Ernest is another of the men of the new school; but Armand is, figuratively speaking, the baby of the group. On the first of September, four or five years ago, a wealthy patron put an unknown young employee of a silk house into the dressmaking business. The young man was Armand. He had a modest atelier on a side street. On March first he moved into the famous Saye Palace on the Place Vendôme, the palace in which Napoleon and Eugenie met for the first time, and there, among the superb frescoes and splendid carvings, he installed his luxurious establishment. Success, wealth, in seven months! Verily, the dressmaking business has its opportunities for the young man who combines business ability and beaux yeux.
Paquin's income is estimated at from three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand dollars a year. Doeuillet makes as much, and even without the Adonis characteristics, business talents may carry the Parisian dressmaker to wealth and fame. The list of rich dressmakers aside from "those delightful young men" is a long one. The Callot Soeurs are possibly the most expensive firm in Paris. Doucet needs no introduction to Americans. Neither does Beer, who is considered by many the greatest creative artist in dress of our day. He has one of the historic palaces on the Place Vendôme, and his salons are rich in the eighteenth-century bibelots and furniture of which he is an enthusiastic collector. Flowers are everywhere throughout the rooms, and in the spring all of the many windows of the great palace are abloom with blossoms growing in window-boxes. Beer's mannequins, too, are vastly decorative, and this establishment is typical of the luxury and extravagance amid which the game of fashion-making is played.
La Ferrière has the most exclusive English trade as well as Parisian vogue, and is Paris dressmaker, by royal warrant, to Queen Alexandra. Madame Havet, Blanche Lebouvier, Sara Meyer, Mademoiselle Corné, are famous and wealthy. Rouff belongs near the head of the list and is a lineal descendant of the old school. In his establishment many of the traditions of the great old men survive. M. Rouff is not always in evidence as are the meteoric young men. To have an interview with him is an honour, and he will refuse to see even the most illustrious if his whim prompts him to do so. The ordinary customer meets only his representatives. Perhaps, during the interview, the curtains of the door will part. A thin, dark, rather wild-eyed face will appear for an instant and vanish. That is Rouff.
Worth has a splendid trade, but it is largely a serious one. The great English and French dowagers go there; and Jean Worth, the present active head of the house, wears, more or less comfortably, the halo of his illustrious grandfather.
The dowager calls him a charming boy and says to him, "M'sieu Jean, when your famous grandpapa was alive, he made for me a light blue brocade that was most becoming. I would like something of that kind" – and M'sieu Jean repeats for age the light blue brocade of youth. He creates an extremely beautiful light blue brocade too, and he charges for it a price that would have surprised his famous grandpapa. He is old school by heredity, but he has modern commercial instincts, this charming boy.
The prices of the average French frock have gone up under the new régime, though extravagant sums were always paid for particularly original creations. There is practically no limit to the expense of dress to-day, and spectacular prices are paid for spectacular costumes; but the price of the great bulk of the gowns sold by the famous makers ranges from one hundred and twenty-five dollars to five hundred dollars, with the greatest sales between one hundred and seventy-five and three hundred. Certain firms refuse to make even the simplest frock for less than one hundred and fifty dollars, and turn out few costing less than five hundred. Small wonder that in Paris the great dressmaker is a personage, belonging to the swell clubs, in evidence everywhere save in society's exclusive circles, owning a superb country place up the Seine, a seashore home in Normandy, a villa on the Riviera, buying – as did one of the group this year – whole blocks of houses in the most expensive quarter of Paris, spending – as did another of the guild – twenty thousand dollars upon one day's entertainment of a few chosen friends, running handsome automobiles, driving and racing fine horses, and, from his vantage point, watching the flood of fashions which he has set flowing.
Yet the expenses of a big dressmaking firm are large, as well as the profits. Few of the autocrats are themselves practical dressmakers. They must hire work-folk capable of carrying out, in perfection, the ideas they wish to exploit, and expert cutters, fitters, sleeve hands, skirt hands, etc., command high wages. Exclusive material and trimmings are required in such an establishment; nothing is skimped, nothing is omitted that would add to the beauty of the frock and so sustain the reputation of the house. Success, not economy, is the watchword. A small army of employees is required in one of the great houses, and the place is a veritable beehive of systematized industry; but the patrons see only the "front," and of the wheels within wheels even of that smooth-running front, they have small idea.
Each dressmaker has his loyal and devoted clientèle, and it is upon this faithful band that he counts for his greatest profits, although the large floating trade, too, brings in immense returns. Some women famed for their taste and extravagance in dress refuse to confine themselves to any one artist, claiming that each dressmaker has his specialty and that it is wise to go for each frock to the maker most successful in the creation of frocks of exactly the type desired. The idea seems reasonable, but there is much to be said against it. For the woman with whom Parisian frocks are an incidental and fluctuating supply, the system may work well enough, but the woman who season after season buys lavish outfits from French dressmakers will do well to put herself in the hands of some one of the great men, establish a thorough understanding with him, allow him to study her personality, her needs, her possibilities. It is in such study that the artist dressmaker proves his title clear to the name "artist," and to achieve artistic triumphs in dress it is not enough that one wears a beautiful gown, one must wear a beautiful gown perfectly adapted to one's individuality, a gown in which one is at one's best. There are some women who know instinctively their own requirements, but these women are few, and even they can carry out their ideas only through the sympathetic understanding of a dressmaker who is master of his art. The average woman must trust to the dressmaker for the desired results, and to do this confidently and with a surety of obtaining his best efforts, his most serious consideration, his most masterly comprehension, she must be among his tried and valued customers, must have given him opportunity to know her well, to understand perfectly her needs.
All are fish who come to the dressmaker's net, and the woman who will pay the price may have the clothes; but the woman who can pay the price and display the clothes to the best advantage is the beloved of the Parisian artist in dress. "One does one's best, of course, even with the woman of no figure and of homely face," says Monsieur, with a shrug of resignation, "but when a customer is slender, graceful, beautiful, and knows the art of wearing a frock – then it is a joy to clothe her, then one puts one's heart into the work, then one is inspired to flights. Ah, mon Dieu, yes, there are women for whom one would make clothes without pay, were it not necessary to divorce sentiment and business."
Many American women are upon this list of ideal customers. In fact les Americaines divide the honours with the famous demi-mondaines of Paris. Do not shudder, Madame of the impeccable reputation. The comparison extends only to the province of clothes, and as we have said before, the great demi-mondaine of Paris is the best dressed woman in the world. One of the tyrants of the Place Vendôme put the matter clearly in a recent interview:
"Our best customers – best because they spend most freely and because they show our creations to the best advantage, are the