Elsa Schiaparelli

by Meryle Secrest

  Along with forty other passengers, Schiaparelli stepped off the Dixie Clipper onto LaGuardia Field on May 25, 1941, two weeks after she left Paris. She was wearing a navy blue travelling suit with a wine-colored insert at the waistline and a matching turban, square-shouldered and self-assured. Food shortages were becoming acute, she said. “Prices on all foods have skyrocketed. In some restaurants you can find good food if you can pay for it. For the poor, however, it is beginning to be really serious. They stand in long lines for hours in front of markets only to learn, when they reach their turn, that there is nothing left to buy.” She was asked the tiresome question of whether New York would replace Paris as fashion center and replied with her usual evasiveness. There was nothing to prevent it, she replied. But why was everyone so eager for predictions? Time would tell.

  Schiaparelli arriving on the Pan Am Clipper in New York, 1941 (illustration credit 10.5)

  People wanted to know how she had managed to get out of France. So many people had helped her whose names, naturally, she could not divulge. What seemed impossible was very simple really, she wrote, if you had good friends. Her cavalier attitude is hard to understand. Surely she must have known her escape was possible only because of her privileged connections, her influence and prominent position? No, people were jealous, that was it. Of course she could not explain how she did it, and true friends did not ask.

  This respectful attitude did not extend to the British Ministry of Economic Warfare, which was starved for foreign currency and dollars in particular. The ministry was now appealing to the U.S. Treasury to block funds being paid to Schiaparelli from her New York branch of Parfums Schiaparelli that in its view should be sent to the British branch. There was a precedent; in 1940 proceeds from the sale in New York of a large European art collection were blocked by the U.S. Treasury to prevent the money from falling into Nazi hands. The British argument was that Schiaparelli, as a French citizen, was now the enemy and was intercepting for her own use dollars that should have gone to Britain. It was time to clip the claws of this fifth columnist, this violently anti-British lady who would stop at nothing. The FBI also continued to monitor her movements and speculate on her motives. She was back in New York but not happy about it.

  Gogo meets her mother in the customs shed, 1941. (illustration credit 10.6)

  She needed, she wrote, some peace “to rediscover myself and a right way of living.” She rented a small cottage on a Long Island estate near the water. There she swam, picked up mussels and clams for dinner, and lay on her stomach “quite flat on the bare earth for hours.” She wrote, “My conscience tortured me because though one’s conscience does not prevent one from acting or sinning, it will not let one appreciate and enjoy the result of it, even if there is a doubt.” This elliptical confession raises more questions than it answers. Was she feeling guilty because she had escaped from the war? Or had she made compromises in her dealings with the enemy that she could not bring herself to acknowledge, certainly not in print?

  She had hardly arrived before she was making plans to leave yet again, this time on a trip to South America (September–November 1941). Schiaparelli had always travelled widely, and her quick eye benefited from fleeting images others would miss: the tilt of a hat, the turn of a heel, the width of a cuff, and unexpected juxtapositions of color and line that would inspire a whole new way of looking at her art. This would suggest she was ready, even eager, to start work again in a world that had always welcomed her, and she was receiving plenty of invitations. Besides, as Schiaparelli Inc. she had an office on Broadway in name only that imported silks, woolens, and cottons since 1933. Why she did not resume work is a mystery. Speaking of herself in the third person, she wrote, “For unless she had been careful to remain entirely aloof from couture she would have found herself in a very false situation.” It sounds like careful legal reasoning, but her meaning is unclear. If it had something to do with the business on the Place Vendôme, which conceivably would be closed down by the Germans if clothes by Schiaparelli went on sale in New York, then why not say so in 1954, a decade after the war ended? The apparent instinct, by habit and long training, to disguise the truth was too strong.

  She still had the U.S. branch of her perfume business at least, and that was flourishing. There were about eighteen employees at 610 Fifth Avenue in New York, there was also a branch in Toronto, and sales to South America alone were about $50,000 a year. Schiaparelli wrote, “My partners in the perfume company, seeing me so fidgety, suggested a trip to South America to investigate business and to change my mood.” This was not the way George Parkinson, now distribution manager for New York, described the situation when he was interviewed by the FBI in January 1942. Parkinson said that, like his wife, Marie, he had been suspicious of Schiaparelli’s motives but had no foundation for this until recently, when she announced she would take over the South American trip that he had formerly taken himself. That decision was sudden, and at the eleventh hour. In seven weeks she visited eight countries and made fourteen stops in, among other places, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico. The result of the trip had been one new Mexican contact and an offer of rare oils that Parkinson knew were contraband, and that was it. He could not imagine why she had made three stops in Peru, where the company “had never sold as much as a hundred dollars’ worth of perfume.” Besides, it was farcical to think any kind of new contracts could be made in the two or three days she had allotted for each visit. He had “no idea what she was up to on this trip,” but was sure it had nothing to do with the perfume business. Parkinson wondered whether Schiaparelli, who, as he knew, was in close contact with Bettina Bergery and her ambassador husband, was doing espionage work for the Vichy government.

  In Berlin Diary William Shirer wrote in 1940 that Germany was already looking toward an attack on South America as a foothold from which to launch a war against the United States. “A German naval force based in the French port of Dakar could feasibly operate in Brazilian waters, too far south in the Atlantic for an American fleet to respond effectively.” German transports could get there from Dakar “before transports from America arrived. Fifth-column action by the hundreds of thousands of Germans in Brazil and Argentina would paralyze any defense which those countries might try to put up,” the argument went. “South America could thus, think these Germans, be taken fairly easily. And once in South America, they argue, the battle is won.” Who was Schiaparelli meeting in that seven-week, whirlwind tour of South America, and exactly what kind of business was she doing? An American columnist thought she knew.

  She was Sheilah Graham, an English-born, nationally syndicated gossip columnist who during the 1930s was justly feared, along with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, for her power to make and break the careers of film stars. The love of Graham’s life was F. Scott Fitzgerald, and her memoir of their relationship, Beloved Infidel, written after his death in 1940, was later made into a film. In 1941 she was in New York, working as a columnist for the North American Newspaper Alliance, and wrote a series of articles about the conduct of the Nazis in Paris. The final column concerned the couture industry. The informant, whose name was not revealed because he still had relatives living in France, described so-called refugees, now living in the U.S., whom he knew for a fact were active German agents. One of them, he made clear, was Schiaparelli. Despite the shortages of fabric and materials, Schiaparelli had managed to assemble a clientele of wealthy wives of German officers, including Mrs. Hermann Goering. Graham’s informant said: “Because of her German connections, this dressmaker was allowed much more than her quota of materials, etc., and is able to go in and out of France as she pleases. A year ago she spent several months in the United States, presumably on dressmaking business, but perhaps to get information about this country which she passes on to the Germans. She had no difficulty leaving America to return to France. And back in Paris she called the Americans and the British every harsh thing she could think of.

  “You can imagine my
surprise, on arriving here a few weeks ago, to find this dressmaker in New York. She is now on her way to South America, maybe to preach the doctrine of collaboration with the Germans …”

  In a report written two months later, the FBI had its own version of events. It asserted that “while in South America, Madame Schiaparelli dropped hints in private conversations to the effect that South America would do well to look to Europe, not only as a center of postwar fashions, but also as a center of other postwar influences, all of which insinuations appeared to be propaganda against inter-American ideals.” The memorandum was dated January 15, 1942, a month after Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. was at war with Germany.

  When accused, Schiaparelli’s instinctive response was to put on her best outfit, knock on the door, and confront her accusers. She did this at the New York branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where she managed to be granted an interview with its assistant director, P. E. Foxworth, just before Christmas in 1941. She was accompanied by a Philadelphia representative of a Quaker relief organization for refugees, and lodged a formal complaint about the Graham article. Although the article did not name her in so many words, its implication was clear, and typical, her spokesman said, “of stories that were being publicized that were most harmful to Madame Schiaparelli.” Her mother was still in Italy, her property and everything she owned were still in France. She had to be “very circumspect” about what she said, and so might have been misunderstood. She certainly was not a Nazi. She wanted the FBI to issue a statement that “Madame Schiaparelli was satisfactory,” perhaps not quite in those words. Foxworth listened patiently but replied that unfortunately this could not be done. Madame Schiaparelli was under investigation.

  If she had guessed this was the case, she now knew for certain. Her reaction to the news is not known, but the FBI was painstakingly putting its case together, based in large part on the contacts she had maintained in occupied France. One of them was Count René de Chambrun, a descendant of Lafayette who maintained a dual citizenship: he practiced law in Paris and was a member as well of the New York State Bar Association. Chambrun happened to be in New York in 1940—he had made a vain appeal to President Roosevelt for aid to France just weeks before France fell—and would shortly return. He was the godson of Marshal Pétain and was married to the daughter of Vichy’s notorious president, Pierre Laval, which made him suspect in FBI circles. Before he left the U.S., the count is reported to have made the damning comment that “he found Madame Schiaparelli of the greatest use, inasmuch as she could move in and out of occupied France, apparently at will.” Schiaparelli was under increasing scrutiny by Canada as well, and barred from entering that country. The argument went that her large investments in France, now under German control, made her vulnerable to pressures to cooperate with the enemy, even be compelled to do so. The issue had become, not whether she spied for Germany, but how she could possibly have avoided doing so.

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  WEARING TWO HATS

  In Paris, fashion was continuing with or without Elsa Schiaparelli. Making a virtue of necessity, as fabrics became increasingly scarce, skirts got shorter and stayed there, flying about flirtatiously as women took to their bicycles. Leather was in short supply and women clacked along the grands boulevards on wooden soles that added an inch to their height and inspired a popular song by Maurice Chevalier, “La Symphonie des semelles en bois” (The Symphony of the Wooden Soles). Silk hose disappeared, and so women stained their bare legs with a special color from Elizabeth Arden to mimic stockings and, in the days before pantyhose, painted a line up the back of their calves to simulate the ubiquitous seams. (Englishwomen did the same.) Magazines were full of helpful suggestions about how to make a child’s overcoat from a wool blanket or (shades of Scarlett O’Hara) an evening dress from a pair of velvet curtains.

  Perhaps the most extravagant and audacious invention of those days was the hat which, in the manner of eighteenth-century coiffure, reached preposterous heights. It might be concocted, not just of feathers and old trimmings, but of celluloid, thin slices of wood, and even newspapers. Lipstick was the brightest of bright reds. Lise Deharme wrote in Les Lettres françaises: “Yes, true Parisiennes were supremely elegant during the four years; they had the elegance of racehorses. With a tear in the eye but a smile on the lips, beautiful, perfectly made-up, discreet and insolent, they exasperated the Germans … These Parisiennes were part of the Resistance.”

  The idea that fashion could exist anywhere but in Paris, that it was prematurely dead or dying, was resisted with vigor. The usual spring and autumn shows were given, if possible, with more publicity than ever, and a series of adroit moves and countermoves took place resisting German efforts to whittle down the number of fashion houses and reduce the workforce. Thanks to these French maneuvers there was enough work to keep over fifty fashion houses open and 97 percent of the workforce, something like twelve thousand women, employed, a considerable achievement. German efforts to move the whole industry to Berlin and Vienna continued to be thwarted in large and small ways. “Visiting the atelier where Jacques Delamare and his mother Noémie Fromentin painted delicate flowers on velvet or silk, a group of German industrialists demanded to be shown the tools” and a demonstration. “Waving her hands in front of the stupefied spectators, Fromentin finally said: ‘These are my most valuable possessions.’ They left without uttering a word.”

  It was not just a question of picking up and moving to Berlin or even New York, for that matter. Fashion was not so easy to transplant. As Germaine Beaumont wrote, it was “such a little thing, so light, and yet the sum of civilization, the quintessence of equilibrium, of moderation, of grace.” A Paris gown was not really made of cloth. It was made “with the streets, with the colonnades. It is gleaned from life and from books, from museums and from the unexpected events of the day. It is no more than a gown and yet the whole country has made this gown.”

  The couturier was, Maggy Rouff wrote in La Philosophie de l’élégance (1942), “an extremely sensitive and delicate engine,” a description that certainly fitted Schiaparelli. She was back in New York, a city she had always found stimulating, and its influence had figured in her work. But it was Paris, its art, music, theatre, poetry, its grands boulevards and quiet quais, its parks and fountains, its beauty and paradox that inspired her best work and around which she had built her life. She too had felt the spirit of the place, had risen to meet it like a lover, had celebrated and reflected its every mood. Now she was in exile, with no real hope of ever returning. No wonder she felt blocked and bereft. Confidential Informant T-4 spoke frankly to the FBI about Schiaparelli’s state of mind just then. “Subject is not a sympathetic person and very seldom charms people. She is clumsy socially and has offended the fashion world with such statements as, ‘American women don’t know how to dress’… Subject has appeared to be very sad and embittered about life in general. She has stated that she will never make another dress and also [that] it is impossible for her to work here because of her enemies in the fashion world.”

  When it came to writing her memoir a decade later, Schiaparelli was not about to discuss the FBI’s dogged interest in her affairs. Her account of the war years in New York is limited to war relief, travels, and social contacts—little mention of Gogo and nothing at all about the business, although this clearly took up most of her time. There is just a hint of what must have been a constant nagging awareness that she was being watched and followed and her every act examined for subversive intent. After Hoover’s complaints several FBI offices launched investigations in Newark, Princeton, Ridgefield, Middleton, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. When she rented a house in Princeton, the FBI even interviewed her mailman to find out whether suspicious-looking letters with foreign stamps on them had found their way into her mailbox. (“None” was the disappointing answer.)

  Half a dozen people who knew her socially or had insight into her business dealings, most of them disguised by labels such as Confi
dential Informant T-1, T-2, and so on, gave interviews. These did not support the FBI’s suspicions, and most were far better advocates for Schiaparelli than she had been for herself.

  The thing to remember about Schiaparelli, T-6 said, was that she had always been “definitely on the Left” politically. She was sympathetic toward Vichy and saw that crowd socially in New York, but after all a great many people supported Pétain without being spies or fifth columnists. Then there was her close friendship with the Bergerys, to whom she would have turned naturally. There was no doubt that she detested Mussolini, who had tried in vain to set her business up in Rome, and she frequently said so. In her memoir she recalled the moment in June 1940 when she learned that Mussolini had allied himself with Hitler and declared war against France. She wrote, “Schiap, unable to receive the shock standing, sat on the sidewalk and cried: ‘Italy, my native country, what have you done?’ ” The vignette has the ring of truth. Most informants believe she was anti-British, even “vehemently,” but that was because she had been tricked or jilted by a boyfriend (presumably Wicked Uncle Henry). Several thought there was no doubt of her loyalty to the United States.

  Ena Prochet of Newport, Rhode Island, the wife of Ottavio Prochet, a director of Tiffany & Co., had been her friend for a decade and gave the wedding breakfast following Gogo’s marriage to Robert Berenson. Schiaparelli told her that after she incorporated her perfume business in England, in 1938 or 1939, she transferred a considerable sum from Paris to London. The story was taken up by T-6, who seemed to know more about Schiaparelli’s business affairs. He said that after the Nazis took control and found references to Henry Horne and George Parkinson, both Englishmen, they decided that Schiaparelli was an Anglophile, and nothing would change their minds, despite her clandestine efforts through her contacts in Paris. Ironically, in trying to protect her business, Schiaparelli managed to arouse the deepest suspicions of all the combatants, which took some doing.