SQUANDERING FORTUNES

Hawera Star, Volume L, 17 May 1930, Page 18

SQUANDERING FORTUNES

price parties? Why is it that ’ ' (New York’s wealthy fashionables squander hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on magnificent dinners, parties, balls and 1 fetes'? (No, society d'oes not spend money for nothing, and nowadays parties have to start hot and end’ sizzling- to entice the right kind of people. Very often, some dowager, for one reason or another, will drop out of the social light, for a season or so. Should she .decide to become an active member again, it behoves her to dust olf the ball room chandelier and think up a now stunt to entice those who have lost the habit of receiving her invitations.

The laws of the “400” are not as rigid as they usedl to be in years past, and with -new gold slipping up Wall ■Street .and into the back door of Park Avenue, there are lots of new places to go and lots of new people who get the “try-out.” 'Some few: click' — many don’t. But the list of those who answer to the roll call of “present” is ever increasing, and sometimes a person must resort to strategy to recoup her absence during a preceding season. .Recently Mrs Virginia Fair Vanderbilt gaily tossed a mere 75,000 dollars over her shoulder and gave one-' of Dong Island’s most, sumptuous parties since Clarence Mackay entertained 1 the Prince of Wales not far away, a few years ago. v

The party is said to have been one of the most gorgeous affairs staged in many a year. The entire grounds of the- estate wore transplanted into a. fairyland of colour and beauty. A huge pavilion had been built to take care of the guests and the entertainment and food was lavish.

Is Mrs Vanderbilt opening the 11130 season with a splash which will set the fashion for bigger, better and more expensive parties? Perhaps the most outstanding of all society parties—the one which nobody so far had managed to cxqei—was given thirty-two years ago by the

New York’s Mad Spenders

former Anna G-ould, then the Countess Beni do Castellano.

'Here had been the outstanding romance of the season. The povertystricken count had come to America hunting an heiress. 'He had courted Virginia Fair, who had turned him down -for an entree into the Vanderbilt elan. Consuclo Vanderbilt, former Duchess of Marlborough, turned him down, and finally Anna' iGould .succumbed to the aura of a French title. But Continental society, which had been hiding a smile behind its hand In viewing the escapades of the count in hunting a rich American- wife, was a bit too cagy an receiving the former Anna IGould.

But, undaunted, Anna iGould set about preparing for a- party which would astonish Europe. This one affair cost her over 500,000’ dollars, - but it opened the gates of society to her. The price was l high, but the prize was well worth winning. They still talk -of that fete, held in July,' 1896, in the great residence in Paris. It was a reproduction >of the fete given to celebarto the marriage of Louis XVI. to Marie Antoinette. The estate had been transformed into a miniature, palace. Five hundred servants tended to the needs of the '3OOO guests. There was 900 paid' performers to entertain the guests. Hot, content -with seating her guests in ordinary chairs, 3000 specially upholstered seats, plated in gold leaf, were made. The service was of gold, studded with precious, stones, and four orchestras'—two- operatic and two gypsy —were distributed about the ground's. The lake was filled with barges, gaily decorated in brocades and silk, and there 300 girls from the opera danced for the guests. (Such a party had never been known before or* since. From that moment on, Paris was open to the countess, for she could be relied uiion to give startling parties which no one wanted! to miss- —the price was stupendous —but it brought the -countess what she wanted —recognition.