About fashion

Couture houses survived by cut-backs and staff reductions, by getting credit from textile manufactures and using capital accrued during the rich years of the Twenties, and because of the faithful patronage of the 'Best Dressed List'. This list was, to borrow a phrase of Ernestine Carter's, a 'tongue-in-the -chic' poll, taken by the leading couturiers in the Twenties, to decide which of their distinguished clients were the most elegant. Said The New York Times,'A candidate must do more than invest the sum of $50,000 with the Paris dressmaking trade. She must have brains, poise and vivacity.' Fashion journalist Brigid Keenan, writing in 1977 in The Women We Wanted To Look Like, said that couturiers in those days designed for 'a handful of rich Society women who rivalled each other in smartness, snobbery and wealth. These women were fashion. Every bow or bead they wore was reported in the papers, and the loveliest among them were in constant demand as the subjects for glossy magazine photographs.'