"THE CHINA MAIL,
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1959.
SAM WHITE MOVES SOUTH TO THE
RIVIERA'S MOST BOHEMIAN RESORT
St Tropez. THE BOOMING
To the cynical, St
Tropez is little more- than a cult dedicated to the worship. of the nym- phet.
It is, of course, 'much more than a mere mecen for lechers. It is also a phenomena of our times which has already set its stamp on this decade aa surely as the Charleston put its stamp on the 20's,
From two or three small shopa employing focal needle-women it decrees bezvch fashion styles the world over.
›
It alone, for example, holds aloft the flag of the bikini, and by so doing has ensured its survival.
No casino
+
The resort furishes without single large hotel and attracts the rich without a vasin,
I deles the law of the land by publicly flaunting nudism #n three-quarters of ils peletal bench, and i deles the economies of steps: by remaining top- goplreally almost exactly as it was 20 years ago.
CULT OF
ST TROPEZ
by-the-sen, has become the visitors in family groups show a target for the rich and not-so- splendid French capacity fur rich sightseers and
seckers,
sensation winding their own business:
Nevertheless, its overwhelm ing characteristic is thalf youth, with the average agc between 18 and 20.
Despite the presence of the rich it remains, as one bar proprietor put it to me: "Strictly a beer and soft- drink crowd and not a whisky and soda crowd.”.
It has also by a combination of circumstances, retained an authentic Burour of carefree Bahemlanism.
One factor in this has been the solid, peasant obstinacy of the original inhabitants.
They refuse to sell land whlen has shot up in value from 28. a square yurd Ave years ago, to 25 a square yard loddy.
Similarly, a municipal council composed of local tradesmen and farmers clors its best lu ham-
It provides an ourivalled social stray any invasion by "foreign comosy, of contrast, with The capital. yuchi-owning rich: peing the
droes and manners of Parisian Disconcerting
Left Bank Bohemians.
This your St Tropez has
ren bed the paroxysm of its The result is that the front Sucrers. Seventy thousand remains unchanged and the holiday-makers this weekend town offers only about 1,000 invaded the tiny Mediterraneant hotel rooms. most of them in fishing village with an all-the- dilapidated third-grade hotels. year-vinitiel puntiatiota el 4,000,
The The starting aspect of the St Ferraris, Tropez way of lite is, of course.
The narrow sireeix
گردی
village teemed wit Merccties and Aston Martins the nudism which now flourishes honking 1heir way through on its magnificent sandy bench. swarms *! weekenders from nearby Toulon and Marseilles This has grown to such a seale that even the most casual visitor in borror at the invasion. distinguished; vill owners such whis ly ventures 100 yards of from the nearest cafe cannot fail as the twin patron saints the new St Tropez, Brighte Barelet and Francoise. Sagan, fed north.
to notice il.
Most of the nudists are Pari- sims of the professional classes, It all started only about Ave and it is a disconcerting experi years ago and the boom here is enee to exchange greetings with an exact replica of what has an equaintance from Paris happened in Paris. Just as the under these unconventional cir- artist and writer's quarter of costuEDS.
St Gerwuh has become fashion
able in Paris, so St Tropez, There is almost a total absence which is a kind of St Germain- of gawpers and even provincial
Friell
"I think Dior's show-your-kace line is going too for -and so does my husband.”
-Always say Ruby from France.
Soft cotton hydrophils allows intimate
eleanliness and personal freedom to relax
o Eo Bott
• Bo Boorat
• Go Fronchi
RUBY
COMPRESSED SANITARY TOWELS
MATCH
A way to cry
sa match bum
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A few of the tourists IC| patently exhibitionists, and some of the visitors, especially foreign ones are, equally plainly, sensa- Blun-seekers, But, on the whole, į
there is an anxst total absence
of prurience.
There are a few fascinating Incongruities, however,
Like the elderly English- man who strolled the beach naked, thon solemnly towel huge wrapped o around himself when it was time to put on his trousers and loove.
The only unpleasant sight 1 SOW was provided by IWO Americans wearing Floridu-style clothes, one of whom was
umeshed in camera equipmeni, The other acted as his spotter.
"Quick, louk, over there!" he shouted hoarsely.
Both were nearly lynched and had to beat a hasty retreat.
The ritual at St Tropez, involving as it does #constant round of somme eight excep→ tionally-any night clubs dawn, is a strict one.
Breakfast is at 11 at Sene- quier. IL former pastry shop whose owner, Mme. Sendquier, has become with another woman, Mine, Vachon, the town's fashion lictator, and the richest of the St Tropez inhabitants,
Rendezvous
Laanch is taken on the beach and a cafe L'Escale provides the regnises evening rendezvous.
After that comes dinner and
the heavy work of the evening
begins with visits to St Tropez's blaringly noisy "caves."
„MORA!
ALLATER
NOTIT!
President Ike's F.B.I, and our own Scotland Yard moving unobtrusively among the good people of Docside made sure
everything was all right for the President's trip to Balmoral
GEORGE OF THE RITZ
black-browed man years younger
summers.
-London Express Service).
It's not the same for George since elephant's feet went off the
thin
л it's also rigorously
Fashions are controlled, in fact, St Tropez 18 the only resuri imposes its own fashions.
I know
which
FOR MEN shorts are out and only linen slacks and rope soled shoes are worn.
Ties and dark glasses are strictly out as are silk shirts. especially patterned ones.
Dizzy life
BY PATRICIA LEWIS
Iraking 20 elephant's feet for dinner and just as a good
$14
many people
cod "George
of the Ritz.“
Top man's toy
menu
the Savoy's stationery, "You don't get the detail-but you do get an
of the Impression Contents."
And what impression did Mr
of get
the Sovlet's Eames euntenis?
Standards of design in Russia seem pretty crude to us, yet, Insists Mr Eames, there is a Hle unme is Charles Eames virtue in this a realism that
↑
London,
70 they had to be flown from the will when they WHEN the traffic and
Paris Zoo? W
1 look Was the Ume Mr C. 8. "Yes, they do say the temperature
Gulbenklan, the Armenian eil young," he said, chuckling. turns Piccadilly into a suppose
clear cun millionaire known ng "Mr Five Then came a cluck- Per Cent," presented him with a cosmopolitan hell I retire science!
and I will always love him for puts frất things Brst.. ing of teeth us George surveyed box of carrots in lieu of tip? to the Ritz.
the clientele-two lourista Maybe it was the hair a'mil designing the Do Nothing Bela-live-something-to-live-in- where There,
Joðjalain, entrussed
and lion pounds he handled over the Machine.
-before-something-to-looit-at atti in newspaperg
Twirling splashes bonorth a muse vill lady' three Business men who, from yours for the old Aga Khan, orf
and twinkling tude,
best were the mangoes the Aga had flown prettily in the sunlight like and the pofted' palms Butter as the pattern of their ties,
Where, then, has the the waiter passes with little pots something to do with the chorus specially from India for close some animated Emelt draw design come from since the of tea, you And 'a, quiet haven from "Guys and Dolls."
as Sir Anthony ing, this toy has as Mr Eames War? of the unburried. And you find George.
11
had four
to
A moron
friends such Eden, Lord Beaverbrook, and "This platen used to be fuit,"
a1 plats use all"- Mr R. A. Butler, be sald. "In those times. you
although it is powered by solar George is the hall-porter, and had to be somebody before we'd But it was none of these.
"You know,' These days
said George, energy; for the past 45 years he has. give you a table.
Mr Eames began sketching But Mr Eames-brown tad crowned
again
whorl in сле been as much a part of the we make up our numbers with "we once
once bow-tied with eyes that say Unfortunately, Ritz as the pillared arende und tourists,
heads staying here at they
"corner of the page, a pattern of Farouk, . Boria of Bulgaria, "Well-what-hoppens-now?" is the don't tp as they used to, Onco FOR WOMEN, If they wear the Savonnerie carpet in
isolated dots on the other. paradoxical versa- "In the old doya Ideas you get a 15 per real service Alfonso of Spain, and Queen full of the
man Wilhelmina. But where is it all fility that drives anything on the beach, it is bikel- Į hall. nis and in the evening gingham
charge on a bill people tend to
How?"
design Do Nothing Machine Berminated from group thought ignore the individual employee."
(the whort). irousers and straw hats accom-
They were based The famous halt-porter spread richest
"There's always the world's on the ens hand and the world's
On cumulative information. panied by muslin scarves worn
American, Mr Paul most-ant-on moulded chair He is
than under the hat and low over the
Today they're huppening all more
"It's long his hand in deprecation.
Getty, with his four hundred the other. serving member of the staff, he the
(the dots) The
place same everywhere. cars.
Architect, million pounds," I replied.
Toymakter, institution. is
Recently people who can afford to pay
wherever people are seeking out The Baby Dall took is ob-
George grimaced. "But what producer, and furniture designer prime objectives, so you now get served studiously, especially in George pubilehed his memoirs HK$00 and HK$112 a day for a
does he do? Stays in his rooms Mr Eames pasard through a netwerk of Ideas - world of re- room, they often don't know for days on end eating choco- Loadon on his way back froin society based one name, how to talk, or dress, or even ales
Another, eat,"
the manner ut embroidered smocks.
Jeans are out and so is
Fascinating
n
- Jumbled cpllection
where memberings the one incident, recalls
and each has to be told as t eprings to mind.
su-called Greco or "sordid" look, Make-up is worn but is kept
to a minimum.
I found it a fuselnating book, breathing life into the legends The Charleston, the fast fox- of the post so that one finishes trot and the cha-cha-cha are in by really believing there bul rock 'n' roll is out.
was
Mangoes
ť
o
over
m-
the
In-
on current biscuits amassing the US. Exhibition in Moscow, formation. It's all a question more and more money."
where he crented
seven of communications,"
some "Never mlad, perhaps he'll screened dome on which
I think Mr Eames is one of tip you so invishly one day you bring a 12-minute Impression of methe certainly made me feel 2,200 photographs flashed to the leverest men I have ever
Russian a Grade A moron.
the
As we sat there talking, can retire." or nostalgia flood
George smiled
to wistfully. Americana wave George's, face. What, I won- "Yes, I'd like to retire," he said people, 'dered, Was he thinking of? softly, "I'm getting tired. But It's as if you were thumbing were having a spat of technical more money, morc Could it have been the day on out as being se ostentatious and gusto, more glamour in those American millionaire requested Americanos and Posils are in. one's parents sigh for.
In mailers of drink, whisky is more fun,
wicked-cld, good-old days
that
The life is dizzy to s point The other day I escaped to the that makes a stay of longer Ritz in search of hot coffee on than three four days almost a cold marble table and some sizzling reniniscing from Mr Critles.
unbearable to the over-30s.
What is astonishing in a place of such cosmopolitanism and youth is the total absence of drunkenness or booliganism.
Only the French, one, fecis. could curry off a phenomenon ke St Tropez without lapsing into valgarity,
(London Express Service),
He joined me in the Palm Court, muttering in Greek about the numsense of wearing scrge In sucl: heat- handsome,
• "George of the Ritz," Heine- mann, 21.
Missionaries Win
Against Eskimo
Witchdoctors
Toronto.
Canadian missionaries in the Arctic have won their fight against Eskimo witchdoctors in the wild Spence Bay area 1,300 miles north of Edmonton.
natural
CAUSCE
Nearly five years ago a young dead-from Anglican missionary priest, the and the third has been con- Rev. Donald Whitbread, was verted to Christianity.
moved Into the savage, un- policed area that had already
"A few of the younger wilch- doctors are still practising to
defeated several missionaries. other areas," Mr Whitbread said.
It was the last stronghold of the dlehard Arctic witch- They
doctors.
The new 'magic'
"But their power is waning. can hardly compete against the magic of radar warning lines and misalle-test- ing grounds.
It
Three of them hnd long When I first came here terrorised with curses and spells was common for a wilchdoctor 700 peaceful Eskimos living in to put a death curse on some- д 200,000-square-milo area ono he did not like. If the Many of the vieilms dled person did not, die in the speci violently.
Mod TUDO, the witchdoctor All three of the witch- usually felt an obligation to doctors had been convicted of make' his curse come true," murder. Now, two of them, are
[London - Express Service), -.
Or maybe my communications he trouble at the receiving end.
-{London Exprem Service)....
then, what would I do?"
through a magazine," Relive old memories, I suspect, explained, sketching roughly on
MOSCOW
WELCOMES
Eisenhower.
THE
PEACE LOVING PEOPLES
LIKE
ΙΚΕ
SPOILS THE PICTURE.
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