The Glass of Fashion

by Cecil Beaton

  “Before leaving we must hide this electric stove that a friend has given me. We must lock it away so that the people downstairs won’t charge for extra electricity.” She opened a cupboard and offered me a terrifying glimpse of degradation: old artificial flowers, broken clocks, bottles of methylated spirit.

  THE MARQUESA CASATI

  “Today is a terrible day. The devil is in everything,” she muttered as she fumbled with keys and locks.

  When we arrived at my house, she relaxed in the warmth and became enthusiastic and happy as a child. “Now let us enjoy everything. This good glass of sherry, it is so rare. This open fire, this scent of rosemary, how good it all is.” She held forth like an empress, her gestures bold and valiant. Somehow the indomitable spirit sublimated the old wastepaper basket of black satin that she wore on her head and metamorphosed the old cotton rose on her shoulder into a thing of beauty. Here was a great woman, someone whose character and pluck could overcome all mediocrity and create nobility out of poverty.

  In contrast to women who, like the Marquesa Casati, were anomalous to the twenties and yet a timely expression of its more bizarre aspects, Mrs. Dudley Ward was, like the Duchess of Peñaranda, the embodiment of the new conception of allure. Had she appeared upon the London scene some twenty years earlier, she would have been described as an undernourished messenger boy. For in the days of King Edward there were female giants on the earth: Mrs. George Keppel, Lily Langtry, Maxine Elliott, and the other ladies who, a decade earlier, had sailed under the Achilles statue in Hyde Park, were imposing Boadiceas, figureheads on the prow of some Norse ship. But by the time King Edward’s grandson had become the dashing Prince of Wales, the ladies who were admired had come full cycle round to diminutive proportions and were concave instead of convex.

  LILY LANGTRY. “IN THE DAYS OF KING EDWARD THERE WERE FEMALE GIANTS ON THE EARTH”

  MRS. DUDLEY WARD

  Of them all, Mrs. Dudley Ward came to be generally most admired. No one had ever looked quite like her before. In competition, even the statuesque Junos of the previous era were unable to command attention. Mrs. Ward’s appearance was a most felicitous combination of the attractions of an adolescent girl and a sophisticated youth of sixteen. Her sloping figure was that of a young rowing blue, her rather large hands those of the “Catcher in the Rye.” With her hair snipped in a short shingle, she dressed in natty little day suits of check, possibly adding a huge clove carnation in her buttonhole. As she tapped the end of a gasper cigarette on a gold case before lighting it with her briquet, the gold wrist chains and bracelets would jangle, while one was reminded of a schoolboy showing a little too readily that he had mastered the grownup practice of smoking.

  But these Vesta Tilley charms were only the slightest veneer over an almost exaggerated feminine allure. In the evening the messenger boy would wear a dress of red-and-white-check gingham with a red bow in her hair, and her small daughters might well be dressed to match. Mrs. Ward’s questing eyes were huge, pretty periwinkles, her complexion was of pink-and-white china, and she spoke in a high-keyed voice. Whenever any man was fortunate enough to sit by her, she gave him the impression not only of being more interested in him than in anyone else in the world, but of being in need of his protection as well. Her greatest allure lay in the fact that, behind the freshness and honesty of her personality, the businesslike approach, and the dislike of pretence, there was something a little tragic about her. The eyes had a startled fawnlike quality, and you wondered if the laughter would soon turn to fright; her voice had a plaintive note and a catch that played upon the strings of one’s heart.

  Mrs. Dudley Ward has been the incentive for a million imitators. Especially in America has her influence been an indelible one, and the idiom has become a part of the American woman’s personality. The juvenile grandmothers whose perambulator talk is given in corn-crake voices, the baby bow in the bobbed henna hair—all are travesties of this most original little figure. Mrs. Ward was of such modernity that, had she not been so intelligent and capable of looking after herself through all life’s vicissitudes, one might have hazarded the advice that the duchess gave to Mabel in The Ideal Husband: “You are remarkably modern, Mabel, a little too modern, perhaps. Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.”

  Anita Loos was another whose looks seemed surprisingly modern and, like her heroine in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Miss Loos’s appearance has gone into the annals of American history. As a very young girl of pocket edition proportions, she found herself at a disadvantage when it came to choosing clothes for herself. In her early photographs, with the black, shining hair dressed in heavy coils, she seems to be overwhelmed by the draped hats of velvet and sealskin, the voluminous coats, skirts, stoles, and muffs of the first moving-picture era. But with the twenties, Anita Loos came into her own. The new fashions gave her the opportunity to become herself. She cut her hair as short as that of a boy in a sailor suit and went off to buy her hats and dresses at the juvenile departments of the great stores. Dressed as crisply and neatly as only a child at the outset of an expedition can be, with her brilliantined fringe meticulously combed, her buckled belts and bag like a school satchel, her Buster Brown hats and Peter Pan collars, Anita Loos became the embodiment of cuteness. She had discovered her own grammar and syntax of fashion; and by conforming to it ever since, her allure and chic have remained unchallenged.

  ANITA LOOS, 1952

  The twenties also created the wraithlike appearance of another American, Mrs. Carroll Carstairs, and she still has the stance of that period, when shoulders were haunched, haunches were proffered, and elbows were permitted to lean on tables. Her hair, worn quite straight, forms a satin cap close to her head. The nearest she has come to wearing a hat is to place an acorn cap on the back of her skull. Her evening dresses are variations on the jumper and skirt, though sometimes they are made of floating materials.

  Outside the coterie of these individual women who were influential in bringing out changes of fashion in the twenties, there were in London the “bright young things.” They danced the Charleston, did crossword puzzles, and had extremely bad manners, for in certain circles it was considered smart to be rude. A number of wealthy debutantes became very aggressive, played practical jokes, and spoke their private language of eggy-peggy (pig Latin) in front of those unfortunate enough not to be allowed into their exclusive circle. If an unfavoured young man came up to talk to them, they would sit silently staring at their baffled victim and then suddenly burst into derisive laughter. They would leave the most grand and conventional dances early in the evening, to go on to night clubs. At house parties their highly powered motorcars were not infrequently driven through imposing gateways, breaking stone piers and filigree of wrought iron. One high-spirited young lady even managed to crack the bottom of an ornamental lake. Raucous, irritating, and offensive as these young people were, they were undoubtedly the spearhead of those who broke down conventions. Today well-brought-up young people do not have to lead such rigorously protected lives as they once did and are able to look after themselves with a certain independence.

  In the rise of the whole new spirit of affectation and frivolity, the influence of the theatre was far from negligible. By the late twenties young women gave up speaking in mellifluous tones in favour of cigarette-throat voices, rasping and loud. Men enjoyed imitating the exaggerated, clipped manner of certain leading actors and adopted the confident manner of those who are aware of their charms. It became a fad to talk with equal authority on specialized subjects as well as on frivolous ones, to mingle cocktail chatter about great personages and events in history with jazz slang, or juxtapose the Albert Memorial and other buildings with the Latin names of plants and trees. Noel Coward’s influence spread even to the outposts of Rickmansworth and Poona. Hearty naval commanders or jolly colonels acquired the “camp” manners of calling everything from Joan of Arc to Merlin “lots of fun,” and the adjective “terribly” peppered
every sentence. All sorts of men suddenly wanted to look like Noel Coward—sleek and satiny, clipped and well groomed, with a cigarette, a telephone, or a cocktail at hand.

  NOEL COWARD IN THE THIRTIES

  Gertrude Lawrence was the distaff personification of this new charm. Though not a great beauty, she used her gifts to heighten her attractiveness and possessed the flavour and personality of the age to a high degree. She was a combination of remarkable contrasts. Her mellifluous voice was yet rather curdled. Her somewhat simian features were sunburnt. The long, loose-fitting dresses she wore suggested more than an indication of the vital, well-shaped figure beneath them: she could look remarkably provocative in a dress that covered her body almost completely. She smoked cigarettes with a nuance that implied having just come out of bed and wanting to go back into it.

  The Gertrude Lawrence-Noel Coward personalities continued to dominate the theatre through the early thirties as well, in brittle comedies that caught the sophisticated spirit of the age.

  In ballet, Diaghilev was still a great figure, introducing décors by Picasso, Derain, Braque, and Pruna. The simplicity of Picasso’s ballet designs was a complete change from the riotous innovations of Bakst. Colours became rather crude and primary, and fashion showed the influence in bright ultramarines and whites, scarlets, and blues. Blouses were sometimes half white and half black. Ballets based on sailor themes helped to make Villefranche popular as a resort, or goaded fashionable women to dress in sailors’ sweaters.

  Young women “interested in art” all wore their hair straight, cut sharp at the base of the neck with shears, the trilby jacket or sweater, the dark flowing skirts falling in the pleats of the dirndl, somewhere a bold touch of colour—blues, oranges, and emerald greens—and sandals. These goddesses of King’s Road, Chelsea, the students of the ballet in Italy, America, France, and Germany, all with or without knowing it, tried to look as much as possible like Mrs. Augustus John, for she it was who had invented the “John” type.

  Dorelia John may have been seen in Babylon or in early Crete, but before her in this century no woman wore those clothes that are almost Indian and yet are entirely European, that are classical and yet have abstracted something from the gypsies. In fact no one had developed a more perfect visual expression of the art of living than Mrs. Augustus John, who possesses her rare gifts to this very day. As a muse, she has been indirectly responsible for much of her husband’s best work; but she is equally creative in her own right. For the last forty years she has dressed in the same manner: outside fashion, her clothes and her appearance are never dated. Today Mrs. John wears the uniform of age and seems oblivious to the charm and impact of her appearance. Yet with her white hair and scarlet apron over a blue cotton dress, hugging a huge basket of fruit against her stomach as she brings it in from the orchard, she has the timelessness, the real fashion of the Bible.

  It is not at all surprising that she possesses what, to me, is a beautiful house. Here is the dwelling place of an artist. It would be difficult to find one object in her house that does not fulfil its useful purpose with an inherent beauty. On her window sill a goblet of daffodils seems to regain the pristine beauty that is lost by overfamiliarity. With Mrs. John, as with all true people, the everyday triflings of life are noble: a basket of bread, a bowl of tomatoes, a bottle of wine have innate beauty. A Wills cigarette box becomes an initial part of the grandiose “still life” of family use.

  Mrs. John would be the first to be shocked at my writing of her home as beautiful. “But what nonsense!” she would say. “It has no pretensions to beauty. It’s a mess. I am too busy looking after the household—there are all the children here now—to bother about anything of that sort.” I hope she will forgive me, for if the house is untidy, the untidiness is a symbol of a lack of primness and a wholeheartedness that are typical of her generosity. There is nothing self-conscious or arranged about her: her gestures are bold ones; never two bites at a cherry, the wine is drunk to the dregs.

  MRS. AUGUSTUS JOHN

  MRS. JOHN’S WINDOW SILL

  If any reader, intrigued by this eulogy, were to verify my enthusiasm, he might be surprised at the lack of any specific colour scheme in the John household. There is no beguiling, ready-made impact of beauty; rather, an atmosphere of beauty is sensed. No intention to decorate the house ever existed. The objects that are there were originally admired and collected for their intrinsic shape. They remain beautiful. Pictures were bought from friends in a momentary fit of zeal; books were acquired of necessity. Thus the colours have gratuitously grown side by side. Nothing is hidden; there is an honesty of life which is apparent in every detail—the vast dresser with its blue and white cups, the jars of pickled onions, the skeins of wool, the window sills lined with potted geraniums and cacti, while close to the windowpanes tits swing on a cocoanut shell hung from a tree. The Modigliani bust stands with a cactus pot on its head. In the corner of the entrance hall, boxes of apples and croquet mallets are spontaneously thrown together, constituting a picture of life that is full of sentiment and completely lacking in pretension.

  No matter in what world a person lives, taste should never be a question of money. The palace of a millionaire, if it contains not one worn or beloved object to meet the eye, will appear lacking in soul. A home belonging to a poor person can be just as æsthetically pleasing as that of the richest man of taste.

  There was nothing, for instance, in the farmhouse at Billignin, lived in by Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, that was not beautiful in the most simple way, yet the house had never been decorated by them. Miss Toklas admitted the house was furnished on “spontaneity and a shoestring.” The two ladies scoured the local antique shops and with their discrimination were able to pick up furniture that was simple and rustic. A garden table made of heavy wood was carved to represent a table covered with a velvet cloth and fringe; a rocking chair served for Gertrude, and a portrait in pinpricks of Queen Victoria added charm.

  Originally the building had been a manor house, surrounded by rich farms and woodland. Since it had been built in 1637, with Louis Seize additions, the rooms were well proportioned. The small dining room had crudely decorated panels “painted in the eighteenth century.” Everywhere that the eye alighted there was something to give pleasure—an arrangement of unframed pictures, an earthenware pot of pink hibiscus picked each morning by Alice Toklas, while in the kitchen were a “still life,” baskets of herbs, a pyramid of maize, an earthenware plate, and the large wooden pepper mill that sat permanently on the kitchen table and which now, after much scrubbing and scouring, become the warm colour of honey. Everything seemed to possess a patina that gave one’s senses a delight. Everywhere was a feeling of perfection that can be acquired only by the most sophisticated people or by peasants.

  Some of these subjects or people may seem to have little to do with the twenties, but all were a vital expression in that period, proving that one can often go as much against the grain as with it and still express the beauty of living.

  The twenties are still close enough for the younger generation to ridicule it as a decade of delirious delinquents dancing the Charleston while the stock market crashed round them. But we are all guilty of judging another age after the fact, whereas the truth is that, as regards contemporary events, the eye is depressingly shortsighted. We condemn the Victorians for their smug bourgeois world that was only a façade covering events that led to the disaster of the First World War. We condemn the frivolities of the twenties that led somehow to the depression and economic crisis of the early thirties. But if people were clairvoyant, perhaps they could control history better than they do. Tolerance and a sense of the comic as well as the tragic ought to make us see, in the fashions and frivolities of any given epoch, the wonderful creativity that finds expression, conscious and unconscious, in clothes, songs, slang, dances, art—in short, in all that becomes history. I do not see the twenties as imbued with false nostalgia, but as a tonic period in modern life, one which is already
as fixed in time as the paintings of Modigliani, the sculptures of Nadelman, or the planes of cubism that found a distant echo in the architecture of skyscraper and “modernism,” so symbolic of the visual aspect of the age.

  CHAPTER IX

  CHANEL NUMBER ONE

  SANDWICHED BETWEEN the two world wars, between Poiret’s harem and Dior’s New Look, two women dominated the field of haute couture—Schiaparelli and Chanel. The first in time and by far the more gifted was Mademoiselle Chanel, a peasant girl from Auvergne who quickly asserted her forceful and unique personality on the styles of the twenties. One can imagine her, in the small hat shop she owned, glancing round the post-war scene, dissatisfied with the musketeer hats, Directoire capes, sagging tail coats, and near hobble skirts, the remnants of a military fashion that was still in vogue, and deciding to create her own fashion. So Chanel appeared at the races in the gabardine of a young English student with a schoolgirl’s hat on her head; at the casino her skirt was sufficently short to give rein to her athletic, race-horse stride; at the opera she was to be seen with a waistline down to her hips. It was not long before the few women who set the styles were interested, mesmerized, and finally won over by this new personality. Soon thereafter Chanel gave up her hat shop to enter the ruthlessly competitive field of fashion design.

  CHANEL, 1953

  The age of elaborate ornamentation was over, and an era of simplicity had begun. Chanel had literally pole-vaulted women’s fashions from the nineteenth century into the twentieth. It was a far cry from Poiret’s extravagant plumes and furs or Lucile’s pastel-coloured chiffons to the beige uniform of knitted wool, the jerseys and short skirts with which Chanel replaced them.