The Designer(107)

‘Where’s Soirée? I had it in my hands a moment ago, and now someone’s stolen it!’

‘I need Corolle! I have to have Corolle!’

‘What do you mean, delivery in three months? I need four dozen now!’

She saw two smartly dressed women actually having a tug of war with a dress, the pleated silk in imminent danger of tearing as they dragged on each end.

‘We can’t keep up,’ one of the vendeuses told Copper breathlessly. ‘They’ve gone insane.’

Copper retreated and climbed up the crowded stairs to Dior’s cubbyhole. She knocked on the door, but there was no answer. She opened it and peered in. Dior was hunched over on his chair with his eyes tight shut and his fingers stuffed in his ears like a frightened child.

She laid her hand gently on his shoulder. He looked up at her in alarm.

‘Listen, Tian.’ She gestured for him to remove his hands. Shakily, he pulled his fingers out of his ears.

‘They’re booing me,’ he said in a tremulous voice, his eyes full of tears.

‘No, Tian. Listen.’

From the salon downstairs came the sound of clapping and cheering. It died down as they listened, and in a short while, broke out again as the next model went in. ‘They’re cheering you. They’re saying it’s the most important collection since before the war,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps the most important collection ever. They’re saying that you’ve changed everything, that you’ve created a new look, that nothing will ever be the same again. You don’t need to block your ears anymore, my dear. You’ve done it. You’ve arrived.’

‘What are you talking about?’ he stammered, seeming dazed.

‘You can come out of the closet now.’

She led him out on to the landing. They peered down at the excited crowd below and heard the applause. He squeezed her hand, his cheeks wet.

‘Is it real?’ he whispered.

‘It’s a triumph, Tian.’

Someone down below looked up and shouted, ‘There’s Dior!’ A sea of faces turned his way. He tried to dart back out of sight, but Copper coaxed him into the light again. He looked down, dazed, at the crowd that was applauding him with bravos and blown kisses. A hot wave of cheering and love billowed up the staircase, redolent of cigarette smoke, Miss Dior and the scent of silk.

‘My God. What have I done?’ he asked.

‘Can’t you tell?’ she replied. ‘You’ve conquered the world.’





AUTHOR’S NOTE

A world may be conquered, but worlds come to an end. And a world – Dior’s world – was already fading away.

A few days after that tumultuous first show, a photo shoot of Dior outfits was arranged by Marcel Boussac’s newspaper L’Aurore to show off the New Look designs that everyone was clamouring to see. Ironically, the scarcity of fabric and the newness of the Dior collection meant that the outfits that had been shown were still the only ones in existence. They had already led a very exciting life – travelling incognito to smart hotels by night to be photographed by fashion editors or inspected by American store buyers, and then rushed back to avenue Montaigne early in the morning to the vendeuses, who needed them in the salon. This was the first occasion the outfits had been seen in the light of day, outside of Maison Dior.

The clothes were to be shown against the backdrop of the rue Lepic street market in Montmartre. The colourful, not to say somewhat squalid, background of the market, with its streets strewn with bruised cabbage leaves, was going to provide an interesting contrast to Monsieur Dior’s exquisite (and very expensive) creations.

The outfits arrived in a large wooden crate on the back of a camionette. They, and the young models who were to wear them, were discreetly ferried into a bar at the end of the street. The market was bustling. Jugs of cheap wine from Beaujolais had arrived and were proving popular with the crowd. After the privations of the war years, food was still a subject of intense interest. This was Montmartre, where for four years people had picked up those trodden cabbage leaves to eat, while the Nazis took the rest.

The first model emerged and strutted past the stalls for the benefit of L’Aurore’s photographers. People stopped shouting and haggling to stare. A silence fell. Then a scream of insults came from a woman in the doorway of the tripe butcher. She was shaking her fist, her face furious. The model paused, her smile fading.

Another woman ran across the street with a basin of dirty water. She hurled it all over the model. Shocked, the wretched girl scuttled into the shelter of a shop doorway, trying to brush the muck off her outfit. But two more women were waiting for her there. Shrieking abuse, one grabbed a handful of her hair, while the other set about stripping the clothes off her back.

Other women – mostly middle-aged and shabby – had entered the fray. A burly matron with a towering zazou hairdo ripped the bodice out of the yellow gown, leaving the poor model clutching her skimpily clad breasts as she fled. Vile epithets cascaded on her.

The second model, who had unwisely tried to come to the aid of her colleague, was suffering the same fate. The women of the market had hard fists, and they were using them to belabour the envoys from the 7th arrondissement.

‘Salaude! Putain!’

‘Get out of here, whores!’

‘Look at this bitch. She pays forty thousand francs for a dress, and my kids go without milk!’