SQUANDERING FORTUNES

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17984, 1 April 1930, Page 5

SQUANDERING FORTUNES

QUEST OF SOCIAL PRESTIGE. NEW YORK’S MAD SPENDERS. MAKING AURAS FOR DOLLARS. What price parties? Why is it that New York’s wealthy fashionables squander hundreds of ■ I thousands of dollars annually on magnificent dinners, parties, balls, and fetes ? No, society does not spend money for nothing, and nowadays parties have lo start hot and end sizzling to entice the right kind of people. Very often some dowager, for one reason or <another, wall 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 off the ballroom chandelier and think up a new stunt to entice those who ‘have lost the habit of receiving her invitations. The laws of the “400” are not as rigid as they used 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 Ihe “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 t.o strategy to recoup her absence during a preceding season. A Gorgeous Riot. Recently Mrs Virginia Fair Vanderbilt gaily tossed a mere 75,000 dollars over her shoulder and gave one of Long Island’s most sumptuous parties since Clarence Mackay entertained the Prince of Wales not far away, a few years ago. The party is said to have been one of the most gorgeous affairs staged in many a year. The entire grounds of the estate were 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 Hie 1930 season with a spiash 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 excel—was given 32 years ago by the former Anna Gouid, then the Countess Boni de Castellane. Here had been the standing romance of the season. The poverty-stricken count had ( come to America hunting an heiress.' He had coveted Virginia Fair, who had turned him down for ■an entree into the Vanderbilt clan. Consueio Vanderbilt, former Duchess of Marlborough, turned him down, and finally Anna Gould 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 in receiving the former Anna Gould. Prising Open the Gates. .But, undaunted, Anna Gould set about preparing for a party which { would astonish Europe. This one | affair cost her over 500,000 dollars, I

hut it opened the gates of society to her. The price was high, but the prize was well worth winning.

They still talk of that fete, held in July, 1596, in the great residence in Paris. It was a reproduction of the fete given to celebrate 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 3000 guests. There were 900 paid performers to entertain the guests. Not 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 gipsy—were distributed about the grounds. The lake was filled with barges, gaily decorated in brocades and silk, and there 300 girls from the opera danced for Ihe- guests. Such a party had never been known before or /since. From that moment on Paris was open to the countess, foe she could be relied upon lo give startling parties which no one wanted j to miss—the price was stupendous, but it brought the countess what she j wanted—recognition.