In Vanity Fair: A Tale of Frocks and Femininity

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Brainerd Eleanor Hoyt. In Vanity Fair: A Tale of Frocks and Femininity

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. FROCKS AND FEMININITY

CHAPTER II. THE TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX

CHAPTER III. THE FAMOUS ATELIERS

CHAPTER IV. FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF

CHAPTER V. LE SPORT IN PARIS

CHAPTER VI. THE FINE ART OF DINING

CHAPTER VII. ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT WITH MADAME

CHAPTER VIII. THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

CHAPTER IX. THE HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHÂTEAUX

CHAPTER X. UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES

CHAPTER XI. LES AMERICAINES

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Clothes and the woman we sing! Given the themes, Paris is obviously the only appropriate setting. Nowhere else do the kindred cults of frocks and femininity kindle such ardent devotion. Nowhere else are women so enthusiastically decorative. There are women more beautiful than the Parisiennes, there are women who spend as much money upon their clothes. Pouf! What is beauty unadorned? What is beauty adorned – provided it is not chic.

That crisp little monosyllable is sadly abused by our Anglo-Saxon saleswomen, but it is a master word for all that, a great word holding in solution the quintessence of things Parisian. It means a subtle something before which mere beauty is humble, and mere luxury is banal. It means coquetry, audacity, charm. It means a thing evanescent, impalpable, unmistakable, absurd, adorable, a thing deliciously feminine, a thing essentially of the world worldly.

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But there are Parisiennes and Parisiennes. There is the aristocrat of the St. Germain – and even aristocratic virtue is not dull in Paris. There is the wife of the millionaire tradesman. There are the women folk of the great banking house. There are the ladies of the diplomatic circle, there are exiled queens and resident grand duchesses. There are the Americans. There are the artistes. There are the demi-mondaines, the cocottes. And there is Mimi. She is not the worst of the group, this unimportant little Mimi, not the worst, and by no means the least coquette; but she is not a bird of fine feathers and does not belong in our story.

The great lady of Paris is grande dame to her finger-tips, whether she nurses the traditions of the old régime in her exclusive salon in the Faubourg St. Germain or follows after such new gods as "le sport" and broadens her visiting list to include the trades and arts, – provided always that the trade and the art have paid well enough to lift tradesman and artist above their metiers. France loves genius, but for social success, in Paris, genius is not enough.

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