Some of My Lives (9 page)
Authors: Rosamond Bernier
I
was sent to Paris by
Vogue
in 1947 to report on what had been happening in the arts since the isolation of the war years.
was sent to Paris by
Vogue
in 1947 to report on what had been happening in the arts since the isolation of the war years.
I knew Virgil Thomson, who had lived many years in Paris but was now installed in New York at the Chelsea Hotel. I went to see him to get his advice. Virgil was small, rotund, cherubic of cheek, and acerbic of tongue. He had always been nice to me, although he would say with a slight edge, “Oh, she's
Aaron's
girl.”
Aaron's
girl.”
At that time Virgil was writing brilliant music reviews for the old
New York Herald Tribune
. The mystery was that no sooner had he settled in his seat for a concert than he fell soundly asleep. To all appearances, he only woke up at the end of the performance, at the noise of the applause. Yet the most lucid, perspicacious account of the concert would appear the next day.
New York Herald Tribune
. The mystery was that no sooner had he settled in his seat for a concert than he fell soundly asleep. To all appearances, he only woke up at the end of the performance, at the noise of the applause. Yet the most lucid, perspicacious account of the concert would appear the next day.
Equally mysterious was how he managed to produce the most memorable food in what was literally a small hotel closet transformed into a kitchen. Luckily, he didn't take up much room himself, and his organization was a marvel of ingenuity.
Thanks to Virgil, I had an introduction to Olivier Messiaen, who allowed me to sit in on some of his music analysis classes at the Paris Conservatoire. This composer of rhapsodic works of religious inspiration, with an assist from birdsongs, was dissecting Bach's counterpoint like a surgeon. And I got lost backstage at the Paris Opéra with Eric (
Vogue
's
dessinateur
) looking for Roger Désormière (another Virgil Thomson connection), the conductor of an unforgettable
Pélleas et Mélisande
(we finally found him).
Vogue
's
dessinateur
) looking for Roger Désormière (another Virgil Thomson connection), the conductor of an unforgettable
Pélleas et Mélisande
(we finally found him).
But the introduction that was the most precious and rewarding for me was to the twenty-one-year-old Aaron Copland's composition
teacher, Nadia Boulanger. She had remained a touchstone for excellence in his life. He was to be followed by a procession of young American composers: Virgil Thomson, Walter Piston, even Elliott Carter at one point. It became a “must” to have had some contact with the illustrious Mademoiselle, as we always called her. Only Aaron had earned the right to address her as Nadia.
teacher, Nadia Boulanger. She had remained a touchstone for excellence in his life. He was to be followed by a procession of young American composers: Virgil Thomson, Walter Piston, even Elliott Carter at one point. It became a “must” to have had some contact with the illustrious Mademoiselle, as we always called her. Only Aaron had earned the right to address her as Nadia.
Because I came from Aaron, on my arrival in Paris she immediately asked me to her studio walk-up apartmentâ36, rue Balluâwhere Aaron had studied so many years before. It was a freezing cold February day, and her apartmentâlike most places in these immediate postwar yearsâwas unheated. An erect, fine-featured woman, she seemed completely impervious to the cold. “But she was always like that,” Aaron said with a chortle when I reported this. I didn't dare shiver.
She allowed me to listen to some of her classes. Her pupils were drilled in orchestration, analysis, sight-reading of orchestral scores at the piano. She was indefatigable, teaching all day, every day. In summer she ran a music school in Fontainebleau. Her musical enthusiasms ran from Renaissance madrigals to twelve-tone serial composers (referred to by Francis Poulenc, deprecatingly, as “les dodécas”).
Just before I was to return to New York (I was to come back to Paris on an almost permanent basis a little later), Mademoiselle came by my hotel to leave a goodbye present: it was a box of Kleenex and a bar of soap, the most precious objects, unobtainable in Paris at that time.
Long after that first visit I went back to 36, rue Ballu with Aaron for one of Nadia Boulanger's ritual weekly teas. Without even realizing it, Aaron automatically reached out in the dark to switch on the light over the staircaseâyears of habit. It was cold in the apartment, and the cakes were stale. “They always were,” Aaron whispered.
W
hen the French fashion houses began to open again in 1946â47 after World War II and the occupation, American magazines thought it worthwhile to send people over to report on them.
hen the French fashion houses began to open again in 1946â47 after World War II and the occupation, American magazines thought it worthwhile to send people over to report on them.
I was one of them. I edged into the fashion world almost sideways. I thought I was going to write art features when I was recruited by
Vogue
. But Mrs. Chase thought otherwise, and her word was law.
Vogue
. But Mrs. Chase thought otherwise, and her word was law.
I found myself on one of those first transatlantic flights that stopped over for the night at Gander, Newfoundland, to refuel. You rested, fully dressed, in one of a line of cots in a kind of barracks.
My immediate neighbors were a group of Dominican monksâItalian, no English. I had studied Italian a long time ago in college but had had no opportunity to practice. I could only remember a few lines of Dante, about returning from hell, not much of a conversational opener. I tried it out, anyhow, and got a gratifying response.
My traveling companion was a small, angelic, and gifted artist who was the magazine's
dessinateur
. He went under the name of Eric. There was much use of fashion drawings to illustrate magazines in those days. My entire professional training was a hissed injunction as I left for the airport: “Keep Eric sober.”
dessinateur
. He went under the name of Eric. There was much use of fashion drawings to illustrate magazines in those days. My entire professional training was a hissed injunction as I left for the airport: “Keep Eric sober.”
Keeping Eric sober turned out to be a major project, but if his gait was sometimes unsteady, his line never wavered.
The
Vogue
team was lodged at the Crillon, the only hotel that had any heating. It included the star photographer Horst, who had photographed all the famous prewar beauties, including Chanel, and was still at it.
Vogue
team was lodged at the Crillon, the only hotel that had any heating. It included the star photographer Horst, who had photographed all the famous prewar beauties, including Chanel, and was still at it.
Our life in Paris was of an almost embarrassing ease compared
with the lot of most Parisians. Bitter cold, shortages of all kinds, a telephone system with a freakish life of its own, electricity unreliable in the extreme. And everywhere recriminations and evening of scores about who had, and who had not, behaved decently during the occupation.
with the lot of most Parisians. Bitter cold, shortages of all kinds, a telephone system with a freakish life of its own, electricity unreliable in the extreme. And everywhere recriminations and evening of scores about who had, and who had not, behaved decently during the occupation.
Breakfast in bed was served by tailcoated waiters bearing beat-up metal trays, with paper handouts rallying the population to de Gaulle, instead of linen. Had we been up to it, we could have had champagne and foie gras, but no fruit.
I enjoyed my sorties with Eric. They went something like this. He would call for me in the morning at the Crillon, natty in bow tie and bowler hat, slightly unsteady already. Then he thought a pit stop for a dozen oysters and a bottle of white wine advisable before our first appointment. A seraphic vagueness enveloped him throughout the day. After several hours at Schiaparelli's he would ask in a loud stage whisper, “Where are we?”
Confronted with the model, he always started with the eyes. Then mysteriously, the very essence, the spirit of the outfit, would come to life on his page.
That first season in Paris, there were very few professional models to pose for our photographs and illustrations. I rounded up my more personable acquaintances and, when really hard up, would pose myself, face averted, because at that time
Vogue
did not want its editors to appear in its pages.
Vogue
did not want its editors to appear in its pages.
Eric drew me in a Paulette creation, looking as though I were just waiting for the next glass of champagne at Maxim's. In reality, due to the intense cold, I was in bed, warmly dressed, fur coat on top, covers pulled up to my chin.
The first party for the fashion press was given by Edward Molyneux, an Englishman who had had a successful career in the Paris couture before the war and had just reopened. He lived in a large apartment on the other side of the Seine from the Crillon. Guests crunched through heavy snow on foot across the Place de la Concorde, in evening clothes. There was still no automobile traffic at all.
The room was full of French women, incongruously wearing towering plumes of birds of paradise in their hair. Someone had discovered a cache of them. There were few new clothes available,
and even fewer opportunities to dress up. So they made the most of it.
and even fewer opportunities to dress up. So they made the most of it.
The setting was Molyneux's long, pale beige living room in pure 1930s style, heated with the makeshift elements of the times. It was banked with superb Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings. A number of them are now in Washington's National Gallery, donated by Ailsa Mellon Bruce, who had acquired them from Molyneux.
The first important couture show I went to on my first Paris visit was presented by the house of Lucien Lelong (incidentally, Lelong, as head of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture during the war, saved French skilled workers from being shipped to Germany). It will be remembered, if for nothing else, because the clothes were designed by a shy, cherubic unknown young man, the future couture star Christian Dior. The man Cecil Beaton described as looking like “a bland country curate made out of pink marzipan” was to blow the fashion landscape sky-high two years later with the New Look.
I somehow struck up a cozy relationship with Lelong, who favored me with generous prices and invited me for an amusing lunch at his apartment. He told me about the high life in the 1930s and spoke wistfully about his failed marriage to the beautiful princess Natalie Paley. “If only she had been a little less
folle
and I had been a little more patient.”
folle
and I had been a little more patient.”
He was proud of his elegantly designed bathroom and showed off his latest acquisition: an electric toothbrush. I was suitably impressed; I had never seen one before.
I negotiated with my employers to lend me Horst and Eric after the collections, so that I could record some of the interesting figures in the postwar art world and in the world in general. UNESCO had just been created, and the first director general was a peppery and illustrious British scientist, Sir Julian Huxley. Getting an appointment was not easy; he clearly thought anything as frivolous as
Vogue
was a complete waste of time.
Vogue
was a complete waste of time.
I managed finally, and brought Horst along. Huxley bustled in, his eyebrows angry thickets. Horst put on his lights and was about to start shooting when there was a loud bang. The frail electricity
system was not up to the challenge. “Fellow can't even manage his bulbs,” Huxley roared, and stamped out.
system was not up to the challenge. “Fellow can't even manage his bulbs,” Huxley roared, and stamped out.
Our next project, to photograph Gertrude Stein and her poodle, Basket, in Pierre Balmain's salon, was clear sailing, with all concerned well pleased. In fact, it resulted in one of Horst's most famous, often reproduced images. It shows a massive Gertrude Stein, an obviously unmovable monument (Alice B. Toklas never referred to her as Miss Stein or Gertrude: always Gertrude Stein, so I will follow Alice's lead). She is looking up at the opposite of her mirror image: a willowy model in evening finery, beruffed and beplumed.
Off in the distance are two very small figures: they are Eric and myself. We are often cut off when this image is reproduced, so I make my claim to be seen here.
Balmain's salon was the choice of venue because the Stein-Toklas ménage spent the occupation years in the country and the young little known Pierre Balmain was a near neighbor. They exchanged visits and vegetables. Incidentally, how two elderly Jewish ladies remained very visibly in occupied France unharmed is somewhat cloudy.
When Pierre opened his salon at the liberation, they wanted to be on hand to cheer him on. Alice even wrote a text to be handed out to visitors. I still have it. Or did Alice really write it? Remember,
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
was written by Gertrude Stein.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
was written by Gertrude Stein.
Balmain made them clothes. Alice, who never lost her practical sense, said, “For heaven's sake, Gertrude, don't let anyone know Pierre dresses us. We look like gypsies.”
Gertrude Stein died before I came back to live in Paris, but during my Paris years I often saw Alice; in fact, my office for
L'ÅIL
, my magazine, was just down the street from the rue Christine, where Alice lived. I would, on invitation, drop in for tea. There was no nonsense about a biscuit or two; there would always be a delicious selection of just-baked cakes. Alice would sit in her rocking chair, so little that her feet in their hand-knitted socks and sandals hardly reached the floor. There she rocked like a little old owlâhooded eyes, just the trace of a mustache.
L'ÅIL
, my magazine, was just down the street from the rue Christine, where Alice lived. I would, on invitation, drop in for tea. There was no nonsense about a biscuit or two; there would always be a delicious selection of just-baked cakes. Alice would sit in her rocking chair, so little that her feet in their hand-knitted socks and sandals hardly reached the floor. There she rocked like a little old owlâhooded eyes, just the trace of a mustache.
Whenever she had come to some little festivity at my place, or I had done some small favor, a thank-you letter would arrive promptly,
written in such a minute script that a magnifying glass was the best weapon.
written in such a minute script that a magnifying glass was the best weapon.
While Gertrude Stein was alive, people came because of Gertrude, to listen to Gertrude. Alice was somewhere in the background. Now people came to see Alice, to listen to Alice. And she was a very good talker with quite a sharp tongue.
Alice not only was a superb cook but also wrote a cookbook, both useful and highly idiosyncratic. She didn't hesitate to include our mutual friend Brion Gysin's recipe for hashish fudge.
In another key, I went to see André Gide. He very sensibly was all muffled up against the cold and was wearing a black stocking cap that made him look like an ancient Chinese sage.
He told me he had just finished translating
Hamlet
for Jean-Louis Barrault. He talked about the different tonalities of English and French and very kindly offered to give me an introduction to Barrault.
Hamlet
for Jean-Louis Barrault. He talked about the different tonalities of English and French and very kindly offered to give me an introduction to Barrault.
Barrault arranged for me to have tickets for
Hamlet
. I took along another
Vogue
contributor, the illustrator Marcel Vertès. Vertès was a bulky Hungarian who apparently didn't appreciate Shakespeare. About half an hour into the performance he said to me in a highly audible voice, “I'm bored, and it is very bad for me to be bored.” I managed to steer him out between acts. Between acts I went backstage, to see Barrault. I told him how much I admired his memorable
Les Enfants du Paradis
. He spoke about mime and the great mime Marcel Marceau. Then it was time to get back to the hall. Jean-Louis gallantly escorted me and took my hand so I could climb down directly from the stage back to my seat.
Hamlet
. I took along another
Vogue
contributor, the illustrator Marcel Vertès. Vertès was a bulky Hungarian who apparently didn't appreciate Shakespeare. About half an hour into the performance he said to me in a highly audible voice, “I'm bored, and it is very bad for me to be bored.” I managed to steer him out between acts. Between acts I went backstage, to see Barrault. I told him how much I admired his memorable
Les Enfants du Paradis
. He spoke about mime and the great mime Marcel Marceau. Then it was time to get back to the hall. Jean-Louis gallantly escorted me and took my hand so I could climb down directly from the stage back to my seat.
I had an appointment to photograph Le Corbusier and the writer Jules Romains, who had some sort of joint project at the time. We were to meet at the Galerie Charpentier, a large combination art gallery and auction house. As a novice interviewer, I was quite intimidated by these luminaries. Everything started out smoothly, but suddenly Romains became absolutely odious and said he was leaving. To my shame, I burst into tears. Whereupon, most unexpectedly, Le Corbusier put his arm around me and said to Romains, “I've never seen such rude manners, and to a charming young person.” I had always heard that Le Corbusier was extremely difficult, but I keep a fond memory of him.
A highlight of that first Paris fashion foray was to go to a Balenciaga collection. The master couturier had an almost mythical aura. No one got to see him. He never went out. He hated the press. He would slip out the back door to avoid customers. He was so austere, he didn't even wear a wristwatch.
Balenciaga's salon at 10, avenue George V was run with the discipline of a convent by the intimidating Mademoiselle Renée. It was not large. There were five white
canapés
for the important people; lesser souls had to make do with little gold chairs with red cushions. No music for the presentations. Silence. No flood lights.
canapés
for the important people; lesser souls had to make do with little gold chairs with red cushions. No music for the presentations. Silence. No flood lights.
The mannequins held up a card with a number as they stomped by. Balenciaga's models were often really plain. One was distractingly walleyed, I remember. The master had instructed them to never smile, never make eye contact, just to look haughtily over the heads of clients.
But the clothes were fabulous!
I was lucky because the word had been passed down to be kind to me, and the kindnesses were extraordinary. When I was back in Paris in the 1950s and 1960s, I had my own vendeuse, the motherly Madame Maria. She knew I longed for several numbers from the collection. She could imagine my finances. After she consulted with Mademoiselle Renée, I was made a startling offer: they would give me the references for the material needed to make the five numbers I coveted so that I could buy the necessary fabric from the French cloth houses. Thus armed, I should go to the Madrid branch of the houseâ“They don't have decent fabrics,” said Mademoiselle deprecatinglyâwhere they would make the models I wanted at a fraction of the Paris price.
This was done, and I got a suit, an overcoat, and several dresses. Mademoiselle Renée asked to see them. “They don't even know how to fit properly,” she sniffed, and had a house seamstress make the adjustments.
On several occasions I was lent a dress or an outfit. I was going to Fort Worth for the opening of an exhibition of the School of Fontainebleau. I was guest of honor because I had advised the organizers. A full-length gold evening dress and matching coatâborrowed fineryâmade quite a splash. The invitation for this event suggested that the ladies' dress should be inspired by the School of Fontainebleau.
Since the women in these paintings were invariably bare breasted, I rather wondered what the results would be.
Since the women in these paintings were invariably bare breasted, I rather wondered what the results would be.
I flew off to Fort Worth and was rushed straight to a television studio. A young person instructed me hastily, “Tell the folks about the School of Fountenblue, where it was, who did it ⦠you've got two minutes, hon.”
I had barely caught my breath when there was a cut for the commercial. A voice intoned, “When the Russian aristocrats fled the revolution, they took with them their most precious possessionsâ[a spotlight flashed on a heap of jewels] their jewels [great rolling of drums]
and
the recipe for noodles Romanoff. Now back to lovely Madame Burniay.”
and
the recipe for noodles Romanoff. Now back to lovely Madame Burniay.”
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