Fashion, Paris and Romance

 

Under the Stars of Paris by Mary Burchell

published 1954

Paris – and My Love by Mary Burchell

published 1960

 

 

 

Blogfriend Constance – CLM – came to  my post on department store murders and recommended a book by this author called Across the Counter, but also said I would like Under The Stars of Paris. Well she was quite wrong about that: I didn’t like it, I LOVED it, it is the most splendid romantic farrago ever, set in a fashion house in Paris with a dictatorial and unpredictable fashion designer.

It is fabulous.

(I have not been able to find a cheap copy of Across the Counter, so cannot yet comment on that one… )

There is a semi-sequel called Paris – and My Love, and both are available on Kindle. I bought the second one the moment I finished the first one. They are called the Florian Saga, though there don’t seem to be any further books – Florian is the name of the fashion house.

Based on the two books I read, Burchell was a very good writer.  Constance told me something about her and I then found out more – and read her autobiography – which is extraordinary. That will feature in another post, asap.  The stories are very much romantic fiction, and not terribly convincing, with some smile-worthy moments, but they are really good fun. They are full of details of Paris life and of the fashion house. They are very much books of their time.

So – the story. Upmarket English girl Anthea has rushed away to Paris after her engagement is broken off and her father has remarried. She doesn’t know what to do next – and then by chance she gets a job modelling.  A major fashion house, Florians, is on the eve of staging their big fashion show of the year, the collection, and a key model has broken her leg. Anthea is the right size, and has the right look, so she stands in and is (you will be surprised to hear) a huge success, so is kept on. She models the all-important wedding dress that traditionally closes the show.

Her ex-fiance turns up in Paris with his new girlfriend, and a difficult situation arises. There is a ball, and Anthea (now called Gabrielle) borrows a dress from the salon: one of her rivals has told her that will be fine. Well, we all know how that is going to end don’t we? – spilled wine ahoy.

Florian  detached—with bold, decisive movements—two of the beautiful floating panels from the skirt, and began calmly, and without haste, to fashion these into an exquisite draped bodice. By the time the chambermaid entered, the whole of the upper part of the dress was transformed, and the skirt merely lacking in a little of the fabulous fullness that had distinguished it. “Pins,” he said to the woman, without even looking at her. “And a needle and thread.”

 

There is a weird parallel here with a story by Hulbert Footner featuring his Madame Storey – see blogpost here, and another heroine called Gabrielle.

 ‘M. Craqui seized a pair of shears and with scarcely a glance cut recklessly into the priceless stuff. All the women exclaimed in dismay. In a jiffy two lengths of it were hanging from Gabrielle's lovely shoulders. M. Craqui like lightning snatched pins from the trembling hands of Thérèse and jabbed them cunningly here and there.’

 

Perhaps this ability is what distinguishes a really great fashion designer, or a model called Gabrielle.

By now there are at least three men in Anthea’s life, and it is not entirely predictable how the plot is going to pan out….

At one point there is a potential press scandal involving the designer and the model, but Florian says ‘No one will take you for my mistress in that coat.’ A splendid line. It leaves Anthea Anthea ‘divided between amusement, relief and a sort of chagrin’.

In the second book, aNOTHER English girl who has fled to Paris, Marianne, gets a job in the Florian fashion house, though this time she is working in the boutique selling accessories. Again, there is all kinds of goings on and fancy outings and a few men in the frame… and of course some lovely clothes.

They are fairytales, but they are not rubbish-y.

All very reminiscent of Mrs Harris goes to Paris, and Nancy Mitford’s Don’t Tell Alfred & The Blessing, Patricia Moyes’ Murder a la Mode.

More than 30 years ago I picked up a secondhand book called Girls of Paris, containing b/w phots of young women of the city. It has no date, no author, no translator, no details at all, so I can never really credit it. (I realize this sounds like porn, so must emphasize that the pictures are entirely respectable). It has been very useful on the blog – almost as if I knew back in the 1980s that I would need it one day for Clothes in Books purposes. All the pictures here are from the book. 

Look out for another post on the extraordinary and surprising lives of Mary Burchell/Ida Cook and her sister.