Fashion Flashback: The 1973 Grande Divertissement à Versailles Fashion Show

Fashion Reverie goes back in the annals of fashion history to the Grande Divertissement à Versailles, the groundbreaking fashion event held in Paris 1973 that changed the way the European fashion world regarded American designers. The brainchild of American fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, this fundraiser for the restoration of Versailles, was billed by tabloid journalists as a battle of sorts of the old guard (Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Ungaro, Pierre Cardin, and Hubert de Givenchy) and the new world designers ( Stephen Burrows, Halston, Anne Klein, Bill Blass, and Oscar de la Renta).

Yellow journalistic headlines aside, the American designers were a huge success and helped to introduce the new wave of prêt-a-porter. Also, the Grande Divertissement a Versailles was one of the first times that a group of African American models were seen on a catwalk in Paris. The group included such hallowed names as Pat Cleveland, Norma Jean Darden, Alva Chinn, Bethann Hardison, and Billie Blair. “Part of that excitement came from the African-American community and the music scene, and part of it was a sort of animated desire for a range of looks,” confided Harold Koda, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the New York Times.

—Staff