HKB
library of works on costume, another a glittering collection of stage jewelry, a third many portfolios of water-colour designs for every sort and kind of theatrical garment for every rôle.
Oh! those designs! A young soprano has won an engagement in Monte Carlo and wants a stage wardrobe for her repertoire. Out comes the "Modern French" portfolio with a bewildering series of blonde and sinuous Thaises, Moyen-Age Mélisandes, a scintillating Ariane in contrast to a demure little work-a-day Louise; and the lady spends a delightful afternoon in selecting her favourites.
Then Muelle sends for an armful of samples--
"Crêpe de chine, of course, for the Thais. Yes, in flesh pink with plenty of embroidery. Here is an échantillon"--and she pins it to the drawing.
The singer picks out a scrap of heavy, lustrous crêpe--
"No, not that quality. That is something special, and there is no more to be had for love or money."
Colours and fabrics are decided upon, all tested for becomingness under the bunched electric lights, which mimic the strong light of the stage. Each design has an assortment of tags of material pinned where many others have been pinned before. Muelle is an expert in colours for the stage. She doesn't talk learnedly of synthetic dyes, processes, or German competition, but she can give you a bright blue that is warranted to stay blue, no matter what vagaries of lighting a stage manager may indulge in.
Her pale colours never turn insipid, nor her dark ones muddy. She keeps a special dyeing establishment busy with her orders alone, and twenty-four hours seems time enough to obtain any shade known to the palette.
The textiles once chosen, Camille is called to "take measures" and arrange for the fittings.
"And now, one question," says Mademoiselle, "Is your stage level, or does it slope towards the back? Very well, that is all."
When the singer arrives for her first trying-on, the fitting room is filled with lengths of material, and Mademoiselle herself stands in the midst, brandishing a huge pair of shears. She throws a length of silk over one of your shoulders, puts in two pins, and bunching the material in her left hand, gives a slash with the scissors in her right, with a recklessness that makes you shudder. A pull here, a fold there, two more pins--and the stuff hangs as almost no one else can make it hang, accentuating a good figure and disguising a poor one.
Occasionally in filling a regular order she will stumble upon an unusual effect. One day they were making Moyen-Age sleeves for the dress of a well-known singer whom Mlle. Muelle has gowned for years, but who has never been included in the list of her special favourites. The sleeve was of slashed silvery grey, lined with cerise, the lining showing on the edges. She picked up a bit of cloth of silver and pulled it through the slashes. The effect charmed her.
"Tenez!" she said, "That is too good for her. We'll keep that for La Belle Geraldine."
"La Belle Geraldine," as Miss Farrar is known in Paris, is one of Muelle's most constant patrons. Ever since her Berlin days she has been costumed by the Maison Muelle, and she stands very high in the list of Mademoiselle's favourites.
The outer room may contain the photographs of celebrities great and small, but in the inner room there are just two--a portrait of Miss Farrar as Elizabeth and one of myself as Carmen.