A TALE OF FROCKS AND FEMININITY BY ELEANOR HOYT BRAINERD Author of "The Misdemeanors of Nancy"     NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1906 Copyright, 1906, by MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY New York Published, March, 1906 The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A....

The Parisienne, in her subtler phases, is a theme for a feminist of genius; and this little book does not venture upon the psychological deep seas. Grave issues are tangled in the game of fashion-making; but the world through which My Lady of the Chiffons dances lightly to gay music reeks of frivolity, and the story of the fashionable Parisienne and of the haunts in which she obtains and displays her incomparable frocks must needs be a story of folly and extravagance, best told, perhaps, by snap

Yes, there's a sadness in the struggle, a gentle melancholy such as serves poets for rondels and villanelles, but they are not sad, themselves, those old ladies of Paris. Bless your heart, no! They are gay, excessively gay. They flutter their fans and toss their curled heads and scatter wrinkled smiles and unwrinkled bon mots, and succeed, after a fashion, in their aim; for they are delightful, these faded, worldly belles. They keep their youthful hearts, their keen wits, their absorbing interes

THE TYRANTS OF THE RUE DE LA PAIX If one would write of Vanity Fair, one must write of the Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendôme; for the faithful worshippers of the vanities turn toward that quarter of Paris as devoutly as a Mohammedan toward Mecca. There the high priests of Fashion hold sway, and women the world over acknowledge with reverent salaams of spirit that there is no fashion but Paris fashion, though ideas as to Fashion's true prophets may differ. Let no one speak lightly of the Frenc

THE FAMOUS ATELIERS The dressmaker of Paris is an artist. Granted that, it is quite natural that his workroom should be an atelier. Your true artist works in a studio, not in a shop; and when one speaks of the famous ateliers of the Parisian dressmaking world, one but gives the work done in these establishments its due recognition. But they are "magasins" as well as ateliers, those establishments in which fashions are made, and business plays quite as important a part in them as does art, though

FIFI AND THE DUCHESS ON THE TURF For fashionable Paris, the season begins with Auteuil. The first of the races calls all of the wanderers back to the heart of Vanity Fair. It is the famous rally, the great spring opening, the first important toilette display of the season. The meeting is held as soon as winter shows the smallest sign of relenting, and is never later than March, sometimes as early as February; but whenever it comes it marks the début of spring upon the Parisian calendar. The weat

LE SPORT IN PARIS Parisian society is not given over wholly to racing during those weeks that lie between the March winds and braziers of Auteuil and the sunshine and flowers of Grand Prix. Smart social functions of all kinds are packed closely into the sunshiny days and the balmy nights, and the daytime reunions have increased and multiplied during recent years; for the Parisienne has taken up "le sport." It is a tyrant, le sport. It exacts the surrender of many of the self-indulgent habits of

THE FINE ART OF DINING Paris is full of restaurants, but the list of those at which one may enjoy both a supremely chic fashion exhibit and a dinner worthy to be associated with the clothes are comparatively few. Indeed, where the frocks are up to an epicurean standard the food is sometimes far below, and there are cafés in Paris where a gourmet will find possibilities of ecstatic moments, but where no swish of petticoats will break in upon his rapt silences. Not that the average viveur of Paris

ROUND THE NORMANDY CIRCUIT WITH MADAME A slight hush falls upon the fashionable Parisian world after Grand Prix has rung down the curtain upon the Paris season. The élégantes pause to draw breath before plunging into the swirling tide of the summer circuit, but the breathing time is short. A few leisurely days, a few final visits to dressmakers and milliners, a closing of town houses, and then, ho for Trouville. There are many popular resorts on the Normandy coast, but Trouville is queen of them

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND The Parisienne adores Paris, but she is subject to acute attacks of that modern malady to which the leisure class is peculiarly susceptible, and which one of Madame's countrymen has aptly called the "nostalgie d'ailleurs"—homesickness for elsewhere. Moved by that spirit of restlessness she forsakes Paris—in order that she may better love that city of her heart. She does not yearn for rest, but she wants change, and so she goes flitting here and there within easy reach of Paris

THE HUNTING SEASON AT THE CHÂTEAUX With September, Parisians renounce their allegiance to Neptune. For that matter, Neptune has little to do even with the seashore season of the Parisian world. The hoary old fellow is but a detail of the stage setting. Whatever sovereignty he may have claimed at Trouville, Dieppe, Dinard, he long ago made over to Venus Anadyomene, and even she cannot hold her courtiers. There comes a day when the sands that have for months bloomed riotously in Parisian gowns and

UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES For the gambler and the cocotte, the Riviera means merely Monte Carlo. The gambler is drawn by the lure of the green tables in the splendid Casino. The cocotte goes where the money-spending crowd is to be found, where she may show her frocks and her jewels and her beauty, where recklessness and extravagance and excitement are in the air. She gambles, too, carelessly or cannily, according to her temperament, and she loves to make a sensation on the terrace, in the Café de Par

LES AMERICAINES Many Americans swing round the calendar with the fashionable Parisiennes. Some of them, having married into the innermost circles of the French aristocracy, belong to the most exclusive French set and jealously guard their privileges, associating little with their own countrywomen of the American colony, for there is a world of difference between the Parisian social standing of the American woman who has married into an aristocratic French family and the American woman of the Ame