Satin Dreams (2 page)

The business offer Gilles had been mulling over for several days popped up in his mind again. He paused, cigarette suspended over silver ashtray, his expression suddenly abstract.
 

The announcement of a new haute couture house by, incredibly enough, a New York clothing manufacturer, had rocked Paris months ago. Now the gossip in the insular world of haute couture said that Jackson Storm, the emperor of American mass-market fashion, needed a French designer or else his multimillion-dollar, widely heralded couture fashion project would not get off the ground. He wanted a good Paris designer, an
exceptional
one—someone young and ambitious and eager to break out on his own. Someone, Gilles thought, sighing, like me.
 

Behind the alcove there was a faint rustle of fabric, of clothes being adjusted, followed by the
seconde’s
low hiss as she cued the first model. Mortessier’s show was beginning, this cold winter afternoon, with the somewhat passé best sellers of the fall and winter collection, even though some of the trendier Paris houses were already showing the first of their spring collections.
 

As the signal for the show to begin, the recorded music system segued from the pounding beat of a French rock group into a rendition of an old Beatles song, “Yesterday.” Rudi Mortessier, the premier couturier and owner, loved Paul McCartney; it was the cue for the opener, winter coats, to begin.
 

Gilles knew he should go back to work. But the wedding gown he was working on depressed him. He was an artist; he hated creating on demand, especially anything as predictable as a white satin outfit for a Danish countess who was marrying a Copenhagen furniture manufacturer. He was just killing time hiding in the glass panels and watching the show; he knew Mortessier’s fall collection, most of which he had designed himself, to the point of boredom.
 

But as the first mannequin brushed past him, lifting her eyes in surprise to find Gilles standing there, he told himself that someone was needed to stand there and check out the mannequins, see that their turns were kept up to standard. The girls got amazingly careless, even had a tendency to move through their routines too fast unless someone kept an eye on them. And, Gilles had to admit, he enjoyed watching the American model, Alix. Even now, after so much time at Mortessier’s, she was phenomenal.
 

It was incredible that he almost hadn’t hired her that day nearly three months ago on the grounds that she was much too beautiful for a couture house mannequin. Now she was Mortessier’s, perhaps even Paris’s, top model. And still wildly beautiful.
 

Gilles fished out the crumpled pack of Gauloises from his jeans and scooped another cigarette from it into his mouth. There was so much about Alix (he wasn’t even sure that was her real name) that still remained a mystery. Had she really been a music student at the Sorbonne as she said? A student who had thrown up a promising career when she’d failed a vital exam. He
did
know that she’d had a make-over at a chic
salon de beauté,
the famed Alexandre of Paris; she’d admitted as much in her interview. That was unusual; few models looking for work had that sort of money to spend.
 

He watched the American girl glide out into the show area in a violently lavender felt coat, pause, and turn on her heel. She held the coat open to show a matching lavender wool dress underneath. There was a little murmur of pleasure from the first few rows of seats, then a ripple of protracted “aaahs” through the back rows of customers.
 

The lavender felt coat was not one of Gilles’s favorites. He’d almost dropped the number from the winter collection when the bulky layers of felt seemed too overwhelming for the wealthy, middle-aged women who were Mortessier’s usual customers. But once Alix had begun showing the number, it had become a best seller.
 

If there was an immutable truth in the world of fashion, Gilles knew, it was that a mannequin need not be beautiful nor even very pretty; in fact, a model who was too good-looking was a definite liability, as she detracted from the clothes. Instead, top-flight models had an almost mystical faculty for making clothes look good. It was a gift defying analysis, but all of them had it.
 

Of course, one could not do without the basics. It was necessary to have a slender body with level shoulders and hipbones—even though Mortessier’s did not demand the bizarre thirty-two-inch hip measurements the haute couturier Ungaro was said to require. The best mannequins had exceptionally long legs, reasonably sized feet, and a sexy, well-shaped bust, preferably a small one.
 

“
C’est fou,
the way
l’Américaine
sells,” a voice murmured at Gilles’s elbow.
 

Rudi Mortessier, fourth-ranked couturier in Paris after Dior, St. Laurent, and Givenchy, looked like a small, plump gray rabbit with thinning hair. Rudi had just come from the atelier where the spring lines were in production. There were untidy scraps of multicolored threads all over his vest.
 

“Of course, everything about this American girl is wrong.” Rudi’s eyes twinkled amiably behind thick, rimless spectacles. “The hair, the purple eyes like a circus poster—
tchah,
everything about her is terrible!” He flapped small white hands in mock despair. “Except, of course, that when it is all put together, she is irresistible.”
 

Gilles stepped a fraction of an inch back from his employer. “You wanted her hair that color,” he said, “not me.”
 

Rudi shot him an enigmatic glance. “So I did, so I did.” He turned his attention back to the model, who was revolving slowly on a lighted gold Plexiglas disk set in the floor. “Of course, in the old days we would never have hired her, this technicolored siren of yours. Taste was more subdued then. Who would believe,” the little couturier mused, “violet eyes with that incredible color of hair? It is like this terrible rock music—it hurts the mind!”
 

Impulsively, Rudi put his hand out to touch Gilles’s arm.
 

“Ah, but look at the Japanese there in the front rows. They are enchanted! They are going to buy this lilac coat because of her.
Merde,
this coat is a monstrosity, Gilles,” he observed suddenly. “Lavender and thick, horrible felt. Have you no shame?”
 

Gilles didn’t answer. He designed his avant-garde clothes as an attack on the senses, like the rock music blaring from the showroom speakers. Gilles Vasse creations were meant to be experienced, as well as seen. Actually, Gilles had often declared, the wearer was fairly irrelevant—as long as she was skinny. Gilles’s creations were designed to stand alone. Of course, in the old days haute couture had been quite different. Afternoon showings were dignified, reverent affairs, not the noisy, with-it spectaculars of the present-day avenue Montaigne. Some showings were still that way in the older establishments across the city, in the district around the rue de la Paix where the last of the old guard, Gres, Patou, and Chanel, still held forth. There the collections were virtually silent, decorous affairs where the
vendeuse,
the main saleswoman, knelt discreetly beside the chairs of important customers, answering their questions in whispers. And where the mannequins did nothing more than gracefully glide into the salon’s cathedral-like stillness, holding a piece of cardboard with the number of the design, to aid in ordering.
 

“I don’t know how she does it,” Rudi Mortessier cocked his head thoughtfully as he watched the redheaded model go into another turn to show the coat. He gave his assistant couturier a small nudge with his elbow. “Eh, Gilles, there are even times when Alix reminds me of Lisianne. Do you see it? She has the same air of secrets. It’s very intriguing.”
 

Gilles stiffened. He told himself that it meant nothing, the passing reference to his wife, Lisianne; Rudi was always reminiscing about former great models, old couture houses, past fashions. But Rudi’s hand on his arm was another matter.
 

Gilles moved a fraction of an inch away from his employer. “Not if you could see Lisianne now.” His wife was seven-months pregnant.
 

“My friend, Lisianne is still gloriously beautiful.” Rudi pursed his lips and kissed his fingertips in homage. “I saw her last week in the Tuileries. She was magnificent!”
 

“She doesn’t think so.” Gilles looked away, frowning. “She is very sensitive about—about this pregnancy. Naturally,
I
am happy about the baby,” he added quickly. “But I will be even happier when it is over with.”
 

The stereo tape switched to a rendition of an old Dire Straits hit, “Walk of Life,” and the American girl in the lavender coat exited through the smoked-glass panels to the left of the men. A beautiful Ethiopian, six feet tall and slender as a rail, squeezed past Gilles and Rudi Mortessier and entered the salon wearing another felt coat, this one in orange with the winged collar drawn up almost to the brim of a bizarre yellow sombrero.
 

The affectionate hand crept back to Gilles’s arm. “That hat, I thought you had dropped it from the show,” Rudi whispered. “How many orders have we had on this one?”
 

Gilles didn’t move. It was no secret in Paris that Rudi Mortessier was in love with him. At one time, barely two years ago, when Gilles had just begun to work for Rudi, the situation had made his life hell. They had been one of Paris’s most gossiped-about triangles: Lisianne, the beautiful Ungaro model, the famous couturier Rudi Mortessier, and his protégé, twenty-two-year-old Gilles Vasse. The gossip had stopped abruptly when Gilles, goaded beyond endurance, had attempted his own life with a gun Rudi had given him.
 

“I wish you had dropped the hat. They hate it.” Rudi sighed. “At least the American would have shown it with spirit.”
 

“I needed Alix for the lavender coat,” Gilles said stiffly.”She can hardly model everything in the collection.”
 

The pressure of the hand on Gilles’s arm increased as the little couturier craned to look past the partitions, checking the reactions of the sheiks’ wives in the front row to the orange coat being shown.
 

Ordinarily the Arab oil ladies loved orange almost as much as they loved fire engine red or anything dripping with sequins. But they were not marking their order cards. “The atelier gossips that you have made your Alix wear contact lenses,” Rudi murmured. “That there is no such color as this girl’s purple eyes.”
 

Gilles looked startled. “Contact lenses? Haven’t those
poules
back there in the sewing room got enough to keep them busy? What
merde!
”
 

Gilles was aware that he ought to move out of Rudi’s grasp. The argument with his fretful, unhappy wife that morning, the unfinished wedding gown design, and the fact that Rudi seemed always to find a way to put his hands on him were, at the moment, particularly galling. Thank God Rudi didn’t know he was considering a job at the American’s couture house! That was one secret, miraculously enough in the gossip-ridden world of Paris fashion, that had remained confidential.
 

Gilles shook off his employer’s light touch, “God, Rudi, if you don’t like Alix, fire her!”
 

He hadn’t meant to shout. Almost instantly, the
seconde
responded with a hiss for them to be quiet.
 

Rudi was staring at him. “Gilles, what is the matter with you? You are very touchy these days.” When the younger man said nothing, he sighed. “
Alors,
I do not wish to annoy you. I will go. I, too, have work to do.”
 

Gilles knew he had hurt Rudi’s feelings and, despite his annoyance, he owed everything he had to Rudi. “Wait,” he muttered ungraciously, “don’t go. Alix is coming back with number twenty-four. The ‘fantaisie’ you like.”
 

Rudi’s face immediately showed delight. Inwardly, Gilles cringed. You see, he told himself, it’s impossible to work under these conditions. At that moment he would have accepted the American dress manufacturer’s offer. Eagerly.
 

“Gilles, what is bothering you?” Rudi was watching him, baffled by his volatile mood. “I feel that you are—”
 

His voice trailed off as the American mannequin, Alix, came up behind them. A head taller than both men, she was wearing a magnificent glittering sheath, the space-age “fantaisie” Gilles had mentioned. Seed pearls and silver sequins clung to her body, shooting sparks of pale fire. Her burnished red-gold hair had been sprayed into antennalike projections from which fell a pearl-beaded fringe that trembled on either side of her delicately tinted cheeks. Her extraordinary eyes were indeed the color of wild violets. With her ivory skin, red hair, and startling eyes, she was unearthly, beautiful.
 

Predictably, another round of
aaahs
greeted her entrance into the salon.
 

Gilles heard it with a sinking feeling. Perhaps Rudi was right. Perhaps something about Alix
did
sell his designs. It was an unsettling thought. In that moment Gilles realized how badly he wanted to get away from Mortessier’s. Rudi was driving him mad.
 

The little man was still watching Alix. “Have you noticed this girl is very tense? Look at the way she walks.
Alors,
Gilles, she never says who she is.”