In Vanity Fair: A Tale of Frocks and Femininity

by Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd

The grande Militaire, a steeplechase with gentlemen riders up, is one of the most popular of the Auteuil events, for the horses are ridden by officers from the neighbouring garrisons, and both Fifi and the Duchess "aiment le Militaire." The Day of the Drags, or coaching parade, is another chic event, and the occasion for a phenomenal toilette exhibit. One is so delightfully in evidence upon the box seat of a coach that one's most charming frock and hat will not be wasted there. Moreover, the competition in dress is more limited than it is in the pesage or the Tribune, and, naturally, is all the keener for the concentration. Seats upon the coaches, which are tooled out to the race track by their famous owners and greeted with traditional and impressive ceremony, are eagerly coveted, and many a mode has been launched from the top of a coach, many a new belle has entered into her kingdom behind four curvetting horses on the Day of the Drags.

But the day of days for the Parisienne who follows the races—and what true Parisienne does not?—is the day of the Grand Prix. The Grand Prix is the dramatic conclusion of the season to which Auteuil was the triumphal introduction. It is the climax to which St. Cloud and St. Ouen and Chantilly and the rest have led.

Auteuil is likely to be stormy. One expects that, but bad weather for the Grand Prix is a tragedy. For weeks, dressmakers and milliners have been at work upon Grand Prix toilettes, and certain women, famed for their beauty and the inimitable grace with which they wear their clothes, might have the choicest products of the ultra-swell ateliers merely for the wearing at the Grand Prix, did they but choose to accept the favours and organize themselves into advertising agencies. Every woman with money to spend, spends as much of it as she can spare upon her toilette for this one occasion. She will blossom out gorgeously for Grand Prix, if she goes shabby during the rest of the year.

Oh the heartburnings, the jealousies, the opera bouffe dramas that are woven round those Grand Prix gowns,—the solemn conferences with the great dressmakers, the whispers and rumours about the frocks of rival beauties, the eager interest of all the Parisian world! In the ateliers nothing is talked of save the coming event. From the smallest errand girl to the master artist, all have the interests of the establishment at heart and are curious regarding the achievements in other workrooms. To have turned out a majority of the frocks which create a sensation at the Grand Prix,—that is a triumph surpassed only by the winning of the Grand Prix itself.

So the dressmakers outdo themselves in aspiration and effort, and when the great day comes they go to Longchamps to sit in judgment upon their own creations and those of their rivals. They bet upon the horses, yes; but they realize that the race is run in the Tribune and the pesage, not upon the track, and as for the two-hundred-thousand-franc purse that goes to the owner of the winning horse—two hundred thousand francs would carry Madame but a little way on her race for fashionable prominence. Ten thousand dollars' worth of lace went into one frock worn at the Grand Prix last June and the ropes of pearls worn over the lace were worth a prince's ransom, yet the toilette was a quiet one. Only the initiated could appraise its value—but, fortunately for the wearer, in the matter of clothes, Paris is a city of initiates.

There are strenuous times in the boudoirs of Paris on the morning of the Grand Prix. Both Fifi and the Duchess are hard to satisfy, and their maids walk on tiptoe and breathe but lightly until the last rebellious lock is brought into subjection, the last sustaining pin is thrust through the tip-tilted hat, the last touch of powder is applied to the pretty nose, the last fold of the veil is coquettishly adjusted.

Madame surveys herself conscientiously, exhaustively. Not a detail escapes her, and, if all is well, she sighs,—a sigh of supreme content. She has done what she could. Dressmaker, milliner, and maid have done what they could. Le bon Dieu also has had a share in the satisfactory tout ensemble. Mentally, Madame includes all in a sweeping vote of thanks, but the maid is nearest at hand.

"Celeste, you may have the blue silk frock you like—the one with the embroidery. Yes; and the blue parasol also."

She is gone, in a flutter of laces and chiffon and plumes, and the exhausted maid stops only long enough to appropriate the blue silk, before hurrying out to the Bois where she may see the passing show, or joining Jacques and setting forth—she also—for Longchamps.