Toujours la couture

To the few women coming to liberated Paris from buzz-bombed London, Paris fashions, 1944, were a revelation. Wrote TIME'S Correspondent Mary Welsh: "You would never believe it possible for a woman to achieve elegance on a bicycle unless you could see Parisiennes cycling in the rue Cambon, avenue Matignon, or among the hordes of cyclists constantly passing in the Place de la Concorde. But Paris women manage to look perfectly wonderful while pedaling, balancing hats at least a foot high and mostly bucket-shaped, with skirts billowing backwards enticingly but not boldly.

"The most remarkable cyclist yet seen was a girl wearing a platinum fox short jacket, a huge washtub felt hat and accordion-pleated skirt, who somehow managed to make the bicycle look part of the ensemble. But shopgirls in printed frocks, bright sweaters, and the tricolor in their hair, as well as elegant women, make the G.I.s realize how much they have been missing in unimaginatively dressed Britain and the damp fields of Normandy."

Not even wartime shortages of materials under the Nazis could hamper Paris style. Hats grew huge, vast, fantastic as imagination ran riot and millinery grew scarce. Now a common sight in Paris streets are poke bonnets of brilliant-colored straws, some 18 inches tall, and veil-draped hats reminiscent of the voluminous headgear worn by turn-of-the-century motorists. Earrings are enormous and unorthodox. Some, as big as oranges, dangle from ear to shoulder. Shoes, because leather was scarce, are wooden-soled with wedge heels three inches high.

The couture never left Paris, although Berlin tried hard to seduce it. Lucien Lelong, prewar president of the Couturiers' Association finally argued the Germans into letting the couture stay in Paris on the ground that postwar German Europe would not otherwise be able to compete successfully against U.S. designers. Thus 60 Paris dressmakers, employing directly 15,000 midinettes and indirectly a million makers of dress materials, were allowed to fashion style in full freedom.

Last week heads of Paris dress houses were consulting ebulliently with their designers about their victory collections. Said Lelong: "Until now we have had no desire to create. Now we will do the greatest collections in history. They will be wonderful, but not crazy. Our jubilation will be sober."

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