I've been digging around to try and uncover some more information about the appearance of Lucile Brooke (as she was by that point, following her divorce from Billy and re-marriage the previous year) at Tessie Oelrich's spectacular charity soirée, 'Fashion's Passing Show', which she held at her Newport 'cottage', Rosecliff, in the last week of July, 1915.
http://tickets.newportmansions.org/mansion.aspx?id=1001
By all accounts, this was really the event of the summer season and all the colony's elite came flocking to help raise funds for French and Belgian war refugees. One wonders if the loss of one of their members, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, on the
Lusitania a couple of months previously had done something to galvanise them in their support of the beleaguered Allied cause. Whether it had or not, Society was out in force, marshalled by Mrs Oelrich's fellow committee members, Mrs Whitney Warren, Mrs Ogden Mills and Mrs Condé Nast. Besides Lucile Brooke, guests included such
Titanic personalities as Margaret 'Molly' Brown with her daughter, Helen, Mr and Mrs Vincent Astor and Eleanor Widener, accompanied not only by her son, George Junior, and her daughter, Mrs Fitz Eugene Dixon (nicknamed 'Dimple'), but also by her late husband's brother and sister-in-law, the Joseph E. Wideners.
The day's events fell into three parts. The first was the fashion show itself, which commenced at 4 o'clock promptly. If the description in
The New York Times is to be believed, then this was so twee as to verge on the downright camp. The opening tableau was called 'Looking into Fashion's Mirror' and featured a number of professional mannequins bathing in the fountain on the lawn (shades of Busby Berkeley here) whilst impersonating the various daughters of Neptune, 'Sea Foam', 'Charm of the Ocean' and so on. There then followed several more coy little vignettes, supposedly representing the various times of a typical Newport day, each with appropriate costumes - 'Tennis at the Casino' (self-explanatory), 'A Girl and a Goal in Sight' (polo), 'Tea at the Trianon' and 'The Dauphin's Bride', which depicted a wedding party on the lawn, complete with organ and bridesmaids. After that was over, the 'Pageant of the Nations' commenced, with an assortment of Newport debutantes and young matrons personifying England, Holland, China, Japan, Spain, Russia, Italy, France (Mrs Howard Cushing as Joan of Arc, on a white charger) and Iceland (Miss Henrietta Post, throwing snowballs). As each 'country' made her entrance, the appropriate national anthem was played.
Adjourning temporarily for dinner (the
Times noted that all the most fashionable restaurants in town were thronged), the guests then reconvened at Rosecliff at 9.30 in the evening, where they found the gardens ablaze with electrical effects and a marquee for dancing pitched on the lawn. Pink and red seem to have been the most modish colours that year - the hostess wore a 'pearl pink satin gown, draped in most becoming lines, with quantities of pale heliotrope tulle. The trimming was rhinestones and crystals and a large diamond baguette held a large aigrette on her head'. Miss Barbara Rutherford wore a chiffon and tulle gown in deep fuchsia shades and both her coiffure and slippers were studded with rubies. As I've already mentioned on this thread, Lucile Brooke was also singled out for special commendation in her gown of silver tissue and black lace, tastefully decked overall with diamonds. In the ballroom, the 'Pageant of the Nations' was repeated to great acclaim and a play, 'Her Ladyship's Wardrobe', was staged, with models parading in 'fascinating negligées'. Once
that was over, there were harp recitals which apparently 'charmed' the audience, prior to a dance display on the white marble terrace by Miss Lydia Lopokova.
Apparently, this little affair kept Newport talking for days - or, at least, until the next party was given!