She started looking for things for the apartment that morning, at antique stores she had walked by often, and now she had a mission, and a job to do. She had never had as much fun in her life, and one of the antique dealers gave her the name of a woman who made fabulous curtains. For the next two weeks, she never stopped. She bought paintings, furniture, fabrics, two beautiful rugs for the living room, and one for their bedroom. She bought an antique canopied bed that had been enlarged. She bought everything they needed for the kitchen, and hired a Russian maid. And when they went back to London, she wanted to do more shopping there. Vladimir called her for reports daily, and before meeting her in London, he went back to Italy, to check progress on the plans for the boat.
It was a busy fall for both of them, and in December, Natasha oversaw the installation of everything she had bought, while Vladimir was in Moscow with the president again. By the time he met her in Paris the week before Christmas, the apartment looked as though they had lived there for years. And when he came to see it, Vladimir loved everything she had chosen, and was impressed by what a good job she had done. They decided to spend Christmas there, and flew to the Caribbean the day after, where Princess Marina was waiting for them. She had made the crossing in November, and he was planning to keep her there until April or May, and then bring her back to the South of France in late May or early June. It felt good to be on the boat and relax in familiar surroundings. They were returning to Paris in late January for the haute couture shows, where he loved picking clothes for her twice a year, in January and July. They had a month to relax and spend on the boat until then, while Vladimir worked from his high-tech office on the yacht.
He flew back to Paris with her two days before the couture shows, and it was wonderful having the apartment to stay in. It was beginning to feel like home.
There were only two haute couture houses left of the illustrious old ones, Dior and Chanel, and a third more recent one, Elie Saab, that created custom-made evening gowns, and a small group of new, young designers, whose work had never been considered haute couture by those knowledgeable in fashion. But the two big shows were fun to go to, and the clothes and the settings were spectacular.
The first show they were going to was Dior Haute Couture, which was held in a tent they had built specially, behind the Invalides on the Left Bank. It was a spectacular affair, heated and theatrically lit, all lined in mirrors, with a garden theme that looked like a movie set and had been inspired by the gardens of Versailles. Millions were spent on the décor for each couture show, as well as the ready-to-wear shows, which were almost as theatrical and also occurred twice a year. The ready-to-wear shows were big business and happened in four cities, and were put on to show retailers worldwide what was coming in the next season so they could place their orders, and attracted a host of celebrities and fashionistas as well. The haute couture shows were a different breed, and only in Paris. They were the last survivors of a dying art, and their clients had dwindled over the years to a precious few.
With clothes that cost anywhere from fifty to five hundred thousand dollars—entirely handmade, every single stitch, each one made to order, and never duplicated in the same city, social circle, or event—there were almost no haute couture buyers in the modern world. In years gone by, there were flocks of wealthy society women, many of them on best-dressed lists, who came from around the world to order their wardrobes twice a year. But as the big design houses closed one by one, and the price of couture clothes rose into the stratosphere, there were only a few young women now, the mistresses of very, very rich men, who bought them. The styles no longer suited older women who could afford them, and the young girls they were primarily designed for could never have bought them on their own.
The shows were done more now for their publicity value as a spectacle, and the few girls who were lucky enough to be able to order the clothes were being dressed by the much older men who supported them and wanted to show them off as trophies and symbols of their vast fortunes, power, virility, and business prowess. None of it was what haute couture had been meant for, to dress extremely sophisticated, fashionable, well-dressed women. For the most part, haute couture had become a parody of itself, and only a handful of very wealthy Arab princesses, and the young mistresses, long term or otherwise, of Russian businessmen, were able to order the clothes. And in many cases, what one saw on the runway was never made or sold, it was simply an example of a kind of exquisite craftsmanship that had once been the summit of French fashion, and was now being worn by sexy young girls who had no appreciation for the rarity and quality of what they wearing.
The January show was for summer clothes, and winter clothes were shown in July, in order to place advance orders, to allow time for the handmade and often intricate garments to be created. So when Vladimir and Natasha arrived in Paris to go to the couture shows, she was going to pick her wardrobe for the following summer. And Vladimir always liked to be with her for the show, and he would make careful note of what he wanted her to wear, as the girls came down the runway. They were always the most expensive outfits and gowns. Like his cars and boats, how Natasha looked and what she wore were the outward signs of his immense wealth, just like the jewelry he gave her. Natasha wore jeans and simple clothes around the house, but Vladimir always preferred to see her dressed extravagantly, or at least expensively, when she went out, and even at home, where only he saw her. “Blue jeans are for peasants,” he would say, although he wore them. But he wanted all heads to turn when Natasha walked in anywhere, and any one of her outfits cost the price of a luxury car, or a small apartment.