1934 - Paris

Today in 1934: Paris Fashion “Not for three months will the horse chestnut trees on Paris' Champs-Elysees begin to turn yellow. Yet last week on the brief and severe Rue de la Paix autumn had already come. And on hand for its coming was an excited little army of U. S. dress buyers who crowded through closely-guarded doorways into the salons of the great Parisian couturiers. Inside the warm air was heavy with perfume and the smell of new silk. Buyers who usually paid $100 to get in (refunded on the first order) cocked their heads and adjusted their glasses as the sleek mannequins rustled to ward them in long-skirted evening gowns, sport dresses with Brazil nuts for buttons, coats made of steamer rugs, woolen dresses with oilcloth grapes. Soon the buyers would stream out of the city with notes and gossip on the fashions Paris was about to set the world for the winter of 1934-35.” (Aug. 13, 1934)