Franco-American Follies

The Chapel of Louis XIV at Versailles was resplendent on that morning in 1770 when the dauphin (later Louis XVI) married Marie Antoinette of Austria. Sunlight pierced the stained-glass windows, illuminating the frescoed ceiling and the embroidered brocades and silks of the guests--the aristocracy of Europe and a few lords from the colonies. It was a state affair, too sublime for common folk. Only nobles whose coats of arms bore many quarterings were permitted inside Versailles's marble walls and mirrored hallways. All went smoothly until a thunderstorm rained out a postnuptial display of fireworks.

Some 200 years later, royalty's ragged remnant as well as the restless rich and those who aspire to such status still crave an invitation to Versailles. They are even willing to pay $235 a head for a floor show and supper in the now-termite-infested palace. Of course, the servants must be bewigged, the brocade and baubles as abundant as in the days of Louis and Marie. And so it was last week, thanks to a whim of American Fashion Publicist Eleanor Lambert.

While summering in France, Lambert told Gerald van der Kemp, curator of Versailles, that it would be "so nice" if American designers could get some more exposure in France. Why not a joint showing with their French counterparts? Why not indeed, said Van der Kemp, who proposed that the royal palace, which needs restoration, be both the site and the beneficiary.

It was arranged: five top French couturiers, including Pierre Cardin and Hubert de Givenchy, would reach across the Atlantic to Halston, Anne Klein, Oscar de la Renta, Stephen Burrows and Bill Blass. Together they would have a ball scarving, belting, bigskirting or otherwise adorning the likes of Liza Minnelli, Josephine Baker and Capucine. The performers, together with ordinary mannequins, would stage a kind of high-budget vaudeville called "Le Grand Divertissement `a Versailles." The money? Ah, yes, patrons like the Baroness Marie-Helene de Rothschild would angel the operation, and people like Amanda Burden, Princess Grace, the Charles Revsons and Karim Aga Khan would lend their glamorous names as sponsors. Last week it all happened, more or less as planned. But as with the 1770 fireworks, there was rain on the big parade. In fact, the preparations preceding the show demonstrated just how bad Franco-American relations can be even where NATO is not involved.

Worst Experience. The rehearsals were chaos, with virtually no communications between U.S. and French organizers. The Baroness said privately --but not privately enough to keep it a secret--that the American acts were "cheap." Anne Klein observed: "This has been the worst experience of my life. When this is over we are all going to relax and have a nervous breakdown."

Most of the Americans quickly got the perhaps paranoid feeling that the French were out to humiliate them. The French performers and models rehearsed first and consistently ran several hours late. While the Americans waited their turn well into the first night, their hosts provided no food, not even water. The next night, when a dinner break was demanded, a femme Friday offered three petite cartons of finger sandwiches; a ravenous crew of 60 came close to mutiny.

The models complained about the absence of the usual niceties like towels, toilet paper, ashtrays and waste baskets in the chilly dressing rooms; Klein, promising that "my girls aren't going to live like pigs," bought two garbage pails. During changes of costume, one model said, "Strange men walk in and out. We should get $500 an hour for working in the nude." Those problems were relatively minor compared with an inexplicable slipup: Lighting Director Patricia Collins mailed a detailed list of equipment requests weeks in advance, only to find blank stares and shrugs from the French instead of lights. Borrowing whatever spotlights the French could spare, Collins gallantly remarked: "It's not possible to fix blame anywhere."

U.S. Revenge. Some of the gaffes were ascribed to language problems. French functionaries often failed to grasp American needs. "What is a 36 C?" bellowed a confused stagehand across the faux marble columns of the proscenium arch of the Gabriel Theater. "I've got to get one for Liza."

The Americans did quite a bit of squabbling among themselves, but at showtime they triumphed. Though none of the designers had bothered to whip up much that was new for the event, the audience gushed over jerseys and swirling chiffons from New York. To the buoying rhythm of steady applause -- as well as pounding tom-toms -- feline black and white models slithered and strutted in Anne Klein's safari-inspired beachwear. No one was sure, however, whether the real attraction was the halter-topped duds or the barefoot and bare-bellied models. When Girl-about-the-World Marisa Berenson glittered onto the stage in a Halston original, there was little doubt: Berenson was dolled up for the Folies-Bergere in breast-to-toe transparent spangles.

"We should have realized that the Americans would know how to put on a show," grumbled Ungaro, one of the participating French designers. Compared with the flair and jive of the American segment, the French came across like a dancing school recital. Everybody had a gimmick, and the gimmick, sadly, was floats. "Floats? You mean horses making a mess on the stage?" was the initial reaction of Joe Eula, stage designer for the American representatives. Actor Louis Jourdan -- looking beastly in rhinoceros ears -- danced in and out of an Ungaro circus wagon pulled by a fellow rhino. Dior's giant pumpkin ported a chiffon-draped Cinderella to the ball. For laughs, no one could match that old showman, Pierre Cardin, who launched a cardboard spaceship piloted by models in futuristic leotards and tunics.

At the final dip of the curtain, the diamond-and emerald-studded guests fairly crackled into the royal apartments for a candlelit midnight supper of truffles, smoked salmon, duck with cherries, and a variety of pates. Beside each place setting rested a little token-perfume, soap and after-shave lotion --grace `a Revlon. There were even some door prizes -- expensive frocks, of course. Even the very rich, it seems, take handouts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.