The Pink Suit: A Novel (2 page)

“Keep one,” Kate said. “We'll match the dozen when I get back.”

“When you get back,” he said, “we'll plant a few more. Your mam would have liked that. You and me, digging around.” Then he turned and went inside. He had never left the Island in his life; he had no words for such a thing.

Kate picked up her suitcase again. A rose petal fell at the gate. Then another. And another. She was late. She didn't stop to pick them up.

Petal by petal, Kate ran down the long, winding road, dragging her suitcase behind her. She ran along the water's edge where lovers often lingered and then down the high street, past the pubs with their doors thrown open wide and the rusting cars careening this way and that, then onto the tangle of docks filled with suitcases and the sorrow of leaving, and, finally, onto the boat waiting in the harbor, a harbor whose motto was
Statio bene fide carinis,
“A safe place for ships,” and, aboard that boat, into the vast sea itself. Petal by petal, Kate left a trail, just like a young girl with bread who does not think of rabbits and foxes, but only of home.

It was just six years ago when she left, but it felt like a lifetime.

Kate was nearly finished with her tea when Mr. Charles finally emerged from his office. She'd rearranged her desk at least twice, moving the series of framed pictures of her nephew, Little Mike, from the left to the right and then back again, waiting for him to finish his call.

“I thought I would grow old on that telephone,” Mr. Charles said. “Miss Sophie can certainly talk a blue streak.” He was wearing his best suit: dove-gray waistcoat, black pinstriped jacket, and the gray trousers with knife pleats. He was also holding a large envelope with a presidential seal. “And what do you think this is?”

“I can't imagine.”

But she could. Kate could imagine all manner of wonderful things in that envelope—from an emerald full-length ball gown completely covered with Austrian crystals to a pure-white silk cocktail dress with a black satin bow. When it came to the Wife and Maison Blanche (as everyone called the White House), the possibilities, and budget, were limitless.

“It's a love letter,” Mr. Charles said, and opened the envelope. Inside, there was a watercolor sketch, a clipping from
Life
magazine with four women modeling the same Chanel suit in different colors and variations, and a letter from a secretary on the embossed stationery of Maison Blanche. The entire room was suddenly filled with the scent of Chanel No. 5. The clipping from
Life
was about Chanel's comeback. The French designer, who was now about Miss Nona's age, had come out of retirement to create the “must have” suit for every proper country-club lady. And the Wife wanted one.

As with nearly all of the First Lady's custom orders, she'd sketched out her version of how the suit should look. She was quite a talented designer and painter, too. The watercolor was exceedingly cheerful. The Wife was holding one hand out as if a tray balanced on it had just been whisked away. The other hand was firmly on her waist. Maison Blanche was set in the background, but it loomed over everything. The Wife looked like a society girl soon to be trapped in a tornado of history. Her smile was mischievous; her eyes were wickedly playful. She was wearing a pink pillbox hat that sat back on her head—it didn't hide her beautiful face, as hats sometimes can. A note on the drawing read
, If it is another godforsaken pillbox, please make sure that it does not appear to have been stolen from an organ grinder's monkey. It should be a non-hat hat.

Kate knew that there was a new man at Bergdorf Goodman's assigned to create hats for the Washington crowd. Mr. Charles said that Halston—one name only—was very meticulous. He'd come from Lilly Daché and had the same head size as the Wife and would try her hats on and look at them with two mirrors so that every angle was right and the fit was perfect. Kate couldn't imagine how silly he looked in some of those hats, especially a summer straw he'd recently made with a large green polka-dot bow. But he got the job done, and that was all that mattered.

While the sketch was playful, the Wife's instructions for construction were quite precise. She was mad for fashion and had been designing her own clothes since she was a young girl. As a college senior, she'd won
Vogue
'
s Prix de Paris contest with an essay that began with a sense of whimsy—
If I could be a sort of Overall Art Director of the Twentieth Century, watching everything from a chair hanging in space
…
She was all about the details.

“Why is this a love letter?” Kate asked.

“The President wants her to have this. He wants Chez Ninon to make it happen.”

The back door suddenly opened. Schwinn saw the envelope immediately. “Is it Christmas?”

“It is Christmas,” Mr. Charles said.

It was always Christmas when an order came in from Maison Blanche.

Schwinn was slight and freckle faced, with sun-washed blond hair that seemed to be styled by a series of cowlicks. He always wore the same clothes: a neatly pressed white cotton shirt, black trousers, and a black tie. He worked in the front, with the Ladies, but instead of wearing a suit jacket, he wore a windbreaker that made him appear as if he were just stopping by for a moment on his way somewhere else. Kate had never met anyone like him. He seemed to be about her age, about thirty years old, but he could have been older or younger. Unlike most men, he liked bicycles, not cars. He knew so much about them that some of the Ready-to-Wear girls thought he might have been part of the Schwinn bicycle family, perhaps a son. But Kate thought that Schwinn was just a nickname. She asked him about it once, and he said, “Schwinn is good enough for a bike, so it's good enough for me.” Kate wasn't sure what he meant by that, but that was just his way.

Schwinn was a salesperson, but his formal title was “stylist,” which seemed to mean that he helped women accessorize clothes but he was also a designer himself. He had a nice business on the side, making hats for some of the clients. Kate thought that the Ladies probably knew but looked the other way. Everyone liked Schwinn, especially the clients. He was funny and enthusiastic about everything. And he was Catholic, which Kate liked, too.

But there was also something about him that seemed deeply wounded. His eyes were gray with bits of green, and he never looked at you directly. He was secretive, too. In six years, Kate had only learned two things about his past—he'd been an art major, and he'd dropped out of college to serve in the Korean War. He'd told her that those were the only two things worth knowing.

Schwinn picked up the drawing from the Wife and studied it carefully.

“He wants her to have a new outfit,” Mr. Charles said. “That's a first.”

“Even the President can be a man in love. It's probably a peace offering for the way the press savaged her during the election for wearing all those French clothes.”

Everyone was still trying to figure out who told
Women's Wear Daily,
a small industry newspaper, that the Wife had spent $30,000 during the campaign on clothes in Paris. “Smart and charming,” they wrote about the future president and his wife, “and running for election on the Paris Couture Fashion ticket.”

The average American salary was $5,600 a year, and so when the story broke, Mrs. Nixon began harping on the Wife's un-American clothes. She went on at great length about how she only bought her clothes off the sales racks in moderately priced department stores.

The Wife had planned to ignore it, but when the Associated Press ran the piece, suddenly everyone wanted to read
Women's Wear Daily,
and the scandal grew. She was then forced to counter the speculations with an exclusive quote in the fashion section of the
New York Times
—“I couldn't spend that much unless I wore sable underwear”—which was followed by a statement from the campaign office stating that the Wife was “distressed by the implications of extravagance, of over-emphasis of fashion in relation to her life.” The situation spiraled out of control, and newspapers around the country began to run unflattering articles about the Wife's “balloon hair,” and worse. Finally
Women's Wear Daily
apologized to the family and dubbed the First Lady “Her Elegance.” After seeing what pain they'd caused, they vowed never to criticize her again. But the damage had been done to the Wife's image. Even eight months after the election, the press still hovered like vultures, waiting for her to make the same mistake again.

“This pink suit could be a very bad idea,” Mr. Charles said. “It's clearly French. Maison Blanche wants us to pay Chanel for the right to make a line-by-line replica. If that gets out—”

“It won't matter all that much,” Schwinn said. “The suit is American if we make it. The reporters can't touch her for that. If we make it, she's not taking jobs away from anyone. She can wear French without the criticism—it's the gift that keeps on giving.”

If Schwinn was correct, it was a very clever gift indeed.

The rest of the back room arrived, squawking like geese. Then came Maeve, late as always. Maeve was the fitter. She was an Inwood girl, like Kate. Somewhere in her late fifties, she was unmarried. Irish, of course. Her hair was the color of iron. She was broad shouldered, nearly square.

“Christmas?”

“Christmas,” Mr. Charles said.

She looked at the sketch Schwinn was holding. “That woman is a fine doodler,” she said. “But Chanel is not going to like this at all—it's exceedingly pink.”

T
he suit was not actually pink, but raspberry. That was what Coco Chanel had named the color, and so the Wife had taken to calling it that too. Chez Ninon, however, referred to it as “pink.” Pink. Pink.

That vexed Chanel. Everything about their request vexed Chanel, especially the Wife's tinkering. Now they want it licensed as if it is original.

It was late in the day when the telegram arrived in Paris at the offices of 31 rue Cambon. The designer was six floors up, in her private atelier, on her knees with her small gold scissors hanging around her neck on a black velvet ribbon. She was basting a length of wool crepe onto a malnourished model. Her assistant, who was dressed in far too much black cashmere for such a warm day in such a warm room, read the telegram from Chez Ninon to Chanel again. Chanel sighed. She shook her head but said nothing.

“Raise your arms,” Chanel said to the model. “Good. Lower your arms. Good. And again?”

The workroom walls were banks of mirrors so that Chanel could watch the way the black wool responded to movement and how it looked in the light. The model had been flapping her arms up and down for at least an hour, maybe more. Chanel was trying to get the armhole of the dress absolutely perfect.

“And again?”

The model was on the verge of tears.

Seventy-eight years old and still working, Chanel seemed relevant and ancient at the same time. She was dressed as she often was—in a hat and suit. The hat was black and Spanish, inspired by the cowboys of Seville. Its crown looked like a layer of a cake. The suit she was wearing, which she wore nearly every day, had lost its buttons and was held together with safety pins. It was thinning under the arms, but she loved it. Made from her own signature fabric—number H1804, from Linton Tweeds—it was an ecru wool-and-mohair blend. It appeared as if it were dyed two slightly different shades of the same color, but it was not. It was like a magic trick. The yarns took the color differently, and so the mohair seemed to be a darker shade of white than the virgin wool, giving the suit a white-on-white checkered look. It was that sort of subtlety that Chanel adored. She was wearing pearls, as always. There were so many ropes wrapped around her neck, they seemed to elongate it, making her look a bit like an ostrich.

The dress was driving Chanel mad. “And once more,” she said to the model. The girl raised her trembling arms over her head again. The room was overheated. Chanel's assistant looked appropriately bored as he stared at himself in the banks of mirrors. He wore a gold pince-nez, which set off the sharp angles of his face but served no practical use. No matter how warm he was, he would have to stand there, sweating, waiting for Mademoiselle's response—no matter how long it took. The man held the telegram with two fingers, away from his body, as if the paper were dripping wet.

The fitter, who was also dressed completely in black, handed Chanel pin after pin. He too was sweating and pale. Chanel didn't seem to notice anyone's discomfort. She was always cold, so the heat of the room suited her. The enormous length of black wool overwhelmed the model, blended with her black hair, and served as an alarming counterpoint to her shocking green eyes. Chanel draped the heavy wool around the girl's frail body and over her head, creating a monklike cowl. The wool intensified the heat of the room, but no one offered the pale model a glass of water or a moment to collect herself. The cowl would not sit properly, and the armholes still would just not lie flat. Chanel's hands shook slightly as she reset the pins again.

“Once more. Arms straight up. Hold.”

The dress was meant to be that year's Little Black Dress—the “LBD,” as Chanel called it, as everyone had called it since 1926, when Chanel declared that black should not be for clerics, maids, and nuns alone. But after dozens of fittings over the course of four days, the dress was still far from complete.

Chanel was intent on fixing the armhole, no matter how long it took. With the gold scissors hanging around her neck, she snipped away at the basting she had just laid in.

“The telegram. Once more,” she said to her assistant. The man read in a neutral voice:
URGENT NEED OF LICENSE FOR MAISON BLANCHE STOP EXACT LINE BY LINE REPLICA OF LIFE MAGAZINE SUIT STOP PINK STOP SEND TOILE STOP NEED PINK FABRIC AND FINDINGS STOP MUST BE PINK STOP HOW MUCH STOP.

To which Chanel said, “Stop.”

She was usually quite flattered when her work was copied. Chanel reveled in the irony when suits she'd designed for champagne lunches at La Grenouille were mass-produced for office girls who ate from brown bags in badly lit rooms. However, because of politics, always politics, this “Chanel” was to be American made, a licensed “line-by-line” using Chanel's own fabric and trim. In pink. It was to be pink. Pink. Pink. Pink. Not raspberry, as the color was actually named.

“These people are annoying,” she told her assistant. The man, in his ironic pince-nez, nodded.

Chanel had never worked with the Ladies before, but she certainly knew them. She was still angry that Chez Ninon told everyone that their copies of her clothes were better than the Chanel originals. They were total fakes, never authorized, but they made this claim to all of her best customers. “Their clients in New York receive four fittings and Chez Ninon thinks that makes them superior. We only need one; we do it properly the first time.”

This suit was not just a personal favorite of Chanel's, but groundbreaking. The
Life
photo spread honored it as a “crisply tailored figure-fitting shape.” And yet, it was forgiving. You could be fat as a fig and still look wonderful. The double pockets on each side drew the eye in and made the jacket look fitted, although it was not. It was modern and timeless.

One can always design fashion, but to design beauty is another thing entirely. Chanel had closed her shops in 1939 and had been in retirement for years; the rumors of her collusion with the Nazis were difficult for her public to understand. But now, with this suit, Chanel had returned. She was forgiven. She was relevant again. Revered. With this suit, she could not be denied her place in history.

Chanel walked around the model. Looking. Measuring. Considering. She was like a scientist at work.

“Why do these Americans always want to know how much?” she said. The model held her arms steady over her head, but the heat was quickly becoming too much for her. Chanel pulled at the fabric hard. The girl tried to stay steady, but she leaned forward a bit. Chanel roughly moved her back into place.

The model moved her head slightly, as if to attempt to straighten her spine.

“Am I boring you?” Chanel said.

“No, mademoiselle.”

“Good. That's good to know. Straighten up.”

“Yes, mademoiselle.”

“Yes?”

“Oui
.”

“
Oui.
Very good.” Chanel was not being unkind but instructive. “French is the language of diplomats. You will never be in demand if you do not learn it properly. Now put your hands down—but slowly.”

“Merci
.”

“And now put them up again. Slowly. And down again. And again.”

Despite her great discomfort, the model never showed any emotion. She stared straight ahead. The assistant adjusted his pince-nez glasses—he did that quite frequently, as if to draw attention to them—and then cleared his throat. “Mademoiselle, what should our telegram say in return?”

Chanel closed her eyes for a moment, as if to shift her thoughts. Then lit a cigarette. The Wife was a very good customer, and so very lovely, but things had become ridiculous after the election. For a time, Chanel went along with the ruse of selling dresses to the Wife's sister for a “friend's cousin,” some unnamed “Sicilian noblewoman” who had the same exact build as the First Lady—a five-foot-eight boy's body with broad shoulders, big hands, and size 10 feet. The two also had the same taste. “We must pretend her husband is the president of France,” the sister would say.

Of France?

It was positively insulting. Once the clothes were finished, they were sent by special diplomatic courier to Washington—as were frequent shipments of Chanel No. 5. Not only the parfum, with its rich bourbon vanilla and bougainvillea overtones, but also the eau de parfum, with its forward notes of may rose and ylang-ylang, and even the eau de toilette, which was heavy with sandalwood. The supposed Sicilian noblewoman bought Chanel No. 5 in all its variations and complications for morning, noon, and evening—and the bill was mailed to the First Lady's father-in-law in Hyannis Port. It was laughable, at best.

This request from Chez Ninon for a muslin toile, a test garment, was tiresome. While it was not unusual to create line-by-line replicas of designs—they were even regulated by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture et du Prêt-à-Porter as a way to appease the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union—Chanel was always reluctant. To make a copy was one thing—it would always be inferior—but to give the ability to replicate exactly her work, her vision, and her art was completely another. Why should she allow another name to be put on her work? She'd resigned from the Chambre Syndicale in 1957. They had no jurisdiction over her. She could do what she wanted, and she simply did not want to.

Although it was interesting that the request did not come from Oleg Cassini, who was now ordained her official “dressmaker,” as he had said.
That is good,
Chanel thought.
Maybe there is a falling-out.

Everyone was shocked when the editor at
Harper's Bazaar,
Mrs. Vreeland, championed Cassini to the First Lady. Why Vreeland promoted a man with such a playboy reputation was beyond understanding. His first press conference was held in New York and made headlines. At the Pierre Hotel, with a cocktail in hand and a crooked, debonair smirk, he announced that there would be two press showings a year featuring the First Lady's wardrobe, but the press would not be invited. The events would be held exclusively for the New York Couture Group, the garment manufacturers in the city.

“Press knows nothing about fashion,” he announced. Everyone gasped.

His cologne was overwhelming, too.

It was the first, and also the last, press conference Mr. Cassini ever gave. How could the First Lady, a woman who was such a devotee of Chanel and French couture and, more important, the chemise—which Cassini openly ridiculed in a fashion show by making a version in burlap and having the model litter the runway with potatoes—how could this particular woman have chosen such a man as her designer?

Inexplicable.
A falling-out would be very good, indeed.

“We are done,” Chanel said to the model, and then smiled, charmingly. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“
Oui,
mademoiselle.
Merci.
”

“Good.”

“The telegram?” the assistant asked again. “And what shall I answer, mademoiselle?”

“I am going home to think.”

Hôtel Ritz had been Chanel's home on and off for decades, since the beginning of World War II. It was right across the alley from her shop. Her room was unlike any other. It was not opulent but small and tucked out of the way, in the attic. It was just a bed with white sheets in a room with white walls. The only decoration was a spray of wheat, which her father once told her was a talisman that would bring her luck. The room was profoundly quiet, much like the convent school where she spent her youth. It was a good place to think.

Chanel washed her hands and face with lye soap; she hated the scent of skin. She lit another cigarette and went out onto the rooftop with a glass of red wine and looked out over Paris. From that height, the city seemed to be made of buttercream—but yellowed and dusty, as if sculpted for a cake that would not be eaten, just remembered in one's dreams. It was no longer the city of her youth. There were so many people; there was so much noise.

“Americans,” she sighed.

When the moon rose pink over Paris—at least, that was the way the Ladies would later tell the story—Chanel finally decided that they could have the suit. However, if this particular Chanel was to go to America, to be made by American hands, there would have to be restrictions and agreements set in place. Especially if Cassini was to be anywhere near it. The man's aesthetic was vulgar, or, as he called it, “sexy”: all high slits, low necklines, and high drama. No subtlety. No sensuousness.

As for the question of how much, Chanel wrote down a very large figure, indeed.

When Chanel's telegram arrived the next day, Sophie showed the ransom note, as she called it, to Nona, and they laughed. Their reply went out an hour later:
Sharpen your pencil and recalculate.

While Chanel, the person, was not easily copied, the same could not be said for the suit. It was a very simple design. The finished product might not have all the Chanel touches, nor the exact fit or feel, but it would be similar and could be made in half the time and at a fraction of the cost. A copy of the blouse alone would cost only $3 to make, but the Ladies could charge $300 for it—and everyone would be happy to pay. Purchasing the toile and license was ridiculous and impractical, but Maison Blanche insisted. Chez Ninon would also be forced to pay Chanel for the right to use the material, the signature gold chain that would be sewn into the hem to help the jacket hang properly, and the gold “CC” buttons. The buttons alone would be $250.

Chez Ninon usually charged $3,500 for one of their “Chanel” suits, which were made from similar-looking fabric and buttons but run off on machines with a very limited amount of hand finishing. Unfortunately, Maison Blanche had made it quite clear that the entire suit couldn't cost more than $1,000, preferably $850 or less. There wasn't even a way to take a shortcut or two. The pink suit was to be a line-by-line copy and so must be entirely sewn by hand. It would be impossible to make a profit or break even—perhaps that was why Maison Blanche did not ask Cassini—but the Ladies could not turn it down. To dress a socialite was one thing, but to dress that same socialite when she became the First Lady was an honor they could not easily pass up.