BELLE OF THE BALL 1952

Your Future in a Crystal Bottle

Balenciaga

A package of black lace, tied twice with pink satin ribbons. The lace shadows but shows the figure to the knees where it bursts into sprays of flounces - to the ankles in the front, to the floor and beyond in the back. More lace, a scarf to bind the hair and wind around the throat. Add an orangey, flowery southern breeze with "Le Dix" - Balenciaga's explicit perfume.

"Daily, there are many questions a woman must ask. Can I wear my red suit another year? Did father's telegram mean daylight saving or standard time? Who sits next to whom tonight at dinner? But to perfume, you can put the questions asked of a daisy or a first star.

This perfume and I...what might not happen to the two of us together?"

Schiaparelli

A bandage of black wool jersey strapping every curve from chin to knees - there it is wound with thick swags, then below, set free into full circles, the front one shorter than those behind. The only decoration needed - Sciaparelli's "Shocking" perfume all sweetness and light.

After the rose gatherers and blenders have done, what lies stoppered tight waiting to step into your future?

Bright With Black

Patou

Patou's filmy black lace flickering with brandy-flame blue. The bodice has a scalloped rim of blueness, great rows of ruffle flounces are set in crescents from hip to hem - with the ups and downs of the skirt, there is a blinding blueness at the bottom. Patou's rose-packed perfume is "Joy."

For the right perfume can conjure up a future worth remembering. 

White Straw Lace

Balmain

One of the new sensational laces of Paris, shiny and here shined more with sequins. From the fur-edged bodice, the peacock skirt, hung with chains of mink, sways, sweeps, trails off.

Pale With White

Gres

Gres has poured gallons of chiffon into a narrow dress of jersey sliced into a million supple pleats the colour of poetry. Over mauve pink is twisted and tied a great length of white jersey that winds the breast and streams free, like a banner in the wind, to the hem.

White and Gold

Lanvin-Castillo

Great white peacock coat that seems to be one long train, wool inset with embroidered leaves of gold braid and sequins. To trail with it, Lanvin's "Arpege" - the perfume that smells like parties.

Ernst Beadle

Harper's Bazaar 1952

Your Future in a Crystal Bottle

Photography: Ernst Beadle

The Peacocks of Paris

Paris - Explicit Evening Line

Paris - Evening Alliances

Photography: Richard Avedon

... eyes on the fifties at devodotcom