March 1895, Paris
‘Like an automaton I tried on the clothes she ordered for me.’ – CONSUELO VANDERBILT
Alva Vanderbilt was unquestionably irritated. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap and sat up even straighter than usual, her jaw tightening into a forced expression of interest that belied her displeasure. A cursory glance at Consuelo could only engender a sense of disappointment. True, she was a beautiful, elegant young woman, educated and intelligent – the epitome of the new American aristocracy – and had dutifully complied with all of her mother’s careful directions to become a lady of substance, yet there was something missing. Alva would have known, as she observed Consuelo, sitting on a chaise longue in a posture of flawless grace, that her daughter lacked spirit and must have wondered whether this model of a perfect bride would actually be enough to get the job done. No matter, she would carry on regardless with the plan, which could not be fully executed if Consuelo’s wardrobe was not carefully prepared and fitted while they were in Paris. London would never accept the Americans if they could not compete sartorially. And that was the source of today’s irritation. The news had reached them as they arrived in Paris; Charles Frederick Worth was dead. The renowned couturier and widely accepted oracle of fashion had passed away on 10 March 1895, meaning the Vanderbilt women had missed him by only a few days. It was inconvenient, to say the least. Apart from the fact that the designer’s workroom would likely be in a state of mourning, which really was not the best environment for a debutante to be excitedly planning a summer wardrobe, it also placed a question mark over the quality of the clothes themselves: could the grand master’s sons really continue his great work? This year, Alva could leave nothing to chance. Consuelo’s wardrobe simply had to be the most elaborate, intricate, modern and beautifully crafted that London and Newport had ever seen and of course, as the mother of the most popular debutante of the Season, Alva herself needed to take her rightful place in the limelight too. The stakes were high and, despite the awkward timing, she had to ensure the House of Worth lived up to expectations.
Charles Frederick Worth had long been considered the leading couturier for women of fortune. He was the son of a country solicitor, born in Lincolnshire in England before moving to London to work in a draper’s shop at the age of twelve. After years of training, he made the bold decision to move to Paris and, without any money or connections, he slowly began to build up a loyal following of clients. He pioneered several unique design elements, including slightly shorter skirts to enable easier walking, a skirt with no crinoline or hoop but a bustle, and fashionable clothes for pregnancy and mourning; he was also the first designer to put his name on labels inside his clothes and to use live models to show off his designs. When the Empress Eugénie discovered his creations and championed him to the French court, his establishment as the designer of choice for fashionable society was complete and a twice-yearly pilgrimage to his chic salon to choose a stunning array of outfits for the Season ahead became de rigueur.
‘For a generation M Worth has been supreme in his own domain. He has known how to dress woman as nobody else knew how to dress her,”1 The Times wrote in its obituary of Worth on 12 March 1895. Town Topics told its readers that Worth’s death meant the removal of ‘one of the striking personalities of fashionable Paris’.2 Now that the great man was gone, society on both sides of the Atlantic held its breath to see if Worth would maintain its flawless workmanship and inventive design and whether it could continue to attract the most exclusive clientele. Everything about the fashion house had come from Worth himself. Known far and wide for his temperamental and autocratic style, he ruled his workshop of over three hundred seamstresses with a rod of iron, ensuring that every gown received the utmost care and the immaculate finish his vision demanded. He had an innate understanding of his clients, knowing almost instantly which colours would flatter their skin tone and the particular cut of gown to enhance their figure. That was his brilliance and the wealthy were hooked.
Worth attracted clients from around the world, not just from France, but he once declared that his favourite clients were Americans because they had ‘faith, figures and francs’3. Whether his faithful nouveaux-riches clients who travelled across the ocean to spend their fortunes on Worth gowns did so because they were confident in his ability to drape them in the most appropriate gowns for any and all occasions, or whether they came because they had heard it was the fashionable thing to do, isn’t clear; however, dressed in an armour of Worth, the wives and daughters of Wall Street plutocrats marched into social functions in the heart of Belgravia and Fifth Avenue with confidence and that, they reasoned, was worth the thousands of dollars that his designs commanded. An endless round of fittings would usually accompany a shopping trip to Paris for a Season’s wardrobe. An array of gowns and outfits would need to be chosen and fitted, from intricate beaded ball gowns to simpler tea gowns, riding habits and bathing costumes, all with a bewildering choice of fabrics and adornments to choose from. As Edith Saunders noted in her biography of Worth: ‘The distinctive dress of the ’nineties was extravagantly elegant; the class of immensely rich people in the world was now considerable, and the women belonging to it demanded costly workmanship in their dresses as well as an imposing style.’4
This rapid development of clothes as an indication of social status was something that designers like Worth had encouraged, shored up by wealthy clients desperate to secure a position in the most exclusive circles. Intelligent Swells like Marietta Stevens had quickly ascertained the value of the right wardrobe by the right designer and had slavishly followed the dictates of Parisian designers for the past thirty years. As early as 1867, Harper’s Magazine had denounced the growing trend when it wrote: ‘Why should American women so strenuously endeavour to follow out the Paris fashions, which are invented by capricious women of rank and wealth, or by the dress-makers, who, with the intention of inciting their customers to inordinate expenditure, rack their imaginations for the purpose of producing something new?’5 Despite such criticism, by 1895 a visit to Paris for dress fittings had become so much a part of the social year for American heiresses that to be without an array of Worth dresses would elicit comments from fellow members of society keen to speculate on the family’s financial situation.
For Alva Vanderbilt, who had fled the scandal of her divorce and her daughter’s burgeoning relationship with Winthrop Rutherfurd in New York to journey to Paris for Consuelo’s new wardrobe, Worth’s death threatened to derail her plans for her daughter’s polished presentation in London. Luckily, however, so far all appeared to be in order at the couturier’s. The Vanderbilts had been offered their usual fitting room, which was luxuriously furnished and tastefully decorated, as one would expect. They had been provided with their usual plate of foie gras and glass of Sauternes and had been given the exacting attention that their status demanded. The Vanderbilts were likely to spend around twenty thousand dollars6 on this trip and would be ensuring that every dime was accounted for in the service and apparel they received.
Consuelo seemed distracted, and had been quieter than usual since they had arrived in Europe. She was very different from the last time they had travelled to Paris, during the previous spring for Consuelo’s debut. Alva had used Paris as a training ground for the more demanding London Season that began in earnest in June. After spending so much time in the French capital herself when she was growing up, she knew the city well and, from their suite at the Hotel Continental, set about filling Consuelo’s days with walks under the flowering chestnuts of the Champs Elysées and drives in the Bois de Boulogne. Consuelo had immediately been enthralled by the fabric of the city, using her daily walks to observe its inhabitants, enchanted by the wide boulevards that opened up the frenetic activity of the city’s daily life to inquisitive tourists.
Alva also continued Consuelo’s cultural education, arranging visits to museums and churches, lectures at the Sorbonne and matinees at the Théâtre Français. When Consuelo finally made her debut at the Duc de Grammont’s ball at a hotel on the Rue de Chaillot, she made an enviable impression. She was wearing a white tulle dress, custom-made from Worth of course, with a long, full skirt that lightly skimmed the ground and a tightly laced bodice. Her dark hair was curled and piled high on her head and a long narrow ribbon was tied round her neck, which, as Alva had predicted, caused onlookers to comment on its swan-like and regal quality. The finishing touch was long white gloves that almost reached her slender shoulders. Like most debutantes, Consuelo had been terrified that she would not be asked to dance by the young French gentlemen drafted in to populate the ball and would instead be destined to spend the night standing against the wall with the lady chaperones, desperately waiting for an invitation. But she need not have worried. All of French society knew who she was. Consuelo Vanderbilt, the rich American heiress, would not be without a partner for long.
Alva had been pleased with Consuelo’s performance and was especially gratified when rumours began to swirl around the city and beyond that Consuelo had received several proposals of marriage from members of the European aristocracy. Of course, Alva would not be entertaining any such offers until they had been to England, for England was the ultimate prize. In the complex web that characterised the European nobility, English titles were the most revered among Americans. Most were well travelled enough to have regularly come into contact with the so-called aristocracy of many countries, yet England alone appeared to hold tightest to its traditions and lineage. In Italy or France there seemed to be a baffling number of old and newly created titles that had no real heritage to accompany them. In England, there were titles and family seats that could trace their history back hundreds of years, and what truly interested competitive mothers like Alva Vanderbilt was that British titles were limited. It was immensely difficult to capture a duke, as there were only thirty dukedoms in the country. She knew that if Consuelo could successfully marry one, her status as an integral part of the British aristocracy and the Vanderbilts’ place in the inner sanctum of New York society would be assured, no matter what kind of scandal followed them around the globe. After spending large swathes of 1893 and 1894 travelling as a family on Willie K’s yacht, attempting to repair the W K Vanderbilts’ marriage and failing miserably, Alva knew that the scandal of divorce had the potential to signal the downfall of them all.
It was July 1894 when Consuelo found herself in a fashionable London hotel, with strict instructions from her mother to impress Minnie Paget at all costs. Her first impressions were not good, as she recalled their modest hotel, a far cry from the luxurious surroundings of Fifth Avenue’s modern establishments. ‘The rooms were frowsty in the true English sense and contained a bewildering medley of the rubbish of centuries… Over the windows hung heavy plush curtains and the meagre light was still further dimmed by the heavy lace window-curtains.’7
When Consuelo and Alva finally made the journey to call on Minnie at 35 Belgrave Square, Consuelo found herself feeling ‘like a gawky, graceless child under her scrutiny’.8 Alva listened carefully to the appraisal of her daughter by Minnie, who had received them with ‘the affection due to an old friend and the condescension that seemed to infect the habitués of the inner circles of London society’.9 She agreed to Minnie’s plan to bring Consuelo and Sunny together at a small dinner party. Something intimate, something effective, and there was no one better than Minnie to achieve it. She was adept at being endlessly creative in social situations on behalf of American clients, seeming instinctively to know the best way of achieving the desired result. The romantic novelist Elinor Glyn once said of Minnie, ‘She knew how to entertain and mix people better than anyone I have ever met, and her house in Belgrave Square was the centre of all that was most chic in English and Anglo-American society.’10
Alva was counting on Minnie’s social prowess and, although she hadn’t yet decided whether a titled marriage was the right path for Consuelo, she knew that if she did plump for an aristocratic son-in-law, no less than a duke would do. She would not be content with an untitled son from an aristocratic family such as Minnie had settled for. Minnie, who had spent years trying to attract suitors, never quite making up her mind, until it was too late and she had been forced to accept a marriage without a title, the one thing she had been coveting for so long. Nor would a lowly lord or viscount do for Consuelo. No, if she decreed it, the Vanderbilt millions would purchase a duke for her daughter. That was the least they could do.
Minnie delivered, as she always did, and the dinner party was a success. Sunny had seemed intrigued by the young American and had obviously been appraised of Consuelo’s beauty before their meeting, writing to a friend, ‘I hear that she is quite good looking.’11 For her part, Consuelo had seemed to receive his attention with genuine interest and grace. ‘I thought him good-looking and intelligent,’ she would later write of her first impression of Sunny in her memoirs. ‘He had a small aristocratic face with a large nose and rather prominent blue eyes. His hands, which he used in a fastidious manner, were well shaped and he seemed inordinately proud of them.’12
Minnie’s efforts did not go unnoticed by the rest of society. The Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, the Duke’s grandmother, wrote to her daughter-in-law, Jennie Churchill, in July 1894, commenting, ‘Mrs Paget has been very busy introducing him to Miss Vanderbilt and telling everybody she meant to arrange a marriage between them.…’13
Consuelo had no idea of the plan that was beginning to take shape on her behalf and was relieved when Alva took a house on the Thames for the rest of the summer. Away from the prying eyes of London, she could be herself once more and return to her studies, diligently working for the Oxford University entrance exams, which she would later pass with flying colours. She knew she would never go to university, but she savoured the fleeting moment of success anyway, a singular flash of accomplishment that was hers and hers alone.
Now, just a few months later, Consuelo looked back on those idyllic days spent by the river with her brother, Willie, and the family’s friends from New York, Mrs William Jay and her daughters, who had idled the time away with them, and wished for that life again. A life full of simple pleasures and simple problems. The most drastic of these was the ill-conceived party that Alva had thrown for the local village children, which had included well-known American treats such as ice cream. Despite the generosity of the visitors, the children, not familiar with such rich tastes, had all complained about stomach ache and pleaded for hot tea. Such mis-steps by Alva were few and far between, and to be relished on the rare occasions they presented themselves.
Consuelo still longed to see Winthrop or hear from him. On the voyage to Europe she had been preoccupied by thoughts of their last meeting, when he had asked for her hand in marriage and implored her to elope with him on her return. She had made up her mind there and then that she would, and throughout her journey her resolve had not wavered, but now that she was in Paris and she had not received any contact from Winthrop, she began to question her decision. Consuelo wrote in her memoirs, ‘I never laid eyes on Mr X, nor did I hear from him’14 during her time in Paris. What she was unaware of was that Winthrop did in fact follow her to Europe, but Alva had given strict instructions to her staff and the hotel that he was not to be admitted under any circumstances. She ensured that any letters he sent to Consuelo were intercepted and reminded her servants that, should Consuelo make any furtive attempts to contact her beau, these notes were to find their way to Alva. The lovers had been thwarted, but Consuelo remained unaware of her mother’s actions.
Consuelo earnestly continued her daily routine in Paris, including regular trips to Worth on the Rue de la Paix for fittings. ‘Like an automaton I tried on the clothes she ordered for me,’15 she remembered. Her mother seemed steadfastly committed to another Season in London, with Consuelo at the heart of her plans to charm certain members of the aristocracy and so, dutifully, Consuelo complied with all Alva’s requests to ensure she was fully equipped for the social functions that lay ahead. Alva casually began to mention Minnie Paget, increasingly peppering their conversations with references to Minnie’s far-reaching social network and connections to Bertie, the Prince of Wales. Every time Consuelo heard Minnie’s name it evoked an involuntary reaction that made her want to shrink away from the conversation, back into the elegant wooden panelling that embellished Worth’s salon walls. There was something about Minnie’s terse appraisal of the young debutante the year before that alarmed Consuelo, but she couldn’t quite understand why it filled with her such concern. However, Consuelo was right to be worried: London was the Vanderbilts’ next stop and a duke, as well as society, awaited her. As she later recalled: ‘Then we moved to London, where events began to move rapidly and I felt I was being steered into a vortex that was to engulf me.’16