The High Season in New York

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 271, 6 February 1928, Page 4

The High Season in New York

World’s Luxury and Culture at Women’s Service

NEW YORK CITY'. I always wonder when I return to New York how the New York woman gets through the winter season without a nervous 'breakdown, writes a newspaper correspondent. She dashes about from party to party giving a few hours to the opera, attending the best plays at the 90 odd theatres the city boasts, facing the servant prob- ■ lem with calm, dancing till well into the morning at someone’s house or at a smart night club. She fits in a few committee meetings, lectures at her club, exhibitions and concerts, and appears each day looking as fresfi and gay as if she took life very easily instead of more strenuously than any other woman in the world. Buying Her Way Through Difficulties I think one reason is that she never seems to worry about money. She buys her way through difficulties. If her servants leave suddenly she merely rings up one of the Scientific Housekeeping Bureaux and gets them to send a corps of servants for different hours and, as servants from these bureaux are women of edueatoin who go out for so many hours a day and are trained to undertake any kind of housework scientifically, she washes her hands of household matters and leaves it to them until she can engage a staff of regular servants who are less \ expensive. Palatial Flats for Entertaining If she wishes to bring her daughter out into society and not care to upset her household by giving the big ball or dinner at home, she arranges to hold it in one of the smart hotels or restaurants pr service flats. The newest of these, this year, is the Sherry-Netherland, which is designed like dn Italian palace, has wonderful French “cooking, and is American only in its very high prices. She can take a furnished flat here for the night of the entertainment. If it is a dinner, the large dining room will be superbly decorated for her with out-of-season flowers, and the meal will be sent up a shaft from the kitchen, which is like a factory with its telephoneswitchboard and its amaizng cookers, refrigerators, and so on, all white and shining. She can have her own butler and footman to serve, her own maids, and she can use the flat exactly as if it were her own home. If it is a ball she is giving then she

takes one of fhe Hats with ballrooms, and everything is arranged for her by the hotel apartment service. All she or her husband does is to pay the bill. If she goes to market herself as one of her home duties (and there are many American women who are very house proud and love home duties) she finds a very great variety of foods from all parts of the Continent. She can get delicious fresh asparagus now [ and new peas. Very soon there will be tempting strawberries. She can get chicory from Belgium and melons from California, tropical fruits from the West Indies, and French artichokes from Florida. Delicacies from all over the world and from every I State in the Union are sent to the ! New York markets for her choice. The City of Beauty Salons For her, too, are the greatest opera singers in the world imported to America. For her the greatest painters bring their pictures to her city. For her are produced the costliest magazines. To catch her eye hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on advertising. Because of her there are three times as many beauty salons in New York as in any otlier city. If she can afford it she may go to one of the perfumers, choose a scent which suits her “personality/’ and her soaps, powders, cosmetics and bath salts will emit its elusive 'odour. So many times a year a chic young woman will come from the perfumer and refill her sachets and the silken hangers on which her clothes are kept. Fashions That Are Quickly Copied This year she is using very little make-up. It has become too general. She is wearing very soft, clinging furs, very short skirts, and very small hats that pull well down on the head and completely hide the hair. She gives so many hours a week to the care of that hair, so many to her face and figure. Of course, it is only the very rich women who can do these things in such lavish fashion, but the less rich women do thenv in their own way, and the quite poor woman copies the other's as far as she can. Individuality is not possible in feminine America, for anything novel is so quickly copied and standardised all over the country at different prices that its novelty is gone almost as soon as it has appeared. A Brilliant Time This winter she is promised a most brilliant season. There are ' some hundred debuntantes to be launched. There are any number of distinguished and titled visitors from abroad, and there are a few thousand entertainments of various kinds to be crowded into the next few months.