The Peerage Goes to Work

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

The Peerage Goes to Work

Continued from Page 17) Prince George of Russia is one of the leading decorators here. He is one of the most modern, undoubtedly inspired, as most in the profession have been, by Leon Bakst, though modern decorators are getting away from the strong colours, and are favouring the paler and more subtle tones. The prince did the walls cf the Duveen wing of the Tate Gallery with a specially-coloured canvas that was both praised and condemned by artists and critics. Personally, I think it too aggressive. Lady Clanmorrls Is a director of Marshall and Lupton, a leading firm of decorators, who do a great deal of work for country houses. She also runs a dressmaking shop in Abermarle Street. Lady Victor Paget is another who combines the two professions. Lady Dean Paul is one of the bestknown titled women decorators. She is. a most charming person, vivacious and beautiful. She has composed a good deal ol’ music under the name of Poldowski, as she should, being a daughter of the Polish violinist, Wienieawski. She is very dark, and dresses always like a Parisian. She has that smooth raven-black hair that makes any face look impressive. She favours bizarre jewellery, and often wears a gold serpent round her neck. She Is now established in London, doing decorations for several big West End firms.

I musn’t forget Cen Fearnley, now retired from the firm bearing his name, and working independently as a decorator. He is one of the most original of the younger artists in decor, and is kept going designing for the stage and for modern flats-de-luxe. He is a lover, too, of all the good things of his time, and is welt known in the smart set. He wears most beautifully-cut clothes to set off his good looks. He is interested in writing as well, and is now getting his short stories into American and English magazines. He ought to have brains, above the ordinary, for his mother is a relative of Thomas Carlyle. Decoration has recently claimed two well-known women who now run busy shops. Mrs. Denniston, she of the famous case, runs “Rufus” in Brook Street and Mrs. Somerset Maughan, a figure in the smart set, runs Syrie, Ltd., in Duke Street, and has a branch shop in Chicago, where, I am told, she is making piles of money. I began these rambling remarks with journalism, to which I now return. It is impossible to keep track of the titles in the writing profession. One can only mention a few of the latest. Lady Eleanor Smith, the young daughter of Lord Birkenhead, now runs the society page in the “Weekly Despatch.” She is a charming girl, small and very vivacious. She loves dancing, and she is a keen cinema enthusiast.

Then Lady Sybil Grant, the daughter of Lord Rosebery, who has recently published a novel, “The Riding Light,” has been immediately snapped up by the daily press for special articles. From what I have heard of her book and from the articles I have seen, I gather she has plenty to say of that poor despised old generation now shaking in its slippers under the darts of the moderns. Daring and scathing books are now so common that one could almost welcome a sugary Victorian novelist again. We have Vera, Countess Cathcart, the lady who had some unfortunate dealings with Ellis Island. Her play “Ashes,” designed to shock, failed in both London and New York. Her last novel, “A Woman Tempted,” has not brought down the skies. Another recent novel by a titled writer is “That Fool of a Woman,' by Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, now Lady Hawes. I can’t say anything about it, as I know nothing of it but its name. These are but a mere handful of the large number of society women who are glad to earn an honest penny, or some fresh publicity by their pen. A title is an asset these days. It is worth rfiany guineas more per thou sand words than the mere plain names of many good and deserving writers It is no use grumbling. If the general public wants to know what Lady Wilson has to say about legs, or how the Earl of Cottenham washes his car, and if it doesn’t care a tinker’s cuss for what non-handled writers might think about the same thing or do about the same thing there is nothing to be done about it.

Personally, I feel it is a good thing that members of a hitherto exclusive class are breaking away from their rigid confines. They bring their traditions, their charm, their cultivation with them. Their gaiety lightens up the heavy-weight middle-class moralistic point of view. And they themselves gain in sympathy by contact with a class that mostly has to struggle through long years of poverty before it wins out to financial success. There has been much criticism lately of the public school mind, of the socalled barrier that exists between those who have known the sacred precincts of some one of the great schools and those who have not. There is certainly one function in London where these distinctions break down, and that is the studio party. It is the purest democracy on earth. JANE MANDER.