, but my clients look at themselves from every angle.” Such experiences were invaluable to Dior.