Worth maintained its proud position against all
changes and rivals. He was helped to the highest pedestal of dictator
of fashions by Mme. de Pourtales and Princess Pauline Metternich, both
of whom possessed a keen sense of the fitness of texture, color, and
cut, and with delicate hands could tone and modify till perfection was
reached. The former introduced M. Worth to Empress Eugenie, for whom,
and for the ladies of whose court, he designed state, dinner, and fancy
costumes.
That M. Worth possessed rare artistic taste aside from dressmaking is
evidenced in the beauty of his rural home at Suresnes on the Seine, seven
and a half miles from Paris. It is a superb work of harmony and is like
a charming mosaic, every piece fitting into every other piece. He was
his own architect, designer, upholsterer, and gardener. His villa lies
beneath Mt. Valerien, one of the finest sites near Paris, and the outlook
on the Seine, the Bois de Boulogne, and Paris, is a dream of beauty.
Hurriedly passing down the Rue de la Paix, the stately Column Vendome in
the vista, the Harris party entered M. Worth's establishment, to which
women, from actress to empress, make pilgrimages from the end of the
world.
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