Of all the unexpected gifts that this job has given me, it is perhaps the best chance to be a visitor in the worlds of design and fashion. Anyone who is entitled to a empire that he never knew well (but always curious to know better) understands that much of the pleasure of that introduction is to learn about the culture of the place – the rituals and traditions that members of For a long time since then he was no longer an extraordinary one.
For example: last year I spoke with a dear friend, a fashion designer in Paris. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I have to finish the hats for the Catherinettes,” he said, sober sober that I wondered if my inability to decipher what he said was actually a sign of my ignorance.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
It appears that most French fashion houses participate in the St. Catherine’s Day Festival in November. St. Catherine is the patron saint of, among other things, special interest groups, single women and, in the 1940s, the day was celebrated by 25-year-old female couture assistants who attract whimsical or bizarre hats and roam the streets of Paris, announcing one and everything they were looking for a husband.
Nowadays, some things have changed or updated – men, nicholases, have now changed or updated, have now been recorded; No participant can be older than 25 (men used to become only nicholases when they turned 30); The Catherinettes and Nicholases can come from any form of fashion house, not only those who make couture, and do not have to work in the design studios – but it remains. There are still extravagant hats, many designed by the artistic directors of the maisons, usually in yellow and green, the colors associated with St. Catherine (nobody can agree why). The Honorees, usually under the lowest, newest members of the houses, still get the afternoon off. (Dior even throws their employees a ball.)
On the covers
Of course 25 in 2025 is not the same as 25 in 1955. Many of these employees are not looking for spouses – now, or perhaps ever. But St. Catherine’s Day is a memory that even the most serious companies – and fashion is Seriously, despite some performances of the opposite; Some might call it even more even time for foolishness. And not only foolishness but sentiment. The French are rightly proud of the influence and power that their fashion still wears on the world stage; This celebration is as much of the next generation as from the industry itself.
It is also a memory that which makes an artistic community of closed door special, the peculiarities it has cultivated in recent decades. “Oh, how great!” said a New York Stage Manager I told about the Catherinettes; At the time we worked on a piece about the traditions of Broadway theaters. “I never knew that.” She had just finished telling her World rituals; She was tickled to hear about someone else’s. Who knows? Maybe your company is not as boring as you think. Perhaps it is actually very strange – and you are the only one who doesn’t know it.
