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CHAPTER XI
LES AMERICAINES

Many Americans swing round the calendar with the fashionable Parisiennes. Some of them, having married into the innermost circles of the French aristocracy, belong to the most exclusive French set and jealously guard their privileges, associating little with their own countrywomen of the American colony, for there is a world of difference between the Parisian social standing of the American woman who has married into an aristocratic French family and the American woman of the American colony. The latter may be brilliant, popular, and rich, may entertain extravagantly and live in a whirl of gaiety; but, as a rule, there are certain Parisian salons to which she has not the entrée, certain doors stubbornly closed to her, despite her beauty and wit and wealth. There are exceptions, of course, but, generally speaking, the hostess of the American colony does not have upon her visiting list the names of the greatest ladies of the French set. Her dinners cost more than any given in the Faubourg St. Germain, her cotillion favours are a nine days' Parisian wonder, she draws round her a wealthy and amusing circle of fellow Americans and foreigners, but she has not the open sesame to French doors which other Americans have gained by marriage, – paying dearly sometimes for their social privileges.

The American colony is a shifting, transient thing, changing continually, yet always the same in its general character and always an important factor in Parisian life. Americans living in other parts of Europe drift into Paris at some seasons to swell this colony, or join the crowd on the Riviera or on the Normandy coast; and then there is always the casual visitor, the American who runs over to Europe for frocks or frivolity, but makes no pretence of living abroad.

Among this last group are a majority of the smartest folk of American society, and a number of these passing visitors are accorded social honours seldom granted to the resident American in Paris. It is among these women, too, that the Parisian tradesmen find their most profitable patrons, and a large percentage of the loveliest confections turned out by the great dressmakers of Paris is carried away in the trunks of private American customers.

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the American woman in the Parisian fashion scheme. She pays out more money to the famous dressmakers and milliners of Paris than all of their other private patrons taken together; and, even when she herself is not of the class that does its shopping in Paris, still she swells the receipts of Paris tradesfolk, for in order to satisfy her tastes an army of American buyers goes to Paris twice a year and carries home French materials, French models, and French ideas, which will be incorporated into the output of all American caterers to woman's vanity, from the manufacturer of inexpensive, ready-made frocks to the swellest of New York dressmakers.

In 1893, Worth went to the trouble of looking up Parisian dress statistics and found that the value of the material consumed annually in France for women's dress was two hundred million dollars; that one hundred million dollars' worth was supplied to the Parisian dressmakers and that the American share of the whole amount was more than that of all other countries counted together. The statistics also showed that fully one half of the Parisian dressmakers' sales was carried off in personal luggage, – which, of course, means private sales.

All this figuring was done thirteen years ago and at that time the sales had increased two hundred and fifty per cent within twenty-five years. Since then the rate of increase has been even greater. American extravagance in dress has advanced in great leaps, and M. Worth's figures would doubtless seem small if compared with to-day's statistics.

The dressmakers of Paris are, of course, disinclined to give information concerning the amounts of money paid to them by their private customers, but they are willing enough to give estimates without names attached, and the extravagant expenditures of certain wealthy Americans are common gossip in the dressmaking circles of Paris.

The most important single order for dress ever placed in Europe came from an American source, but, for certain private reasons, it did not find its way to Paris, and there was weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, mixed with the buzzing gossip of the Parisian ateliers when the facts concerning this famous order leaked out.

A bride's trousseau was the occasion for the spectacular outlay, and Drecoll of Vienna was the lucky dressmaker. Just what the bill amounted to, the firm has never been indiscreet enough to confess; but well authenticated reports place the sum at two hundred thousand dollars, and rumour runs it up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The items were enumerated in the order, but carte blanche was given in every case and all that was demanded was that each garment should be as nearly perfect for its purpose as the firm could make it. Life has nothing better to offer an artist dressmaker than an opportunity such as this, and the Viennese firm endeavoured to live up to the situation.

There was, for example, a certain long cloth coat on the list. It was to be green, of a shade indicated, and it was to have for trimming six Imperial Russian sable skins. The skins were to be of the finest quality and perfectly matched. No limit was set to the price. A simple matter this, in the estimation of the novice, but Drecoll knows better. Three of the skins desired were obtained without trouble, a fourth was secured after some search, a fifth was found far from Vienna, but the sixth proved a will-o'-the-wisp. Buyers chased it from one end of Europe to another. There were plenty of superb sables, but not one to match perfectly the other five, and the maker's faith was pledged, his blood was up. St. Petersburg, Nijni Novgorod, Leipsic, Paris, London, all the great fur markets knew the hunters of that sixth skin, and the quarry was finally run to earth and added to the collar of the unassuming coat provided for an American bride. Not one person out of a thousand could have gauged the value of the furs, could have understood the perfection with which they were matched, but one can imagine that a dressmaking establishment does not organize an all-Europe sable hunt for any small sum.

In that matter of furs, our American women have become recklessly lavish. Everyone can remember the time when even the most fashionable of society women considered one sealskin coat a cherished possession justifying pride. Now, women of the multi-millionaire set will buy a twenty-thousand-dollar sable coat as nonchalantly as though it were a linen duster. One New York importer who caters largely to the ultra swell clique went abroad last fall commissioned to buy three sable coats, two of which were to cost any sum up to twenty thousand dollars, while the price of the third might soar to thirty thousand if the buyer should find what he would consider good value for that sum. There are several forty-thousand-dollar sable coats in this country, and sets costing from five thousand to ten thousand dollars may be counted by the hundreds.

Moreover, the fashionable woman does not content herself with one set of furs, but buys them to match her costumes, as she would buy a veil or a pair of gloves, and will own perhaps a dozen sets, discarding immediately any that begin to show wear or are not of the latest cut. One Western woman bought five fur coats in New York this season, one a superb affair of sable, one a motor coat, and the other three fancy short coats trimmed in lace and embroidery. Now that no one with money spends a summer in a warm climate, the fashionable woman's furs are in commission all the year round, and the American, like the Parisienne, will wear her sables over a summer frock in August, if she is where the temperature is chilly. Naturally the wear and tear is greater than in the old days when furs were carefully put away during half the year, and the modern élégante's furs have to be frequently replenished.

My lady's furs are only one item of many included in her year's wardrobe, and the other items are proportionately expensive. The heads of establishments counting among their clientèles the wealthiest women of New York and of the other important American cities were consulted in the compiling of the list that follows, and were asked for conservative estimates of the sums spent annually for goods in their lines, by a representative woman of the very smart set. In every case the authority consulted emphasized the fact that some of our women spend much more than the sum mentioned, and that occasionally, for some special reason, a customer will plunge into phenomenal extravagance.

Here is the list, which is, after all, but a fragmentary one, for it is hard to estimate upon the thousand and one little things of dress:

The reader who has not looked into the matter may consider this sum total an exaggerated one; but, on the contrary, it is, while of course only approximate, a very modest average made up from the figures furnished by reliable tradesfolk in positions warranting their speaking authoritatively. Furs, for instance, set down at two thousand dollars a year, sometimes mount to forty thousand in one season. Twenty-five hundred dollars may seem an appalling amount to pay out for lingerie during the year, but one authority quoted four thousand dollars and another thirty-five hundred, and both added that there were New York women who spent even more than that. At Mademoiselle Corne's place, – perhaps the most fashionable of the lingerie establishments of Paris, an inquirer was shown several trunkfuls of fine lingerie ready to be sent to an American customer, and among the items were sets of three pieces priced at nine hundred francs (one hundred and eighty dollars), lingerie tea-jackets at four hundred francs, lingerie petticoats at three hundred and fifty francs. At that rate twenty-five hundred dollars will not go so very far, and in this day of lingerie marvellously embellished with handwork and real lace, prices mount to surprising heights.

The elaborate negligée is of comparatively recent acceptance in America, but now the boudoir gown and tea-gown are considered important by chic Americans, and five hundred dollars is no unusual price for an exquisite tea-gown. One New York woman bought three at that price from a Paris maker last fall, so fifteen hundred dollars is surely a mild figure for the year's negligées.

Twenty-five hundred dollars will not begin to pay for the gloves, silk stockings, parasols, fans, and such little accessories bought by a woman of the class under consideration, during a year and no estimate has been made upon jewels, for there the scale may slide to any figure.

All this expert testimony as to the extravagance of the American woman of fashion may vex the souls of the righteous and lead the philosopher and student of social economy to gloomy prophecy concerning the future of American society, but the moralizing may be done elsewhere. Here is only a statement of facts, and it is undeniably a fact that the fashionable women of America spend more upon personal luxuries than any other class in the world, save only a small group of Parisian demi-mondaines.

It is not only the New York woman who is extravagant, though since wealth is concentrated there, that city is the headquarters of the spenders. The spirit has spread all over our country, and wherever one finds great American fortunes, there one finds the woman of the costly frocks and furs and jewels.

The largest single order ever placed with a Parisian dressmaker was given to Worth by a Chicago woman – and an elderly woman, not socially conspicuous despite her wealth. Twenty-five trunks were used for shipping the order, and one hundred and forty expensive garments were packed into the trays. Every city of importance and a host of the small towns are represented upon the books of the Paris houses. The City of Mexico has a clique of society women famous for dress, and the South American trade is considered very important in Paris. Dwellers in the States have a "magerful" fashion of appropriating the term American for their own private use, and appear to harbour a vague general idea that south of Palm Beach and Miami a bead necklace is the accepted costume; but the tradesfolk of Paris know better. Crowds of wealthy South Americans flock into Paris each summer and spend money lavishly upon clothes, jewels, and all the other luxuries of a prodigal civilization. In all the South American capitals one finds the woman of the French frock, and Buenos Ayres, in particular, has a smart set remarkable for the fashion and extravagance of its women.

Naturally it is not only in the province of clothes the money-spending mania of America asserts itself. Among Americans of wealth the cost of living has swelled to a startling figure. Numerous magnificent homes equipped with every luxury that money can buy, entertainment on a princely scale, servants by the score, horses, carriages, automobiles, steam-yachts, – all these are the necessities of the multi-millionaire who is in society. The floral decorations for a dinner or ball often cost thousands of dollars, and five hundred dollars' worth of flowers for a small dinner in New York or Newport is no unusual order. Cotillion favours for a large ball have been known to cost ten thousand dollars, and thousands of dollars go to the caterer upon such an occasion.

When the Castellanes, during their social career, spent forty thousand dollars on one evening's entertainment, all Paris was agog, but that sum has been far exceeded for single social functions in New York, and from ten thousand dollars to twenty thousand dollars is no surprising cost for a successful ball.

Every year the social standards mount higher, in point of expenditure, and new methods of getting rid of money are added to the already long list. The motor, for example, has added from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars to the annual expenditure of numerous wealthy men who have motor mania in its acute form, buy many superb cars, employ expensive machinists and chauffeurs, build fine garages, and race their cars.

But all this extraordinary lavishness is confined to a comparatively small part of our population, affects but a little clique of millionaires, and while even in smart society a large contingent is living beyond its means, a majority of the most extravagant American money-spenders have fortunes ample enough to justify their annual expenditures – at least from a financial point of view. It is the increasing extravagance in dress and luxury among the classes of more moderate incomes that is most interesting to a social student, and the American tendency is, proportionately, as marked here as in wealthier circles.

All along the social line American women are spending more for dress than ever before. Each year marks a rise in the grade of goods demanded and sold, and manufacturers, merchants, and dressmakers all testify to the remarkable improvement in American standards of dress during recent years.

The rise of the ready-made frock has had much to do with bringing about this result, and few outsiders have any conception of the growth and importance of this industry. Forty years ago very few models were brought to this country from Europe, and very few women even of the wealthiest class knew much about Paris shopping. As for the woman of humble social position she was quite out of touch with French fashion. About thirty-eight years ago, A. T. Stewart launched the first ready-made frocks, and record has it that they were frights. Shortly after that there were four small establishments in the United States manufacturing women's ready-made garments. To-day there are forty-eight hundred houses devoted to such business in New York City alone, and some of the largest American dressmaking factories are in towns outside of New York, – in Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Everyone of these manufacturers sends men to Paris at least twice during the season to buy models, obtain sketches, notes, and ideas. Even the cheapest of the ready-made costumes to-day has in it some faint echo of Parisian art, and there are American manufacturers of ready-made coats and frocks who make no low-class goods at all.

If one walks into Paquin's establishment and pays five hundred dollars for a frock, one feels that she is paying a good price, but there are specialty houses in New York turning out ready-made models at five hundred dollars and making nothing for less than one hundred dollars; and these expensive costumes find ready sale.

Occasionally a woman retains the old-time prejudice against ready-made garments and wonders why anyone will pay two or three hundred dollars for a ready-made gown. Given a choice between a gown made to order by Paquin and one at the same price from a New York manufacturer, it would doubtless be the part of wisdom to take the Paquin creation; but there is no Paquin in New York, and though there are some exceedingly good dressmakers here, there are also many who charge high prices without the ability to justify them. Many women who have had disastrous experiences with such makers claim that, at least, in a ready-made frock one can be sure of the general effect, and that if it comes from a good maker, whether French or American, and is well cut to begin with, it will even after alteration fit better and do more for one's figure than a made-to-order gown from incompetent hands.

There are still cheap ready-made garments on the market, but demand for good materials and fine workmanship is steadily growing and, through the efforts of manufacturers to meet this demand, ideas of better dressing have been spread broadcast.

Fortunes have been made quickly by men who have kept step with this improvement in taste and supplied good models of Parisian design and excellent workmanship for the American ready-made trade.

One manufacturer came to this country twelve years ago, in the steerage, and went upon a tailor's bench at fifteen dollars a week. He was a Russian or Polish Jew, which is equivalent to saying that he belonged to the greatest money-making race on earth. He saved a little money, opened workrooms. To-day he has a factory in which he employs nine hundred men and women, he lives in a beautiful home on Riverside Drive, he goes to business in a big automobile, he has done a two-million-dollar business within the last year – and all in ready-made frocks of the better grades.

There is much talk of sweat-shop labour in connection with women's ready-made clothing, but as a matter of fact only the very cheapest of the ready-made trade is associated with the sweat-shop. Years ago some of the better shops declared a crusade against such labour and tabooed the factories dealing with it. The other big firms fell in line, and manufacturers, realizing that their trade was at stake, came up to the mark in respect to the housing, treatment, and wages of employees.

The manufacturer of the twelve-year record has a factory absolutely sanitary and treats his nine hundred employees admirably, even supporting a small hotel in which he harbours any of his work folk who may be ill or in trouble and need help. These workers are chiefly Polish and Russian Jews and Italians, the German contingent, which was once large, having almost disappeared, and wages are good. Competent men tailors are always in demand and can make at least from fifteen to eighteen dollars a week, while many of them get as high as from forty to eighty dollars. Some of the manufacturers have salesmen on the road at fifteen thousand dollars a year, and even pay as high as twenty-two thousand dollars.

The buyers, too, command large salaries, and these salaried men very frequently become manufacturers themselves or open specialty shops for the sale of ready-made garments. One New York salesman, who has recently gone into the retail business in a comparatively small way, cleared one hundred thousand dollars last year and will do better this year. Another man of ability went to the head of one of the big dry-goods houses here and asked for a good position.

"Why don't you open workrooms of your own?" he was asked. "Haven't you any money?"

"Only twenty-five hundred dollars."

"That's enough. Go rent some rooms. We know what you can do. Let us know when you are ready and we'll place an order with you for four times twenty-five hundred dollars." That was eleven years ago. The manufacturer retired with a fortune some time since and amuses himself now by speculating largely in real estate.

One of the few dressmaking geniuses in this country is another manufacturer of ready-made frocks – but of the highest class models only. He failed at first, – possibly because he was a genius, but nine years ago he took a fresh start and now he is a millionaire – but still an artist. He takes a handful of silk and throws it at a figure, gives it a pull here, a plait there, and voilà! – an effect better than his rivals could obtain through careful and painstaking labour. In Paris that man would be great. Here he is merely rich, and his million keeps him from Paris.

All these stories of success and these business statistics merely serve to illustrate the point with which the discussion of ready-made clothing began, the increasing taste and extravagance of American dress. The American woman, whether of wealth or of very moderate means, insists upon having good clothes and is getting them.

Perhaps she buys them ready-made, perhaps she goes to Paris for them, perhaps she has them made by dressmakers who go to Paris for their models, but, in any case, she has them. For the same amount of money her mother spent she will obtain better artistic results, – but she spends more money than her mother dreamed of spending and more money than she herself would have thought of spending ten years ago. An education in extravagant dress comes easily to any woman, and once educated to the topmost notch of the domestic dress production, the Parisian frock is the American's next requirement.

There are good dressmakers on this side of the water, quite good enough to satisfy any save the hyper-fastidious, but our best dressmakers do not go about their business as do the best dressmakers of Paris. They are business men or women, their French fellow craftsmen are artists. There is in Paris the same type of dressmaker we have here, but there is, too, the artist dressmaker who is something higher in the scale, and it is through him that Paris is the fountain-head of fashion. There is little original work in dress here. Good workmanship we have. Our plain tailor work, for example, is the best in the world; but our makers are content to copy French ideas and French models and they have no such high standards as have the sponsors of those models. The Irish-American dressmaker is said to be, next to the French, the best in the world, but she adapts, she does not create. Perhaps in Paris she too might soar, but here she copies French models well, makes money, and is content.

In the early spring and in August there is a migration of American dressmakers. By the hundred they go to Paris, and buyers from all over the country swell the crowd. Some of the important buyers have set sail long before, but they are men who represent extensive interests, with whom buying is a fine art and to whose expense account the home firm sets no limitations.

One American buyer, representing the largest importer of model gowns and cloaks in this country, a man better known, perhaps, than any of his profession, in the famous Parisian ateliers, sees the models in these ateliers before the ordinary buyer is given a glimpse of them. Yet even then they are no new things to him. He has seen all of their most striking features before.

He does not drop into Paris with the buying flock, visit the great dressmaking establishments, and accept as law and gospel whatever chances to be shown there. He knows what is what. The dressmakers know that he knows and treat him accordingly.

For months he has been on a still hunt for the fashions of the spring that is yet distant. He stopped in Madeira at the very beginning of the winter season, for he knows, as the Parisian dressmakers know, that an exclusive little coterie of the world's smartest folk begins its winter with a few weeks in Madeira, and that in the Funchal toilettes are to be found many hints that will become laws when springtime comes to Paris.

Early in December the hunter follows the trail to Algiers and on to Cairo, though since the automobile has made Italian touring a fad, many of the smart folk spend a part of their winter in motoring, and the Algiers and Cairo seasons are not quite what they were as gathering places for the fashion clans.

A little later the cream of the fashionable world is on the Riviera, and our buyer haunts the Monte Carlo Casino during February. No smallest fashion straw escapes his watchful eye. He knows the fashion leaders of all Europe and America by sight. He can cap each striking costume with the name of the wearer, and, probably with the name of the maker, and he uses his time profitably until, late in the month, the birds of fine feathers take wing once more. It is almost time for Auteuil and, from all over the world, fashionable folk are pouring into Paris.

Spring models are on view there in the great ateliers, and this American receives respectful attention at the hands of the dressmakers, for his orders will be large – and have been large for many years past. Moreover, he has by this time a very good idea of what he wants, and he will demand exclusive models instead of taking the models prepared for the majority of the dressmaking and buying pilgrims. He knew many of the autocrats of fashion when they first put up their signs and, through the advertisement and backing of his firm, many a Paris dressmaker now famous obtained the American clientèle that was the foundation of his fortunes.

A valuable customer this, and there are other Americans of his class who see the best that Paris has to offer. Some of the more important American dressmakers also place large orders, insist upon exclusive models, and are greeted impressively by the saleswomen; but the most of the crowd buys as little as possible and sees as much as it can, and the saleswomen, fully alive to this fact, make a point of allowing the minor dressmakers to see as little as is consistent with courteous treatment. Often a group of little dressmakers will form a syndicate to buy one model and will go together to the great establishment. There, being really buyers, they are politely received, and they all take mental notes of every fashion hint that comes their way during the visit. They study Paris fashions, too, wherever they are to be seen, on the streets, in the theatres, at the restaurants; and during their summer visit they perhaps run up to Trouville to see the fashion show there. They have a jolly time as well as a profitable one, and after a few weeks come home to spread French fashion news from Maine to California, and furnish such adaptations of what they have seen as their varying abilities can accomplish.

The clever buyer usually stays on in Paris after the crowd of his countrymen and of European dressmakers has departed; for the more exclusive models and ideas are reserved for the delectation of the chic Parisienne and the private buyer, and he wants to see what is offered to this clientèle as well as what is shown to the trade. Finally he too sails for home, where much of his plunder has arrived before him. American women often wear a Parisian mode before it has been worn in Paris, and this is especially true of autumn modes; for Parisiennes are still away from Paris when American dressmakers and buyers are securing and sending over their autumn models, and, too, an American woman travelling in Europe for the summer may buy her fall outfit in Paris during August, bring it home and begin wearing it in September, before Parisiennes have left the seashore and settled down to thought of fall clothes. This applies, however, chiefly to the few American fashion leaders, and a radical Parisian mode seldom achieves actual popularity in America before late in the season or perhaps the following season. The models have been brought over and shown, have been bought and worn by the knowing and courageous; but the great crowd of American women is slightly conservative and hesitates to take up any radical Parisian fad until after the novelty has become somewhat familiar through being exploited by the ultra-fashionable few.

One of the greatest Parisian dressmakers said recently in a private conversation that he never felt confident of general popularity for an original and striking model until after seeing it upon one or two of his most chic American customers.

"I do not know what it is," he said, "but there is something distinctive about the way an American wears her clothes, – a grace, an elegance, but also a naturalness. A Frenchwoman has a genius for dress, but she makes up for her toilette. She is supremely artificial; she will wear anything that is launched and make herself up to fit the mode. Your American doesn't do that. She wears her clothes superbly, but the clothes must be of a kind she can wear. That a Parisienne looks well in a model means nothing as an indication of what women in general will think of the innovation; but when I put the model upon one of my best American customers, I know at once what to expect. They are lovely in their chiffons, those Americans, provided they have possibilities of loveliness. It is a pleasure to dress them."

There are American women who go to Paris regularly three times a year to replenish their wardrobes, and these private American customers are the apple of the dressmaker's eye. Madame will perhaps be in Paris only a few days. Everything is made to bend to her fittings, her own particular saleswoman gives up the days to her, the heads of the departments are called in for advice and assistance, the master himself gives the frocks his personal attention. There is a couch in the private fitting-room upon which Madame may lie down if she becomes tired, the daintiest of luncheons will be served to her there if she has not time or inclination to go elsewhere. Everything is made so smooth, so agreeable, and if the bills are large, what is that to the wife or daughter of an American multi-millionaire? There are New York women whose dressmaking bills in Paris run up to fifty and sixty thousand dollars in one year, but who could afford to spend five hundred thousand a year on clothes if they chose to do it.