ABSTRACT
The Duchess of Marlborough is waiting for Princess Margaret on the steps of Blenheim Palace, well placed between two pugnacious little cannons. Behind her is a Guard of Honour drawn from the Oxfordshire Branch of the British Red Cross, and behind her again the huge Vanbrugh building—Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough’s dream-pile. Inside the Palace, filling the Great Hall, the Long Library, the three State Rooms, the Saloon, the Green Writing Room, Red Drawing-room, and Green Drawing-room are the guests—the paying guests, for this afternoon’s operation is raising ten thousand pounds for the International Red Cross. No ordinary dress-show, in fact. And in a small ante-room behind the scenes there is no ordinary dress-designer in young Yves Saint-Laurent, new genius of the House of Dior. When the final model ‘Blenheim’ had been shown, and Yves Saint-Laurent had received the medal of the Red Cross Society, there was a surge to the Great Hall for an hour’s champagne.
