Paris was unwrapping its Spring fashions, and last year's dictator of decollete, Dior's Marc Bohan, 37, was still in there plunging. Necklines were slipping in practically every big fashion house, but Bohan was a hard man to undercut, clearly wound up on the bottom of the heap. His biggest surprise was moving the bared bosom into broad daylight, and one billowy-sleeved, pleated-skirt afternoon number called the "Tom Jones" was so generously scooped that a single false step—and zut! alors! "We think women are glad to have such decolletage," said a Dior spokesman. But as soon as the show was over, the suddenly-modest models buttoned up quick as a blink before rushing out to bestow the usual congratulatory kisses on their mentor.
When he could, John Foster Dulles loved to get away from it all on two private islands he owned on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario. Now a longtime Dulles friend, Chaumont, N.Y., Marina Operator Robert Hart, who had a cottage on the main island, has bought the hideaway for an undisclosed sum, promises to "keep it as it is." That's not quite what will happen to Franklin D. Roosevelt's old 165-ft. yacht Potomac. Up for auction, the vessel which the wartime President called his "Shangri-La," went for $55,000 to none other than Elvis Presley. Did that mean the Potomac would soon be rock 'n' rolling to guitars as well as waves? No, said Elvis. It goes to the F.D.R.-founded March of Dimes to be used as the foundation sees fit.
To sing a song worth sixpence in the opera world of the 1930s, an American girl like Risë Stevens had to go to Europe for training, and she has always regarded that as a crying shame. Now the mezzo-soprano, 50, will have a chance to do something about it. She and Metropolitan Opera Executive Stage Manager Michael Manuel have been named general managers of the Met's new National Company, which will start touring the country full time in the fall of 1965. "We have a tremendous wealth of talent in this country, and for the first time they will be able to train and perform under top directors," trilled Risë. "I've had my own wonderful career. Now I want to see some other singers come along and become stars."
Spain is one of the few places left in the world where celebrities can draw a breath in peace. But there is at least one newshawk among the chickens. Shadowing Holland's visiting Princess Irene, 24, a Madrid photographer followed her to a Roman Catholic church, where he watched her receiving Communion—and stumbled on the best-kept secret of the Dutch House of Orange. Sometime last year "after long and deep thinking," Irene, second in line to the throne, had converted to Catholicism. Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard, said a hastily prepared royal communique, "fully backed the freedom of choice by their children," and her right to the throne was not affected. But the first break with Dutch royalty's traditional Protestantism drew volleys in the religiously split country.