The Green Hat by Michael Arlen
published 1924
[excerpt] Iris had lit a fire and was like to be burnt to death in
the cold fires of that flame
“Hm,” grumbled Hilary. “Imitation....”
But I knew, for I once had a friend who was a taxidermist.
There were 396 white ermines round Iris. White and tawny and white. She was
like a light, and you hadn’t realised what an infernal dungeon the place was until
the door had suddenly opened and she had come in, wrapped in cloth of soft
snow. Boy’s head, curly head, white and tiger-tawny. She was like a light, a
sad, white light. I can’t describe her but like that.
[later]
Now I have read in books about people “sailing” into
places, and I suppose Iris came into the deserted Bar like that. Hilary must
have been just behind her, for I heard his voice, but I only saw Iris, and I
remember how she seemed to hold the white ermine round her with one clenched
hand, and how the great emerald shone like a green fly on the soft, soft white.
And the tawny curls danced their formal dance on her cheeks as she came towards
us, swiftly, oh, swiftly, saying, in that suddenly strong, clear voice: “Oh,
Guy: and friend of Gerald! Will you help me, dear friend? I want to go round to
see Gerald, and Hilary says you still have the key of the house. I went hours
ago, but I could not get no answer at the door. I wonder, would you come with
me?”
In the darkness I could feel the soft ermine of her cloak against
me, and that faint dry scent whose name I shall now never know.
She was very, very still, and I could not even hear her breathing.
comments: This arose because of my reading of Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott - see previous post - where this happens:
Lucia drew me aside, and said:
“Do you like your ermine wrap? I helped Nathaniel choose it for you.”
I said: “It’s a beautiful one.
Why did he want to get me an ermine wrap?”
“Ever since he read ‘The
Green Hat,’ Nat thinks ermine wraps are robes of romance. Pat, he’s a grand
person.”
Now, The Green Hat has an important role in the
birth of Clothes in Books – I have always loved the ridiculous romantic farrago of
Michael Arlen’s book, and for many years I had wondered what the hat looked
like. If only there were a blog that would tell me, I thought…
I did a post eventually,
One of
the inspirations for Clothes in Books
In which I described it as having ‘a melodramatic plot
involving high moral principles and low sexual shenanigans’. People who
don’t know her describe the hat-wearer, Iris Storm, as ‘shameless’ but the
adjective really applies to Michael Arlen for writing prose that you have to
embrace or despise, and for the brilliance of calling the book ‘a romance for a
few people’, to convince readers that not everyone will appreciate this work of art, in
order to sell it to as many people as possible.
Anyway – back in 2012, I liked the picture very much, but it was not
quite what I wanted. A commenter said I should look at the green hats worn by
Tallulah Bankhead or Katherine Cornell in plays in London or on Broadway.
So now more than 13 years later I have done that. Still not
perfect, maybe the green hat is something I can only see in my head.
Katherine Cornell, above, looks more like Miss Jean Brodie than
Iris Storm. Or perhaps Vita Sackville-West in tweedy gardening mode – see this
picture at the NPG.
NPG
P437; Vita Sackville-West - Portrait - National Portrait Gallery
Tallulah Bankhead much more
my idea, but can’t see the colour.
I will continue to look for the perfect hat – if you find
one please send it along. For purity!
And I enjoyed looking for ermine. A whole wrap/cloak of
ermine is not common – perhaps that figure of 396 is not an exaggeration.
(While I was looking I saw a tagline ‘ermine summer coat’
and thought ‘that might be nice’ & clicked for the picture but of course it
turned out to be the animal in its summer coat)
Top picture probably not an ermine wrap – but it is a
splendid evening coat, so we’re going to squint our eyes and pretend, because
that is what Iris Storm should look like.
Au bal
noir et blanc, manteau du soir - NYPL Digital Collections
Evening coat for a black and white ball
The second pic is an actress called Patty Dupont in an
ermine coat
Miss
Dupont, ermine coat - digital file from original neg. | Library of Congress
There are already three posts on The Green Hat – I have just SO enjoyed re-reading them and recommend you do the same – and a couple of other Arlen stories – use the tags below.
And if you are as fascinated by evening coats as Clothes in Books is (impossible, I'd have said, until I clocked the comments on the 2 x posts) - do look at this post, with links back to an earlier one:
I loved reading about the inspiration (well, part of the inspiration) behind your blog, Moira! And i can certainly see how you'd have been sparked by that discussion of the green hat. We are all the better for your interest in the topic! The ermine got my attention, too. It seems like so much a part of that world, but that we don't really have anymore.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your interest Margot - and your continuing support for the blog since not long after I started. You have been a loyal and staunch friend.
DeleteAnd as you say, I don't suppose many people would wear an ermine coat these days.
The king and the queen wore ermine for their coronation. But that's about it, I think. Most people wouldn't wear any fur.
DeleteClare
If you walk around the very rich areas of London in the winter you see an awful lot of fur
DeleteThe one American city where I can always count on seeing fur coats (at least from December through March) is Chicago. There it is both a fashion statement and a practical solution to the weather.
DeleteInteresting - and no pushback against the fur?
DeleteI always had an association of ermine with royalty, but I suppose just being rich would also qualify! Alamy has some 1920's fashion plates with ermine coats,
DeleteChicagoans would probably push right back.
DeleteElderly and/or Black Chicagoans are much more likely to wear fur than any other coat-wearers.
DeleteI love the insight into Chicagoans! No stereotypes being challenged here...
DeleteStoats/ermines are small animals - I wouldn't be at all surprised if it took 396 to make a cloak.
ReplyDeleteSovay
I read a figure online of 125 - as opposed to 55 mink - but presumably it depends on the size of the cloak. To give such a meaninglessly exact figure is very much the Arlen touch
DeleteThis reminded me of Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimborough’s Our Hearts Were Young and Gay - on a trip to London in the 1920s they treat themselves to evening wraps of white rabbit fur, so voluminous that they look like ambulant igloos. Which in turn reminded me of Alice in Angela Thirkell’s Pomfret Towers and the little white rabbit cape (lined with apricot velvet) she wears over her evening dress. Her friend Phoebe, who knows what’s what, comments on the good taste of letting it be clearly rabbit, rather than trimming it up with dyed black “tails” in imitation of ermine.
DeleteSovay
Pomfret Towers a great favourite of mine.
DeleteI'm not sure if they had ermine, but fur coats in different ways feature in the story of Mary Burchell/Cook sisters 'We Followed our Stars' https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2023/08/mary-burchell-aka-ida-cook-righteous.html
The book is simultaneously hilarious and charming, and also heart-wrenching as the sisters help refugees to leave Europe in the late 1930s.
The sisters wore other people's coats in order to smuggle them out of Germany, so the refugees, when they followed, could sell them.
This came up quite recently in your post about Helen McCloy's The Man in the Moonlight - the woman who has fled Nazi Germany spent the money she couldn't take out with her on a lot of fragile frivolous things, but the one expensive durable thing she bought was fur coat which she could sell later to pay her passage to America.
DeleteSovay
Oh yes it did. And of course Linda has all those furs when she comes back from Paris to the UK when war breaks out: ‘It used to make me so laugh when Fabrice said he was getting me all these things because they would be useful in the war, the war would be fearfully cold he always said, but I see now how right he was.’
DeleteI've never read The Green Hat but have seen references to it, and got the impression that it was very racy. Doesn't Iris have a Hispano-Suiza, like Prince Yakimov?
ReplyDeleteIt's very interesting to read the blog's backstory, if that's the right way to put it.
She does have a Hispano-Suiza. It was racy for its time I think, now it seems melodramatic and overblown, but wonderful in its way.
DeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the history! When I started the blog I couldn't believe no-one else had done it first
Prince Yakimov also had a fur collared coat but his was very tatty. You have reminded me of Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant trilogies. I need to re-read them - after I finish The green hat. So many enthralling books to read...
DeleteI know! almost too many. It's years since I read any Olivia Mannin - I enjoyed those trilogies but didn't love them the way others do, I wonder how I would find them now? I look forward to hearing your verdict
DeleteOpenLibrary/archive.org has some. I see that one was the basis of the Branagh/Thompson program Fortunes of War.
DeleteI recall enjoying the BBC serial back in the mists of time, but not being able to get into the books - I should give them another try.
DeleteSovay
There were two trilogies, ie six books so quite the commitment. She also wrote some other novels. The TV series was much-loved in its day, covered at least three of the books, and maybe the second trilogy too - I don't remember exactly, does anyone else?
DeleteI love a challenge of trying to find an image but I feel like I need to know the kind of woman who is wearing said green hat so I can get that visualisation
ReplyDeleteI see the original cover art itself does illustrate a lady in a green hat!
DeleteThis is about 5 years too late but it just captured the vibe, I thought. https://www.prints-online.com/girl-station-s-van-abbe-7261873.html
DeleteDaniel
Iris Storm has 'a pagan body and a Chiselhurst mind' which I think is splendid. She has her own morals but also has strong principles. the more I think about her the more I feel she is a public schoolboy turned into an irresistible femme fatale. Looking at it again I was surprised at how androgynous she was.
DeleteThe lady at the railway station is a great picture with a great hat!
I was trying to Google other images of Iris Storm and didn't find any, but I came across a Lady Idina Sackville who was rumored to be an inspiration for both Iris Storm and The Bolter of Nancy Mitford's books. (And maybe even a Taylor Swift connection.) A descendant of hers wrote a biography which was also called The Bolter. A Garbo film was made of Arlen's play of The Green Hat, this is a photo of Garbo and her (I suppose) green hat: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019591/mediaviewer/rm2562340864/?ref_=tt_ph_2
ReplyDeleteI read the biog of The Bolter and was very disappointed, not impressed at all (nor convinced). I think she would be altogether too upmarket to be Iris Storm, anyway.
DeleteLove the Garbo picture, and her hat!
I didn't even know there was a blog....Lady Idina did have a Hispano-Suiza though! From what I read, she reminded me a little of Linda, who might have become a bolter if she'd lived long enough.
DeleteBiog (as in biography) not blog! Though now I'm wondering which of our favourite 20C fictional characters would have had a blog/Twitter and how they would've used it. Linda I can see as an Instagram girl.
DeleteAnd yes, I am always haunted by the final lines of Pursuit of Love, where the actual Bolter is clear-sighted about Linda's life
Oops, old eyes at fault! That's an interesting idea about fictional characters on Social Media. I think Miss Silver would have a Facebook Page with posts from former students and clients, updating her on family matters. (And of course her own family. That flighty niece of hers would probably have accounts everywhere, being wildly indiscreet.)
DeleteWonder if Misses Silver and Marple would have had knitting blogs?
DeleteMarty – the Garbo hat you linked to is the closest so far to what I’d imagined for Iris – the description in the book seems to indicate a wide (“piratical”) brim, more substantial than those on the cloches in the main post. The one in the original Clothes in Books post has the brim but is otherwise (I think) too pretty and fluffy and “jeune fille” for Iris.
DeleteI could imagine Miss Silver posting some helpful instructional videos on Youtube - particularly promoting her favoured continental style of knitting. If she had any tech issues no doubt Ethel's boys would assist. I'm not sure if she'd have a blog - she knits so fast, I think she'd struggle to keep up with herself!
Sovay
Yes I think the Garbo hat is the best yet.
DeleteI can imagine one family post saying 'lovely new socks for Roger knitted by Aunt Maud!' with charming photo, while, as you say, the party girl's pic shows her knocking back prosecco and spilling out of her dress, with her arm round unsuitable male friend.
Now, who will be on Tik Tok?
Our Maud on YouTube--I love it.--I saw a colorized version of the Garbo photo, and the hat had been made green of course. I too thought it was somewhat piratical, or at least rakish, but I think it gets a lot of panache from who's wearing it!
DeleteThe social media options are endless. I can see Agatha Christie's Tuppence as the kind of older person who is anxious to keep up with modern trends, but is very bad at the technicals.
DeleteGarbo was so incredible-looking, I was just staring and staring at her face in that picture.
Is a Chiselhurst mind just about someone with a posh background or is there some other connotation?
ReplyDeleteNo Chiselhurst would imply suburban, very middle class, quite affluent but not super-posh at all. I have always assumed she meant that she wanted to get away from her respectable background, but couldn't quite achieve the mindset necessary for her free-living.
DeleteThe "ermine summer coat" pic you mention reminded me that the late Mrs Beamish (mother of Mary) in Barbara Pym's A Glass of Blessings had a summer ermine cape - after her death her daughter-in-law mentions it, and I'd always assumed it was an ermine cape lightweight enough to wear in summer, but maybe it's a red-brown stoat cape. That would make more sense of Cynthia's next comment ("Or was it only squirrel?"). Fur is taken for granted in A Glass of Blessings - Cynthia gathers her silver foxes around her, Wilmet accessorises her new dark grey suit and little turquoise velvet hat with a marten stole, Sir Denbigh Grote the retired diplomat has a fur-lined overcoat for winter funerals.
ReplyDeleteStill taken for granted in 1966 when JP Thatcher attends a glittering reception at Lincoln Center in Death Shall Overcome - he's standing aside taking it all in, "And to light and sound, there was added the special, unforgettable scent of powder on bared shoulders, the attar of a hundred perfumes, the rich leaf of tobacco, and the smoky pungency of furs touched by the fog's damp fingers."
Sovay
I like the way you are building the timeline of fur usage.
DeleteJohn Dickson Carr had a lot of fur coats wraps and stoles, very much in his 30s novels, I wonder how much they continued into the later years.
That's a fabulous quote from Lathen.
I’ve never had or wanted anything made of fur so am actually quite hazy about just when it really became unacceptable except amongst those too rich to care what anyone thinks or, perhaps, too poor to reject a warm hard-wearing garment on ethical grounds. I’m sure my mother never had any fur – no sign of it in the many family photos from the 1950s onwards (she did have a sheepskin jacket in the 60s, but I wouldn’t count that). But before WW2 and for years after, it feels like fur was something every woman had or aspired to – even the working class woman could hope for a coat collar or little scarf of rabbit or other budget-priced fur. My grandma and two of her friends, as young and probably poorly-paid mill workers in the mid 1920s, had a studio photograph taken together, all in fur-collared coats.
DeleteI remembered the Emma Lathen passage because one rarely thinks about the smell of the past! A similar public gathering today would still have the make-up and perfume, but no tobacco or smoky pungent fur.
Sovay
Yes it was a real change of attitude on fur - very much an assumption that aspirations could not go much higher! There's a funny Roald Dahl short story about wanting a fur, preferably as a gift from a man - I think it was already what we used to call an urban legend (before the term internet myth).
DeleteYes - smell so un-creatable, but so nostalgic. It can carry you back in an instant. And yet we have no idea what the smells of our past were
I have just been reading about Nancy Cunard (and goodness, what a piece of work she was) who had an affair with Michael Arlen and was considered by many, I think, including herself, to be the inspiration for Iris Storm. Also, no--one has mentioned ocelot - wasn't that a thing, particularly in the form of hats, at one time? And of course there is Bob Dylan's 'Leopard-skin Pillbox Hat!' Chrissie
ReplyDeleteYes she was a piece of work indeed, and not much resemblance to Iris Storm I'd have said, but maybe Michael Arlen saw her differently!
DeleteI had a look at ocelot and leopard coats in this entry https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-bath-mysteries-by-er-punshon.html
And you have suggested the Dylan hat before, and I do keep meaning to do it - although I was disappointed that the recent Dylan biography film didn't seem to feature one!
Some unlikely (to me) women seem to inspire passion, such as Wallis Simpson. (I suppose they had the "It" quality, whatever that was!) Maybe Arlen was seeing Cunard "through the eyes of love" or maybe Iris was what he'd wished Cunard to be? From this post, not having read the book, I'd say Iris was a very wish-fulfillment kind of character.
DeleteThe Heart has its Reasons was the name of Wallis' autobiography, as in the Pascal quote "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing". Fair title.
DeleteI'm always surprised by anoyone who doesn't get it - that people are different, that their needs and desires are different, that they might be attracted by someone who is not superficially beautiful. I wonder - do they not look around and see what the world is like?
People can fall for whomever they like, but I reserve the right to sometimes wonder what the attraction is. Looks aside, Wallis never struck me as a good or even nice person. And with both men and women, sometimes I wonder what masochistic needs keep them with people who don't value them in return.
DeleteThe mysteries of humanity.
DeleteI'm not sure how good or nice the Duke of Windsor was either.
In their later years of exile (both couples), the Duke and Duchess of W saw quite a lot of Oswald and Diana Mosley. I often wonder what on earth their dinnertime conversation was about. (Nancy Mitford speculated that they moaned about the French all the time)
Very much two couples to speculate about.