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Lelong. At the head of the organization of a Paris dressmaking house is the designer. Under the designer comes the première vendeuse (chief saleswoman), assisted by a seconde and numerous other vendeuses. Heads of workrooms are premières mains, with general supervision over the training of the apprentices, the 14-or-15-year-old girls who come as midinettes to learn the history of textiles and of art, the tricks of designing, cutting, fitting, sewing. Finished models are shown by mannequins who think the opportunity of meeting British and U. S. millionaires enough compensation for tiny salaries.
To this organization, Lucien Lelong brought an Oxford education, a vigorous personality. Most efficient of all couturiers, Lelong housed himself in a 9-story building, passing in Paris for a skyscraper, and proceeded to produce 1,000 models a year under 20th century working conditions. Lelong is popular with U. S. buyers. Particularly popular are his three perfumes : "A," for the exotic woman (or the unexotic woman who, acting out of character, is attending an exotic affair); "B," the perfume pour le sport; "C," the delicate scent for the ingénue.
Premet. More than 1,000,000 women are said to have worn the boyish black gown, with white collars and cuffs, which went by the name of La Garconne. It was the House of Premet which invented La Garconne to ride the wave of the novel's popularity. Madame Charlotte, the present head of the house, is herself one of the most beautiful women in Paris, with mauve hair which has an interesting history.*
Louiseboulanger. To Louiseboulanger belongs the credit of discovering the secret of the down-in-the-back hemline. Primarily a dressmaker, rather than dress seller, she amuses herself by studying the personality of unusual women, then designing costumes to suit them. Her greatest triumph has been with the Actress Spinelly, whose frocks are an annual Parisian wonder.
Through the salons of these internationally-known couturiers, last week, wandered the elite of Paris and of Paris visitors. But U. S. women of fashion need not despair because they were not in Paris last week. Let them but wait until fall and they will find the most classic models of Worth, the most daring of Vionnet's designs, reproduced in many a U. S. department store. Instead of paying $500 for a sports costume by Chanel, they will pay $200 or $300 for a replica of the same costume in a Manhattan shop. For Paris dressmakers have found no way to prevent copying of their creations. Madame Charlotte made but 1,000 of the 1,000,000 copies of La Garçonne. As simplicity is the vogue in Paris, U. S. copyists may turn out French designs for $50 or $75. Even now the buyers are speeding homeward with dearly purchased models, ready to put them in the hands of expert imitators, preparing for the nation's great fall shopping season.