Something Wholesale (17 page)

In the early hours of the sixteenth of January Wanda began to show unmistakable signs that the baby was on the way, but it was only after a good deal of argument that she allowed me to send for an ambulance.

‘I don’t vont to stay in those places longer than I have to,’ she said as I assembled the meagre collection of belongings that expectant mothers are permitted to take with them on these occasions.

The ambulance men were not unkindly, but used to more spectacular casualties, they were, I thought, more off-hand than the circumstances warranted. Nevertheless one of them remained in the back of the vehicle during the journey to the hospital and kept our spirits up with stories of accidents that had particularly taken his fancy in the course of his work.

‘That was another tricky one,’ he said with gusto after having told a particularly gruesome anecdote about a customer who had been impaled on an iron fence. ‘You see the bloke had been working on a wall, demolition of bomb damage it was, and he must have knocked out the wrong brick because the whole lot fell on him. When we got there all we could see was his boots sticking out. I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you know …’ He then
recounted the details of what it was he had never seen anything like.

‘There was another bloke who fell in a concrete mixer …’ And to me, ‘Are you feeling all right?’

I asked him if we might have the window open.

‘I can see you’re the sensitive sort,’ he said.

My wife who has an instinct for horror was delighted by these reminiscences. Perhaps they took her mind off her own pains which were now recurring with great regularity. I was less happy. Ever since I was small I had always had a tendency to faint when anyone spoke of mutilations and operations. As a grown man I had fainted during performances of ‘Oedipus Rex’, ‘Titus Andronicus’ and most impressively during the showing of the film ‘Carnet de Bal’, at the point when a drug fiend has an epileptic fit in a garret in Marseilles. On that occasion I struck my head on the iron door of the emergency exit with such violence that it opened and I ended up in the street with passers-by daintily lifting their feet to step over me. I was revived by two elderly usherettes in black who saw me leave the building in this unusual fashion.

‘What happened?’ they said when I came-to.

I said that I had suddenly felt ill.

‘I expect it was the War,’ one of them said, sympathetically, I thought.

‘I expect it was,’ I said. Anything was better than argument.

‘Well, you’re not the only one who was in the War,’ said her companion.

‘No, you’re not,’ said the one who had suggested it in the first place, suddenly siding with her. ‘He’s not the only one, is he?’

I chose this moment to go off again, but as I did so I heard them saying: ‘No, he’s not. Is he? He’s not the only one … the only one … the only one.’

To make sure that I had not been mistaken I went to see ‘Carnet
de Bal’ a second time and fainted again at precisely the same moment but in a less conspicuous part of the theatre.

It was not therefore surprising that when we at last arrived at the hospital I was not feeling my best.

Although it was long after midnight Queen Charlotte’s was ablaze with lights.

‘It looks like a factory,’ said Wanda, joking bravely. To me it looked like a transatlantic liner going down with all its lights on.

‘Take him back for you when you’re safe inside,’ said the ambulance man, who seemed to have taken a fancy to Wanda. ‘I could tell him a lot more funny things I’ve seen, only he looks a bit green.’

I said I preferred to walk.

‘Well, just give us a ring any time you need us,’ he said. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

Inside the building there was an air of purposeful activity. It was very clean and very modern and very hot. We were directed to one of the upper floors where they took Wanda away. Soon she was back dressed as if for a sacrifice in a sort of cotton shift.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m all right.’ And went into various minutiae of domestic detail about boilers and laundry. I wasn’t listening. Then she was gone for good’.

I was told that I would have to take her clothes away. Whilst I was waiting for them a woman passed in front of me dressed in one of the cotton shifts. She was very, very large and her face was green. By now everything was green. Then I thought I heard screams. I tried to open a window but before I could do so I measured my length on the floor, hitting my head a tremendous crack.

‘Will you be all right?’ said one of the nurses sometime later when I once more stood in the entrance hall. ‘We’ve tried to get you a
taxi but there’s no reply from the rank. The fresh air will do you good. There’s nothing to worry about. We never lose a mother and we never lose a baby.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I said. I had Wanda’s clothes on my arm wrapped up in a piece of newspaper. In the state I was in they seemed like her ‘effects’. ‘I shouldn’t telephone before eight,’ she said.

I set off through deserted streets. On the way I met a policeman. He was standing in the doorway of a shop.

‘What have you got in that package?’ he demanded.

I told him.

‘Where’s your wife?’

‘In Queen Charlotte’s.’

‘And where are you going?’

‘Over the river. We live by Hammersmith Bridge.’

‘Well, go over it and not into it,’ he said and resumed his vigil.

There was no news at eight o’clock when I telephoned. A brisk female voice said that Mrs Newby was still in the labour ward and was ‘comfortable’.

She was ‘comfortable’ when I telephoned at ten o’clock, at midday and at two-hourly intervals throughout the day. To me they seemed to have a strange conception of comfort at Queen Charlotte’s. I was in a state of despair. I had no appetite for food. At such a time the idea of drinking was unseemly, like a bad joke about expectant mothers on one of Mr Wilkins’ postcards. I roamed the streets with a pocket full of pennies for the telephone, unable to settle anywhere. Because Wanda was a Catholic I went into the church in Farm Street, lit a candle and tried to pray because it seemed to me that a Catholic church must be more efficacious when praying for Catholics.

That night the female voice on the telephone was replaced by that of a night porter. He seemed to offer more hope.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you must tell me what’s happening. She’s been nineteen hours in the labour ward and all they tell me is that she’s comfortable.’

‘Well, you see,’ he said, ‘they’re comfortable in a manner of speaking. You can’t say they’re uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be right. Besides, you’d only be worried.’

‘DAMMIT, I AM WORRIED. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You want to know what’s happening. That’s a different thing altogether, knowing what’s happening. Were you in the war? Well, you know as well as I do it’s no good asking anyone what’s happening in a war. It’s the same here. It’s like a battle, nobody knows what the hell’s going on until it’s over; and if they do they won’t tell you. Look, tell you what, I’ll telephone you as soon as it’s happened – whatever the time.’

That evening at my invitation a great friend of mine moved into the flat. The idea was that he should keep my spirits up. He was a man of gargantuan appetite and at midnight he produced a gargantuan meal of greasy chops served up with mounds of cabbage. It was a repast for which at any time I would have been unprepared. We dined in bed as it was very cold weather. Tony finished my helping as well as his own.

‘Must keep our strength up,’ he said, like a family physician prescribing chicken essence for an elderly patient.

Between us we drank a bottle and a half of burgundy and fell into a coma.

At half past one in the morning I was woken by the telephone. ‘Hallo,’ said a voice. It was so distant that it sounded as though it came from the bottom of a well. ‘Is that Mr Newby? It’s me. Queen Charlotte’s. It’s all right, I’m happy to say. It’s been born. Mrs Newby’s comfortable. That means she’s all right.’

‘What’s been born?’

‘Half a mo, let me check.’

I could hear him mumbling down a list of new arrivals.

‘It’s a daughter. Is that what you wanted?’

‘I don’t mind as long as it’s a baby. Thank you very much.’

‘Just like the old war, isn’t it? You’ll get the other details in the morning. Ring ’em up about eight.’

I woke Tony. Sitting up in bed we drank a bottle of champagne. It didn’t blend well with the chops. In the midst of more conventional toasts we drank to Queen Charlotte’s. At that moment I would have endowed it with a new wing.

The next morning whilst I was telephoning to find out what had really happened Tony brought me breakfast in bed, a week’s ration of bacon and fried bread swimming in fat.

‘I didn’t think you’d want more of those chops and vegetables so I finished them off. One must keep one’s strength up at a time like this,’ he said.

‘The Season’s sensation is the new house of Christian Dior, about whom more in our next issue.’

British
Vogue
. March 1947

‘Ankles – which glimpsed beneath the hem of a skirt once drove the mashers to distraction – ankles are regaining their old magical quality.’

Harper’s Bazaar
. May 1947

Madam Havet, perched on her throne in the Place Vendôme, had been right. Fashion was on the move. In Paris in the Spring of 1947 Dessés and Fath both showed thickly pleated skirts that were heavily padded with cambric. There were barrel skirts, wrap skirts, jackets with standaway collars, and boleros. In this melting pot Dior lobbed his collection like a bomb. When it exploded the line was crystallized. What happened that day in the Avenue Montaigne is history.

The Dior collection marked the re-birth of Women as they had always existed in the minds of Men – provocative, ostensibly helpless and made for love. He immobilised them in exquisite dresses which contained between fifteen and twenty-five yards of material;
dresses with tiny sashed waists in black broadcloth, tussore and silk taffeta, each with a built-in corset which was itself a deeply disturbing work of art. By day, superb beneath huge hats that resembled elegant mushrooms, they were unable to run; by night they needed help when entering a taxi. As these divine visions moved their underskirts gave out a rustling sound that was indescribably sweet to the ear. Sometimes they wore tight little jackets with padded peplums which in the course of the next two years were to be multiplied throughout the civilised world.

But not yet. Although the Press and a few of the more sophisticated Buyers who actually saw the collection were enthusiastic the London Wholesalers received the news of what had happened across the Channel with scepticism and plain derision. It was thought to be absurd, another outbreak of madness on the part of the French, a last despairing death kick by Paris which was no longer to be the centre of the fashion world. Half-throttled by clothes rationing and frightened by the storm of conflicting emotions which Dior’s collection had released, most manufacturers played for safety and made for the Autumn what they had been making for the last seven years with a slightly longer skirt.

Lane and Newby was no exception. It would be convenient fifteen years later to say that I was the one person to recognise that a truly international fashion had at last arrived. If I did so it would not be true. Although I was pleasurably excited by what had happened I did not believe that the New Look had come to stay.

Our Spring Collection was received by the Buyers in a rather languid fashion and I was thankful that my father had been able to cut down the orders for material. Nevertheless it was decided, unwisely, that we should make up the balance of what we had bought in certain proved models and sell them from stock. It is
nearly always fatal to attempt to use up materials which have not sold in this way.

With this mass of innocuous-looking stock I set off on a round trip of the Midlands and the North.

It was soon apparent to me that things were not as they should have been in the Spring of the Year. Wherever I went in every department store I was shown rail after rail of dresses, coats and suits which were not selling, and the stockrooms were packed with them.

‘Can’t give them away,’ said Miss Bellwether at Liverpool, one of the most phlegmatic buyers in the business, pointing at the glass cases in which our own productions and other dresses of the better sort hung forlornly waiting for customers who had so far failed to arrive. ‘They just won’t buy. They all say they’re waiting to see which way the wind blows. You can hardly blame them. That Dior should be shot. It’s all very well for the French. They don’t have rationing. All my customers are asking for is this New Look. It makes you wonder who won the War.’

I was reluctant to be drawn into a discussion of this kind.

‘I’ve got some very nice silk dresses in larger sizes, Miss Bellwether,’ I said. ‘Seven and a half guineas.’ They were dresses which normally sold for nine. ‘Ninety-nine and six,’ she said promptly. ‘And then, I’ll have to put them on a special rail. To tell you the truth I’d rather not have them at all.’

I did not accept Miss Bellwether’s offer but quite soon I wished I had. Everywhere I went with my outmoded dresses their reception was the same. In despair I telephoned to London.

The news there was not good. According to my mother even Mr Wilkins had been shaken out of his habitual calm by the reception he had been given at the London Stores. There was an interval while she consulted my father.

‘No one is buying,’ she said. ‘Your father says the best thing is
to get as much as you can for them and let them go. I must say I agree with him. If you wait much longer you won’t get rid of them at all.’

I immediately telephoned Miss Bellwether at Liverpool and told her that I was prepared to sell the dresses to her for five and a half guineas, providing that she bought them all.

‘Of course we shan’t be able to repeat them at that price.’ I said.

‘I don’t want them at five and a half guineas,’ Miss Bellwether said.

I waited as long as I dared before replying.

‘I think we would be prepared to let you have them for five guineas.’

‘Too much. Couldn’t move them at that. I told you,’ she said. She was beginning to sound impatient.

‘Ninety-nine and six.’

‘I’ll take the lot at seventy-nine and six but I don’t really want them at all. It’s only because I’ve known your parents for so many years.’ For a moment I thought of trying somewhere else but a terrible vision arose of another Buyer making an even lower offer. The market seemed to be collapsing fast.

‘All right, Miss Bellwether.’ I said.

‘’ERE!’ said Miss Gatling when I returned to London. ‘That Miss Bellwether’s taken her full discount on that special line you sold her. You should have told her that you were selling them nett.’

‘Of course I told her.’ I said. ‘I put it on the order.’

‘Well, she hasn’t put it on her confirmation,’ said Miss Gatling.

Dior’s second collection was shown in August, 1947. It was even more successful than the first. All the normal protuberances were given prominence but fortunately not all at once. In the jargon
of the trade, breasts, bottoms and bellies were ‘in’ which meant that in actual fact they were sticking out. It was a confusing business.

Skirts were as little as eight inches from the ground. Dark colours predominated and greys were very popular. Most beautiful were the five o’clock dresses, a time of day which in England one usually associates with nursery teas, crumpets and Gentlemen’s Relish. They were of stiff black silk or chiffon. The décolletages were cut as deep as a crevasse. Below the waist they were rounded, showing to advantage what became known as
la derrière de Paris
. These dresses had an air of illicit romance. In London their inflammatory qualities were speedily recognised by the expensive street-walkers of Curzon Street and Bond Street and apart from a few grandes dames and a handful of model girls they were the only citizens seen abroad in the new fashion.

Coats had mink collars, belted waists and rounded hips; or else they were huge tents. The shoemaker, Perugia made buttoned boots for the afternoon. They were certainly not intended for playing football.

The London Couture showed skirts that were twelve and fourteen inches from the ground. Tent coats were in and for the first time the shoulders of suits were smaller. Most of the wholesale were still making the same square cut, swing-back coats and tunic dresses with square shoulders that they had been making for the last five years.

To combat them the glossy magazines gave instructions to their readers, most of whom were in difficulties because of clothes rationing, on how to convert their clothes to the New Look. They make macabre reading today. ‘Have a hip yoke of the same material as your skirt or wear your old jacket with a new, contrasting, longer skirt.’

And because evening skirts were getting shorter as day dresses
became longer, ‘Cut off the bottom of your full-skirted evening dresses.’

By the Spring of 1948 the London Couture Houses had all given up the long suit jacket. By April wholesale versions of the New Look were in all the shops.

Paris itself was already far ahead. This Spring fashion reached the highest point of romantic feeling. Roses nestled in bosoms, high collars were edged with lace, waistlines rose. The long winter was over. Fashion was itself again.