RetroXotique

Zoe was deeply fashion-conscious, some people would have said excessively so; and she had turned her native intelligence and passion for order to this. She had divided her clothes up into many different systems of classification: by time of year, by suitable envi­ronment, by who had seen them, and so forth. Today she was selecting something to wear on an autumn morning to a semi-formal engagement with someone who being male had seen few of her clothes and would not remember them well. It had to be something which though restrained and unostentatious had to be in be in the highest category of allure, and to this end she used another cataloguing system she had made out: that of underwear. The bottom rung was of clothes that required no special underpinning, clothes to be worn only in the house where nobody but her immediate family might see her. Most of her clothes lay in a second bracket, requiring a firm bra and strong girdle beneath them to tidy up her fig­ure, and beyond that was a more refined category which involved more powerful under­wear, things that needed a real effort to get them closed with concomitant problems of comfort. Then there was the last category, very select: the clothes for which appearance was all, comfort no object, clothes for which the foundation was on the limit of what was bear­able. Most of the garments in this classification were evening dresses, for occasions when it was customary to pull out all the stops; there were also a handful of colourful suits and dresses for weddings, garden-parties and so forth, all clothes intended to make you look. For many years there had been no subdued outfits in this category, because she had never thought it necessary, and it was only when this engagement had been made that she had sent one of her suits to be altered until it had a waist as small as her best ball-gown. It was not going to be fun to wear, but it was vital. She must not look as if she was trying to impress someone, in case she attracted too much attention; but the someone she was trying to impress had to be very impressed indeed.

It was 1951, and Zoe Conway had been married for twenty-five years and was bored with it. She had been born of a moderately successful upper-middle-class family, and had they been more interested in education she might have been a happier person; but back then, in the 1910’s and 20’s, many people still did not think that girls should get higher education. It was all right for her to stay at a public school until she was eighteen (English and mathematics, being her strong subjects, by the way), but once she had finished the important thing was to get her married off as fast as possible, and to someone worth having. By stupendous efforts her father managed this in less than a year, and in 1927, when she was only nineteen, Zoe Harris was married to one Hamish Conway, a junior partner in a private bank in the City and nine years her senior. She did not like him particularly, but the dual prospects of financial security and a place in much higher society were enough to provoke some residual affection for him. She did not make a scene in the church, and her father almost burst with pride on learning soon afterwards that a French Duke had given one of his accounts to Hamish. This, he felt, was his first grappling-hook embedded in the walls of society, and with care his other children could give him a few more handholds. He set to work.

Zoe’s relationship with her husband was never very close. The gap in their ages was not insurmountable, but they were very different people. Zoe was rather cleverer than her husband, and passionately interested in art, literature, interior decoration, parties and clothes; Hamish was mainly interested in money and influence, at which he was very good. Each was able to help the other in some ways, Hamish provided the money and the contacts with Society proper which Zoe required for her projects, and she in turn acted the perfect hostess and partner when called upon, but there were few moments of closeness. They produced three children, two boys and a girl, but generally speaking they slept in separate rooms.

Considering the mess, it is more surprising than anything else that Zoe waited until 1951, when she was in her early forties, to have a serious affair. Partly it was her upbringing: she had had an aunt who had committed suicide when she found out her husband was seeing another woman, and this had been the occasion for a long lecture from her father on the evils of unfaithfulness. This lecture had been repeated at regular intervals to her and the rest of the family, and it had had the desired effect: she had made a solemn and private oath never to seek pleasure with any but her husband. It became apparent to her not long after she married that there would be little pleasure from that quarter, but the inhibition was strong. Also, she was afraid of being found out. Since her marriage her education had stopped, apart from what she picked up from her reading, and the intelligence which would have been better used composing essays on Spenser or solving differential equations was concentrated into manipulation and bitchiness; still, she knew that when it came to making a rendezvous with another man, however short and unambitious, there were a hundred and one things that could go wrong. Walls could suddenly sprout mutual friends with long tongues, and more than anything she feared drying up when required to produce an excuse. She could not imagine Hamish committing suicide if he found her out, and cer­tainly she would not do such a thing, but she suspected her position in Society and her income would be drastically compromised.

She had changed her mind gradually, for two reasons. Firstly, over the years the indica­tions were gradually mounting that Hamish was sowing his oats elsewhere. This affected Zoe because she felt betrayed and cheapened, not because she particularly wanted his attention herself: and that was the other reason. Hamish had not aged well, and like most of his pals had developed a comfortable pot-belly. In a suit and waistcoat, with a watch-chain stretched across it, sitting behind a desk in an oak-panelled office, that pot-belly was reassuring: it told customers that its owner knew how to make money and keep it, that here was a man who kept himself in luxuries and could do the same for you. But naked it was an ugly thing, covered in broken veins and wispy greying hair, hanging over the top of his underpants or his pyjama bottoms. One evening when he had come into her room expect­ing his conjugal rights he had happened to stand side-on to her, and she had noticed that his navel was now further forward than the end of his erect penis. That was a real passion killer, and though he eventually got what he had come for Zoe didn’t. She no longer had the urges she had had as a younger woman, but there were still a few feelings left, and she wanted to indulge them as long as they lasted.

Some wives might have suddenly become vain, causing some husbands to become suspicious, but Zoe had perfect cover: she was already as vain as she could possibly get, and when she began her hunt no difference was appreciable to Hamish. As a young woman she had not been outstanding, but she had aged well; that is, she had not lost much ground where many of her really pretty contemporaries had slipped back drastically. She had a strong face with good bone-structure, and now that the skin that wrapped it was beginning to crease that was something to be thankful for: it was mainly the cheekbones, the jawline, the nose that an observer noticed, not the wrinkles as with some other women. She had always been tall, with good posture, and though she did not know it she had reached a peak of grace in her movements. She no longer had the energy to move suddenly or quickly, and she had thirty years of practise in getting things right first time, being smooth and economical; but she was not yet old enough to be visibly stiff, except about the back, and her underwear made that inevitable anyway. Her hair had gone grey steadily rather young, but after all one dyed it. She had begun to put on weight in inappropriate places, diet as she might; but the New Look four years before had made corsetry fashionable even for the young and flawless, and if Zoe had her maid lace her corset until her eyes bulged slightly that was her business.

And that was how it was to be today. As she stood before the mirror fastening the hooks down the front of her corset, she reflected bitterly on the tragedy of ageing. If nothing went wrong, and she could not count on that, there would be some serious pleasure to be had this morning; but she had to suffer to get the best out of it. For both of their sakes, she was convinced, she had to look her best: her confidence rose in proportion to her idea of her appearance, and of course the better the significant other thought she looked the keener he would be. If that meant not being able to breathe, it was just too bad. She only had to stand it half an hour or an hour at most, and then she would be getting a very nice rest. It might be tiring, but it would be sans corset. Maids were not the necessity they had been before the war: they were a luxury and an expensive one, for girls could get a better-paid and less trying job in a factory. The Conways had had to pay this one a great deal to get her to stay, and she was not what they would have wanted; moreover, she was a combination lady’s maid and housekeeper, which to Zoe meant that she was Shirley of all trades and mistress of none. They put up with her mainly because they feared ending up with nobody if she left: Hamish was incapable of doing the housework, and Zoe could have but wouldn’t. But that didn’t mean they had to like her, or treat her as an equal. “I ain’t seen you laced this tight in the daytime since I came here, Mrs Conway,” Shirley said as she tied off the laces. “Where you off to, then?”

“Mind your own business, Shirley.”

Shirley shrugged her shoulders and when she thought she was out of sight made a face at Zoe’s back. Zoe saw her in the mirror, but she could not be bothered to argue about it. She sat down on the bed and had Shirley put her stockings on for her, as she could no longer reach her feet. Then she stood up again—something of a relief; she couldn’t breathe easily anywhere, but it was harder sitting down—and looked out towards the net-curtains while Shirley carefully picked up the skirt of Zoe’s best suit. Insolent she might be, but she had learnt that maltreating her mistress’ clothes hit her in the pocket hard, and she had decided it was simpler in the long run to treat them with reverence.

Shirley shook the skirt out carefully. It was, at this stage at least, a typical suit skirt of the time: long and narrow, with a slit at the bottom. It was also expensively made, beautifully lined with what felt like silk, and carefully tailored from brown wool. The zip and button at the side was already open: now Shirley knelt on the floor holding the two sides of the waistband, while Zoe carefully stepped into it. When her mistress had both feet on the car­pet and inside the skirt, Shirley carefully set about pulling it up. This was not easy: the skirt was extremely tight, having been taken in by the dressmaker at Zoe’s request when the suit to which it belonged had been promoted for this special occasion. It took a lot of tugging and wriggling and working round with thumbs against the lining before it reached its final position. Shirley smoothed it carefully around Zoe’s hips, then pulled on the waistband and with a bit of an effort fastened the button. She then set to the zip, and did not quite manage to get it to the top; but the half-inch or so left would not be apparent under the jacket. She stood back while Zoe hobbled over to the mirror to take a look.

It was satisfactory. Her legs had always been long, and while not as good as they had once been they were still adequate for something like this, as long as she wore corsetry to compress her hips and behind—which the tight corset was doing more than adequately. The skirt was somewhat more than skin-tight, which in those days was considered vulgar, but Zoe was prepared to face that. For one thing, she would not be facing female critics who put good taste and adherence to the letter of fashion’s law ahead of allure. More importantly, she wanted to maximise her effect on her audience at every stage, and a skirt which brought out every curve of her figure while entirely concealing it should excite due interest in later seeing the shapes thus exhibited for themselves. The sharp taper of the skirt also ensured that her thighs strained against the fabric with every step, again showing off their shape to anyone within range. It was of course very hard to walk, and she would have to be wary of splitting it—sit slowly, don’t bend over, and attempt stairs only with cau­tion—if she were to avoid the catastrophe of a burst seam. That was a risk she was pre­pared to take.

She swivelled before the mirror, posing this way and that. Usually she dressed for her own self-respect, that is, to transform herself into a class of walking work of art, defined according to criteria that included being up-to-the-minute fashionable, looking elegant, and seeming as young as possible while retaining her dignity. All these were important today, but she was also dressing to be undressed, and that was why she had chosen the corset. Normally a suit like this would have been underpinned by a bra and back-laced girdle, but that choice of foundationwear had a horribly functional, ageing appearance in the mirror. The worst thing was that in the gap between them a little ridge of fat would poke out, making her look overweight and half-finished. Under a suit it would not notice, but she was going to be seen without her suit today. The corset kept her whole body in a smooth line, and it had an elegant appearance in itself, like the bodice of a strapless dress. As well as being strong, it was the prettiest of her large collection: black lace over white satin covering the heavy material that did all the hard work. A bra and a girdle would have been an anti­climax after the shapely suit; the corset would keep her image up to scratch right down to the skin.

Satisfied, she minced over to the dressing table and picked up a silk scarf that lay on it. Just a look at that scarf could have shown you her income, if you knew what you were about: the pure white material, the softness of it, the fine pleating that could only have been done laboriously by hand all talked of someone who did not have to think about prices. The scarf was about three feet long, about eight inches wide in itself, but made of a much wider piece of material compressed laterally by the pleats. Zoe passed it around her neck, keeping the ends even, and carefully crossed it over at the bottom without making any kind of loop. She patted it into place with the two branches intersecting on her chest just above the neckline of her corset, and looked over at the maid.

“Shirley,” she said, “the jacket.”

The jacket to the suit was still on its hanger, hung to the wardrobe door; Zoe would never have allowed one of her good jackets to hang on the back of a chair and get out of shape. Shirley picked it up, grasping it by the tops of the lapels, and came up behind Zoe. Her mistress put her arms out behind her, and carefully they were inserted into the sleeves.

Rich people of both sexes have someone to help them put a jacket on; poor people have to do it themselves. This is called “luxury”. In this case, however, the help of a maid was not primarily a luxury, though Zoe would probably have insisted on it in any case. This was a first-class formal suit jacket of its time, which meant that there was no spare room in it whatsoever: so that when putting it on you had to get it right first time. Moreover, Dior’s New Look had insisted on sharply sloped shoulders for women’s clothes, so that the arm­holes were tight and narrow; and tight and narrow were the sleeves, so that to get to the ends of them Zoe had to curl her thumbs in as she would to put on a bracelet.

Once the shoulders of the jacket and of the woman inside it were in the same place, Shirley went on to the next stage of her work. Putting on a jacket like this was a complicated process, which was not made easier by hurrying. Before she could do anything else, she had to make sure the sleeves were straight; so she tugged them down and twisted them until they ran perfectly and without a crease down from shoulder to wrist. They were so tight that it would be difficult for Zoe to bend her elbows, but that was something else she would just have to live with. The sleeves were meant to show off how womanly her arms were, how narrow and elegant and entirely lacking in muscle; and as far as was possible through the woollen fabric, they did that perfectly.

The next stage was the waist cord. The jacket was extremely elaborately shaped and waisted, with sharply curved side seams and no less than eight darts pulling it in to a tiny waist: tinier still since Zoe had had it altered, so that the jacket was now a true hourglass. It was very heavily constructed with interlinings and stiffenings to make it hold its shape, but to make absolutely sure the waist was just as tight as possible there was a tape stitched firmly into the lining with its ends coming out at the front. Shirley tugged hard on the ends of the tape, for she knew that Zoe liked her waist cord to be pulled very tightly to make sure the jacket curved to every contour of her figure—or rather, of her underwear, for no jacket so tight could be worn without an artificial foundation. Then, taking care not to let the cord slip even a fraction of an inch, she tied it off.

Now they were nearly done; but before they could finish, Zoe had to attend to her scarf again. The jacket was far too tight to wear a blouse under; the scarf was to fill in her neck­line, which otherwise would have been an empty plunge that was not consistent with one’s responsibilities as a truly elegant lady. She carefully smoothed it into position under the jacket, which already gripped her corset tightly even though it was technically unfastened. When she was satisfied she said “All right, go ahead” and Shirley ceremonially fastened the button. There was only one: a large, black button right in the centre of the jacket at the nar­rowest part of the waist. The corset nipped her waist in so sharply that the button was almost hidden by the two halves of the hourglass expanding above and below it, but it had to be there. She had chosen this jacket carefully, and the single button had been part of its attractions. The revers reached sharply in from either side, passing each other almost at the widest part of her bust—so that, the cut implied, were it not for the scarf her cleavage would be on show—and the two sides were apparently held together only by that one button. 

That was the impression she wanted to give: the firm, dramatic hourglass figure under the jacket, and the idea that only a silk scarf and one big button kept it concealed. Zoe carefully sat down on the bed, while Shirley eased her shoes on: black courts, of course with pointed toes and very high heels. She stood up again, and appreciated it. Her legs were still longer now, and there was that improved, flattering posture that high heels gave her, with her bust projecting and her stomach more hollow. Now for the other acces­sories: black bracelet-length kid gloves, again as tight as possible so that they had to be eased on with help from Shirley; a neat black hat, almost a pillbox but with a small turned-over brim that perched on the front of her head, a ladylike veil hanging from it over her face; and a wonderful umbrella, long enough to reach almost to her waist when she stood it on its end, and wrapped as tightly in silk as she was in wool. She liked long, tightly-wound umbrellas with suits: the umbrella echoed your own contours, like a fantastically idealised companion.

She went back to the mirror for the last time and admired herself at length. There it all was. Her figure was at its best, her hips well under control, her bust pushed up and enlarged by the corset, her waist breathtakingly tiny. The suit could not have been tighter, but it retained that all-important elegance and restraint without which she was nothing. The umbrella, gloves and hat were immaculate, and just what was needed. Her elaborate make-up had been completed before any of this had started, her long brown hair (grey actually, and had she known it just visibly fading at the roots, but brown to the world outside) strained back and ingeniously folded into the fashionable French pleat at the back of her head. Jewellery was no more than a pair of very plain ear-rings: too much would spoil the elegant simplicity that was her aim. They were very expensive, brought from Paris, two disks of black jet polished to mirror-brightness, and finely engraved. Probably nobody would be looking closely enough at them for this to be detected, but Zoe did not think that way. Details mattered to her, and unless she was perfect in every respect she could not feel at ease on an important occasion.

She struck a few poses, leaning on the umbrella, standing with her hands on her hips, wiggling back and forth. The shoes made balance very difficult, but by a titanic effort she managed to restrict her ankles merely to quivering instead of the frantic wobble to be seen on many women who wore such high heels. That was a weakness she could do no more about; but otherwise, as far as she could see, from the crown of her hat to the soles of her shoes she was perfect. Time for the last stage.

“Shirley,” she said, “my coat, please.”

This coat was one of the oldest items of clothing she was still prepared to wear. It was rather exaggeratedly in the fashion of four years ago; but it was far closer to the fashion of today than it was to the fashion of a year before that. For most occasions it was so luxurious and shapely as to be rather excessive, but for best, for wearing over a full evening dress, it was the only thing that she had ever seen which was truly up to the standard of what would be beneath it. A year or two ago, when it had gone out of immediate fashion, she had had it altered, the waist taken in, so that it would fit properly over the tightest of bodices, and so now it was just suitable for the new, improved best suit.

It was a classically New Look coat of brown wool, double-breasted with four pairs of buttons (only three of which could be fastened), arranged to narrow in to the lowest pair at the waist. In accordance with the silhouette introduced in 1947, the sleeves and bodice were very tight, and the skirt immensely full. This was its attraction for the evening: Zoe’s evening dresses often had vast skirts, and the coat was cut very much as the dresses would be. Its waist was tiny—again, still tinier since it had been altered—and made to look smaller still not only by the huge skirts, but by pads built into the fabric under the hips which made them stand out, so that they expanded out from the wasp-waist almost at right angles. Their width was firmly emphasised still further by a pair of big pockets just on the broadest part of the hip. Over a full evening dress it had the attraction that it drew attention to the curves of her figure while allowing the skirt freedom and not crushing it; over a tight dress or suit, like the one she was wearing today, it had the attraction that it concealed the pencil skirt, giving a shock effect when it was revealed as the coat was taken off. Despite its age, the coat was a badge of pride for Zoe: it was a genuine New Look coat designed by Dior himself, albeit not for her personally, and bought right at the start of that fashion way back in March 1947. Thereby hung a tale, and a murky one. When Zoe first read of the New Look, in the rather slighting articles in the papers which implied it was a frivolity that austere Britain could not afford, she knew it was made for her. It was not merely her ordinary fashion-consciousness: she knew her characteristics, and she realised that her careful deportment, height, haughty dignity and residually good figure would suit this style to perfection. The articles complained bitterly about the cost of such vast skirts, but Hamish was still rich; though he had been a good citizen and paid in money to war bonds, he had also involved himself prudently in black-market activities, profiteering, and all sorts of other things under the carpet, so that he came out of the war significantly better off than he had gone into it.

 The real difficulty was rationing. Such clothes were not available in Britain, and were not likely to be; and even if they were, the fabric ration meant that they would eat away at the rest of her potential wardrobe: a New Look dress might take six or  even seven times as many coupons as an equivalent old-style outfit. There was no way to get round this, so there was only one thing to do. No, not give up. Cheat.

Several days of frantic thought and arguing with her husband had evolved the perfect plan. In March it became convenient for the bank to send Hamish to Paris, where he talked about finance for reconstruction, loans to restart businesses, the distribution of aid from America, and so forth, while his wife went in and out of the back door of Seeburger Frères. A few discreet conversations had been had, a few mutual friends mentioned, a little money changed hands (what the French call a pot-de-vin) and it had been agreed that Zoe should choose X quantity of new outfits. The amount in question had been the subject of much heated discussion, and some crocodile tears: it was much more than Hamish considered safe and much less than Zoe considered vital. They had finally agreed on a number which suited neither party as being the most equitable solution.

Though of course she would have liked more, Zoe put her talent for organisation to work, and faced with a peculiar form of rationing excelled herself in choosing a versatile new wardrobe which would flatter her, put her in the forefront of fashion in London, and allow her to ring the changes skilfully so that it would appear she had far more than she actually had. She hoped to have a few outfits for every occasion, by changing accessories and minor details, enough to make her stand out.

Then the price had to be paid. It was vastly more than the “face value” of the clothes concerned, but to the shop they represented a large quantity of carefully rationed fabric that was apparently going to vanish off the face of the earth; they needed an incentive to be inventive with their excuses if anyone investigated. The clothes were very carefully packed in cardboard boxes between layers of tissue paper, the boxes stacked into wooden crates, and the wooden crates delivered by the back door to an old school friend at the British Embassy. Then Mr and Mrs Conway returned home by the usual route, taking their innocent luggage with them; and a little later, a number of crates came back on an aeroplane in the diplomatic bag, were diplomatically diverted soon after reaching the ground, and after some toing and froing to confuse the trail eventually trickled into the tradesmen’s entrance of the Conway house in London. Zoe was ecstatic: at a stroke she became the best-dressed and most fashionable of her circle of friends. Many had done this and that, had a dress altered or two dresses sewn together, and a few had been to America and brought back clothes from there; but that could only be one or two outfits. Zoe had a nearly complete wardrobe, and for a year or more she triumphantly stood out from the crowd. She kept the trick Hamish had arranged secret, and certain busybodies who tried to investigate were quietly told that if they valued their jobs they had better leave Mrs Conway alone; and so she got away with it. Now it was much easier to get clothes, and New Look outfits were far from the expensive rarities they had been in 1947; but the coup she had pulled off then had given her kudos which had not been dispelled by others catching up. So it was that she was attached to the clothes she had obtained so nefariously, and even those she had worn several times she was inclined to keep.

With the coat buttoned up, she was complete. She admired herself in the mirror, twisting this way and that to make the skirts of the coat swish around herself, then turned briskly to Shirley.

“I shall be out the rest of the morning, and probably until early this afternoon,” she said. “Please tell the cook we will be dining in tonight, and Peter and Charlotte,” these were her son and daughter-in-law, the former already a well-established and prosperous member of the bank which employed Hamish, “will be with us.” She turned and hobbled out of the room, her coat swishing behind her.

Shirley hurried after her as she began carefully picking her way down the stairs, her gloved hand tightly gripping the banisters, taking the smallest possible steps in case she tore the slit on her skirt. “Will you be wanting me to phone for a taxi, ma’am?”

“No thank you, Shirley, there’s no need. I’ll find one in the street.” She didn’t want to phone for a taxi because she would have to give the destination, and she didn’t want any­one to overhear. In the hall she picked up her handbag, or the one that she had chosen for today: armed with a fair amount of cash, personal documents, a handkerchief for which there was no room anywhere on her person, a hairbrush, pots and jars of make-up, and a little sewing kit which in these days of tight jackets and tighter skirts was often a life-saver. Taking her jewelled key-fob from the table beside it, she swept out of the door and slammed it behind her.

She was in the street. Good. That felt better, with nobody looking at her. As long as she didn’t meet a friend before she met a taxi, she would be in the clear. She stalked down the road with tiny rapid steps, scanning left and right, until a taxi appeared. She hailed it with upraised umbrella, got in, and spoke the name of the hotel. The driver did not know her, and had no reason to suspect, she reminded herself; he drove off without a word.