CANNES.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 April 1927, Page 4

CANNES.

PLAYGROUND OK Al 11,1.1 ()XA lil KS. (By J. Al. X. Jeffries in the “Daily Mail.”) CANNES, Feb. 17. I felt a certain hesitation about going to Cannes for the lirsl time; 1 rather questioned my fitness to enter that extremely exclusive town. Everyone knows that Cannes is the highest peak in the social mountains of Europe, that it is where fashion is fashioned, that it is at Cannes the ruling aristocracies of tennis and

linauce meet and combine in a sunburst of vogue, that it is to Cannes dukes go and millionaires in order to see millionaire-dukes. So I very much doubted whether Cannes wanted liisual wayfarers, and in any ease I was sure 1 should feel very out of place.

It all shows that you never know. I rd.iched Cannes and there, stretching oif the right of the casino, were so maiiv trees that they made a small

wood, an intricate mass of scarred while trunks and immmei'ible twisted branches above them. There was not a leaf upon them; they were just the ordinary sort of trees which go bald

in the autumn. Honest, wel-mndc sort of trees they were, too. and even, as they hulked in a hundred wreathed entanglements, very -attractive to artists and all that. But they were not vl.vit one expected

f Cannes, those bourgeois trees

And the background as you looked from the sea was too pathetically simple. A few modest foothills, il you please, with actually a top ot i tail

chimney peeping over a corner ol one of them. 1 have never felt so disappointed. Did one come to Cannes lor spontaneous, unpolished landscape ol this type?

In dism'.iy I walked along the Croisettc, and Cannes begun to pull itsell together. Palm tress waved overhead; tall white hotels loomed up. And pro seiitly 1 caught sight of a plm'ird proclaiming. “Diner de Gala" ai one ol the hotels, lu Hit- very relined Ki'em h

spoken at Cannes “gali means “t nan - pagne," s r > I felt that at last I v.as on the right track. Presentlv 1 turned into a sort of

floral court, a place of green furl in the centre with arcades of simps on either side. Their windows were lilleu with dresses and jewels, the jewels s> larg.- and the dresses so small, and

all glittering so much that there was little difference between them. Opuent persons appeared from nowhere and went sauntering past the dazzling

windows. Iwo wonder! al American girls stood ill musing ecstasy before one display. "Now why do .1 like that dress'” cried one. The other did not seem to know. They stood still ill reflection before it, a silk slip of it thin mustard colour which had been out in a drizzle of coral heads.

Soon two men came walking past me as I 'advanced, in active and sonorous conversation. “Dow many pearls you added to that necklace this year, George?'' asked one. “'Bout ten, I guess,*' said George tis they went from hearing. Yes, Cannes was Cannes alter all, despite the wood and the foothills. 1 came out of the amides and before me was another placard. “Grand Diner do Gala I'louri. A little further and I was in the heart of exclusiveness. The shops v.ero growing smaller and smaller, and as they narrowed to diamond-points ol smallness and distinction the less they showed in their windows. There wus clearly a sort of latent competition among them to suggest infinite possibilities inside by a handkerchief and a bottle of perfume in the window or two handkerrlnels and ii flower. The effect which suggested most by the oddest combination won. Here was '.i purse and a bottle of perfume, but more strikingly, i thought, were the little pink satin quilt and a ring in another window. The prize, though, went to tincostly dressmaker who displayed two belts and three dusters. They looked like dusters anyhow, three little folded piles of coloured materi.il. With regard to the perfumes, Cannes seems to have opted for sinister perfumes, mysterious chased hack or violet bottles, bearing titles like “Rrendis Garde!” or “Cut!” or “Nuit Sans Etoiles” (“Beware!” and “Hist!” and “Starless Night).” Walking back to the car which had brought me. 1 thought one of the bottles would look very modish in the middle of one of the yacht gangways. ] And then a more awful thought drove this from my mind as the car moved off. 1 had been some hours in , Cannes and I had not seen a single tennis player. fk> may you go to Naples and Vesuvius never erupt.