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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 1920)
THE OREGON SUNDAY . JOURNAL, PORTLAND. SUNDAY MORNING DECEMBER 19. 1920. A t ... 1 11 f ., p. . n Ul Pi il !7A 0k , fH itf fcA 1 i3 5 Ik jssxim if mam m wjr-w nr"wm a m &m aw u it -m mts&m wmw ii m $kum mwmi n it ii m,wm mm & ii m cr isor mjr .. n MMjmm'Mrwm r m i Mi US The Vivacious and Versatile Mme. de FlougereV Bargain with Her Distinguished Husband to Dress as She Pleases .and Maintain Her Own Senarate Establishment A ' shown a lack of Interest In lite became very active when the Viscountess appeared and. Jumping up, would follow her viva ciously. In fact the Viscountess 'was ac companied by a crowd all the time.. The Viscount was bored to" death, with this unwanted popularity, hut the ; Viscountess revelled in it. - J. At Biarritz there was almost a riot when she appeared decollete with her hair done in a novel fashion. The same thing oc curred when she went, to Etrctat, Na mat ter whether a dress was decollete or just the opposite, when the Viscontess wore it there was always something sensational about it. At the first nights of the theatre In Paris .the Viscountess is watched for with a 3 much interest as is the play itself. She is always making a debut in some new idea and the public expect it of her. Ia the Bois, in the restaurants, every where, you hear people asking what is the latest fad of the Viscountess de Flougere. The Viscountess designs all her own models. She .has them , executed by one of the great dressmakers of Paris, but superin tends the design ing, draping and making herself. It would seem as if it was not alone the element of dar ing or decollete In dress which inter ests the Viscoun tess. Those who have been startled by the boldness of her evening gowns were equally taken by surprise when the Viscountess de murely appeared one afternoon in the gay throngs at Monte Carlos wearing a gown which . seemed to have an under taker's shroud for its Inspiration! This relentlessly severe black cos- she always retains her personal liberty inume wag reh3ved only ty the toucll o( white sleeves .. " PARIS, Nov. 27. IT remained for a French viscountess to thoroughly shock the fashionable world 'of Paris by her audacious taste to the selection of her gowns. " After all that has happened in the fashion world during the past several years, society had become ratlier jaded by startling 'Innovations In dress and had commenced to take- strange things as a matter of course. : But when the Viscountess de Flougere asserted the right to dress, herself as she pleased' and commenced to display her gowns at the various French resorts this season a new interest was excited. The yiscountess.demonstrated that, while there might have been a certain effervescence of "ideas In dress, the real heights of Imagina tion had not yet been attained. The woman who has caused this renais sance of Interest in sensational dressing is a remarkable personage. The Viscountess de Flougere is the wife of a member of one of the oldest families of France, a scion of ancestors rwho were famous at the court of Louis XIV and did much for the his-' tory of France. She is displaying some of the Independence and cans gene that her noble husband's great grandmother, Monlque de Baralie, showed when her originality, vivacious manner, charm and beauty and utter disregard for conventionalities attracted the attention of that very appreciative monarch, ouis XIV. The King showered gifts and at tentions upon her so that she was counted his favorite.; The bid chateau which the de Flougere family has since occupied, near Montpellier, was a gift from the; king to - the pretty Monlque de. Baralie, whom he loved so much, as well as the title which Is borne hy her relatives to this day. So the Viscountess de Flougere has a precedent In her family for -the strange eccentricities which she exhibits and by which she shocks the fashionable world. Butnotwithstanding the Louis XTV. pre cedent, the Viscount, who is a distin guished looking Frenchman of the old . type, whose pointed beard makes him look older than he really is, does not approve of the sensational doings'of his wife. It is the one and constant bone of contention between them. He is serious and a great stickler for the conventionalities, while his wife has different views. As a result, while they are very friendly and are seen out a great deal together, they have separate apartments. The vivacious Viscountess visits her Viscount for; several days at a time, but the apartment which she has. installed in the Champ de Mars, while her husband lives in bis apartment in fthe centre of the city. She has told him that when he ac knowledges that she has a right to dress as she likes, no matter what the styles may be, she will come to live with him-. But the Viscount has the sedate and seri ous breeding of centuries in his blood and, while he can readily forget the escapades of his ancient great-great-grandmother, lie cannot suffer the trivialities of his wife. The Viscountess believes In the first place that scanty costumes are both, grace-, ful and healthful. She holds that she has a. right to wear as little as she pleases. Some of her costumes are cut away to the limit at the back, and others are corre spondingly high at the bottom, while in other instances the decolletage Is equally balanced at both end3. But-however un conventional they may be, they are always Interesting, and are worn with the dis tinction of a woman of high rank, quite sure of her position. She holds that noth- Ing which is artistic can be immoral. In the great salons of Paris, at the fash ionable watering places and race courses of France, the Viscountess aiways crecjes a stir the moment she arrives. She is pro gressive in giving sensations. Each suc ceeding night at Deauville she became more audacious, and : displayed a new creation every night " When she ; got to the seventh or eighth night of the ten nights she spent there, the crowdjs awaited her with misgiving, for it did not seem pos sible that she could go any farther than she had gone. But the Viscountess never disappointed the people. They were stunned by what she wore. She introduced the V-shaped opening under the arm, extending down to the waist. ; The revelation, intermittently dis played, depending upon the position of the wearer, made a more startling effect -than the peek-aboo waist ever did in its most 'advanced days. Old menypho had before I l - " . The Viscountess's Own Design for tt yr.. f y&C itA ' it X :.r , U. - Eveninir Gown. . I ! ; ; . ;.' ' - , 'P . 7 . J ff t i ! , 4 v r v $ - ? - . - ' -Viscountess de y iiS- . ' ' TO . - . - I Flougere ina " - V f: . - ' ' tf' 'J " Wovel Dress Cut - IT5- I ft - ' : : '..VrV 1 with a Low V. 4.- O . , ' ; ' V, vt! ... Un4er Her Arms I !', f W I 1 , I ''IV 1 i end did not want . , ' " 1 -1 K - W kV: , "to be interfered 1 f, !?$ j 1 with. I r . ti ; - t-W'!lt " I But the more 5b- '. ! ' '."Vl , V f 4 - " S woman became, - - ! l-X f, . v Jr i the more insistent- ' 1 - ' t . S ' f V f i ' r-' - - ly the Viscount- I f V H : - v T:r ss ltc ' . ' - - . ,-S? would have none of " . ; 1 I i 'Xl V him, and although I I '. . f Peed and I ; t rn"- i"-f ' u : made daily visits I i ! - ; iy -AJ D' " v Jh;; endeavoring to I '. '! " "Triwt.. - 'her mind, she re- !- V ' ?! 't" i mained firm. The .' ' 1 i . ;,f n .:; Viscount's impor- ,: , , . I . , : n.- 'i; Li-' ;T-77ir. bore her and his I v i ! jJ.'Xi- v 4.i:' C visits Interfered . f . i xW-"r " t i' with the conduct ot ! , ' J . ' . " m Za. I J ITUUli w xjwmiuw - 14 1 ', , I to get , rid of her V 1 i It swathed her form like a Mephlstophelian robe, climbed above her shoulders, clasped her neck tightly find rose p to her ears, and the long black gloves at the ends of the white, sleeves ' seemed to add another sepulchral touch. A photograph of this strange confection is printed on this page. .This woman of rank, who wears such' surprising dresses, is much more than a woman of fashion who spends her time in trying and wearing new dresses. She has been the heroine of a very Interesting " love romance, and she has worked bravely for her country. It was during the early part of the war, when the present Viscountess was at tached to a so-called hospital train bring ing the wounded from the front lines that she met the man who became her husband. These hospital trains were not the ; hos pital trains of later times. They had no clean, -well-equipped cars with beds for the wounded. They were Improvised hospital trains, composed of freight cars, In which straw had been placed and where the poor wounded rested as well as they could. It was one night while she was attend ing to the men in the dim light of the smoking lamps placed about the car, that she came upon a soldier, severely wounded but bearing his suffering like a real hero. He was covered with mua and had just, come from the front-line trenches. She was impressed by the heroic nature of the man. who would soon be taken from the train to be conveyed to a hospital, and she said: ' "When you go back to the front I will be pleased to be your . marraine, if you wish it. What is yourname?. He told her he was Jacques Nardou and gave her the number of his regiment. He added:- ,-: . v . : " t '-: "In spite of the number of men at it, war is a most lonely business, and I will be pleased to have "some one Interested in "me." , She wrote out her address for the soldier on a piece of paper. The Viscountess went on caring for the others in the car and thought nothing more of her newly adopted "godchild," who was removed at the next stop and taken on to be treated. .Her work kept her very busy, but one day, when a permission was grafted to her, sbe returned to her apart ment in Paris, to find a mass of maitbat had accumulated, among which were three letters from her "godchild" or "filleul,, Jacques Nardou. - She wrote him regularly, and sent pack ages of such necessaries as were not pro curable at the front, but her "f Uleul" was a sort of a dream, an unreal thing to her, for she never had seen him but that one time under such strange conditions. ; When she gave up" her Red Cross work she returned to Paris to occupy herself with her business, for she is a very modern woman and believes in every woman hav ing something serious to do in life. She is not only a business woman, but a most successful business woman, for she has the direction of one jf the most renowned photographic establishments in' Paris. Since she married the Viscount she has insisted on doing this work, in spite of all his protests, for she says: "No man can take independence away from a woman who works." One day, while sitting in he office on the Champ s-Ely ees, a man came in to see her who sent in his card reading: "The Vis count de . Flougere." She did not know who it was, and he seemed much amused and kept np playing a little comedy until he said: . , "Don't you know me? I'm your filleul!" The "marraine" was much embarrassed by this sudden, unexpected meetizfgT with her god-child of so many years and, ar- (Q 193, JtcrnaUooa! Feature Serrice, Inc. The Chateau de Flougere, Neat Montpellier, France. ranging her hair and discreetly using a powder rag, as every woman does under embarrassment, she said: 4 But I never knew you under that name." "T purposely 'never told you," iie Vis count replied, "for I wanted to offer it to you before you even knew It." The Parisian business woman thought he was Joking, but after having . been con vinced by the earnest exhortations of the Viscount that he was very much in earn est, she told him that such a thing as mar- rage would be impossible; that she had to , sentimental and, what was worse, liking it. did not want be Interfered with. But the more Ob durate r the little woman became, the more insistent ly the Viscount forced his argu ments. But she would have none of "t him, and although be persisted and made daily visits endeavoring to make her change ' her' mind, she re mained firm. The Viscount's impor tunities began to bore her and his visits Interfered with the conduct ot her many interests. When she became too bored she jumped a train and went to Deauville to get rid of her love-mad Viscount, But he found out where . she -had gone in some man-' ner, and she had only been by the seaside three days j , when her ardent . suitor :. - I- arrived..;.' "I do not really know Just how It oc curred," said the Viscountess, .Indulging In a pleasant reminiscence. "It must have been the sea, or the glorious sunshine or something else, but when Jacques came down there; I felt the foundation of my independence slipping, and I appreciated that I had not built so securely as I had thought. Everything he told me' seemed to be more beautiful .and had an added meaning. I found myself become actifally I have her liberty and her independence and all that. She told him that she had never even contemplated marrying " for she thought her happiness and contentment could never be found in being tied to a maujfor life. She had to live her own life Great BriUin Bijht lessened. V too. wen, in a wees s time I was won, but with certain conditions. Those condi tions were jthat I should have my full liberty to do as I wanted; could maintain my own apartment as I had always main tained it; should continue my career and In a Curious Sepulchral Gown Sug getting an Undertaker's Shroud I my husband was In no way to interfere " la it. ; ." ; - j - "So, when I dress in a gown and come down to the salon to go to the theatre or ' dinner and I find my noble husband making faces of disapprobation when he sees me, I absolutely ignore him, for I dress as I wish and to please myself. t "I do not think that anything that S la artistic could be questioned morally, r I grant my gowns are sensational and ex treme, but they are always -artistic and pretty. It Is the great passion of my life to dress well. Two things rule my life, .my love, for dress and my career. Out side of our many disputes about my clothe?, our married life has been one of great happiness. When Jacques, is very good, I sometimes invite him over to my apartment for dinner. We have great rlvalrj' as to who . runs the best estab" ' lishment!"