THE PROMISE OF A NEW DRESS
The Cazalet Chronicles, a trilogy of novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard, follows a wealthy English family during World War II. Three generations of the family, along with their servants, lovers, nurses, school friends, and a governess, retreat to a country estate in Sussex to brave out the war. The daily life here is richly described. Howard has a gift in offering seemingly mundane details (what’s served for dinner, what’s blooming in the garden, what’s being worn) that also, somehow, work to reveal the inner life of each character. There’s a precision and ease about the writing that makes the harried, melodramatic storytelling on Downton Abbey, which covers similar territory, seem downright amateurish.
During the war clothing can only be purchased with ration coupons, so the Cazalet women continually mend existing garments and fashion new ones from scraps. But every so often they take the train into London and visit a dress shop run by the socialite Hermoine Monkworth. They typically visit as they are about to embark on a new romantic drama, and Hermoine outfits them properly for it while also offering words of encouragement. For these ladies a new dress is more than a new dress. It’s a treasure, a talisman for romance, glamor and sex in a world whose foundations seem to be crumbling about them.
Juliettte Longuet’s silk Olympe dress is that kind of dress. It’s both modern and modest, cut slim, skimming the body, without any fuss. Villy could wear it to to rendezvous with her composer heartthrob, Angela to go dancing at a club, or Zoe to meet her soldier paramour. It’s a warm, deep shade of peacock blue that would draw attention in the dark wood-paneled lounge of a private club, or a first class train compartment. The silk has a lustrous skin, and is embellished with tiny pintucks and bias inserts. The dress has been crafted like jewelry, and would feel just as precious for the woman wearing it.
Image courtesy of Juliette Longuet.
