It’s by now well known that in 1973, an entertainment extravaganza took place at the Palace of Versailles just outside Paris. Featured were five of the best designers America had to offer – Stephen Burrows, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, Anne Klein, and Halston – and five French ones – Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Emmanuel Ungaro, Pierre Cardin and Marc Bohan for Dior.

A fundraiser to help restore the palace, the event was organized by the powerful American publicist and CFDA founder Eleanor Lambert, who represented many of the designers, and Versailles curator Gerald Van Der Kemp.

By the end of the show on November 28, the French were tossing their programs in the air and shouting Brava at the Americans.

I spoke with three people at the center of this turning point in American fashion. Burrows, the last remaining survivor of the Big Five; Donna Karan, then a pregnant assistant and head of design for Anne Klein, and Bethann Hardison, one of the models, who, in between modeling gigs, was working as Burrows’ assistant.

Stephen Burrows: They made us (the designers) sit in the theater. We were nervous wrecks sitting in the audience. I was sitting next to Yves Saint Laurent. He was next to Marina Schiano. It wasn’t a battle. It was just a benefit for the restoration of the theater. It was a society event.

CW: How did it impact your business?

Burrows: It didn’t change my business because they didn’t cover it like a fashion show. Only Bill Cunningham and the New York Times were there. It didn’t really resonate then. It just brought us on to the world stage with being competitive. And the Black girls were noticed more. Saint Laurent used more Black girls after that and Givenchy did his cabine of all-Black girls.

It took 40 years for it to become important.

CW: How did Eleanor choose who went?

Burrows: I think we were all her clients. She picked who she thought was the top, the cream of American fashion.

CW: Kay Thompson was the choreographer. How was that?

Burrows: The choreography was only for Halston, Oscar and Bill Blass and Anne Klein. I had to do my own choreography. I showed the models what I wanted them to do. Pat Cleveland was the star of my show as Billie Blair was the star of Oscar.

CW: There were tensions?

Burrows: I didn’t like what she (Kay Thompson) did. And there was a big fight between Halston and Oscar de la Renta over rehearsal time.
They didn’t feed us. There was no toilet paper and no heat in this place, and it was winter. I remember it was around Thanksgiving. And there was no heat.

CW: What did you show? What were the clothes like?

Burrows: Long. Because it was more dramatic. All gowns. All very colorful. Mostly matte jersey, chiffon. 15-20 pieces. At the end they threw programs in air.

CW: Why do you think there was such an incredible exuberant reaction to the American designers portion of the show?

Burrows: The French show was two and a half hours. Our show was 37 minutes. The French – it was boring. It was horrible. They went first and they had all these performers. The only good one was Josephine Baker.
Everyone was exhausted by the end. Saint Laurent told me my clothes were ravishing. That made the whole trip for me. It was a great bonus.

Bethann Hardison: Back then it was just the fun and joy that we had.
It was never a battle. It was just a participation, like you’re going on a tour for a musical.

CW: How did you come to participate?

Hardison: For any girl to go, three of the five designers had to (choose her). I was Stephen’s personal assistant and fit model. I had two – Anne Klein and Stephen Burrows.

CW: Wow. Then what happened?

Hardison: That was worrisome to Stephen, then Oscar chose me.

CW: Tell me about all the Black models.

Hardison: There were lots of girls of color. (Billie Blair, Alva Chinn, Pat Cleveland, Ramone Saunders among them). The truth is there were a lot of good white girls too.

CW: What was most memorable to you?

Hardison: There were so many things. Josephine Baker. I knew Josephine. I had lived in Sweden and I had met her there. More memorable to me was Kay Thompson. She meant everything to me on that trip.

CW: What do you think made it such a memorable historic event

Hardison: The girls. The clothes. The moment. They had never seen that many girls of color. We used music. That was new for the French.

There’ll never be another show like that again. There are many things that have happened so that people are aware of it now.

Donna Karan: It was the highlight of my career. It changed my whole career. I was eight months pregnant with Gabby (her daughter) and went from Germany. I found out there that Anne had cancer again.

CW: So you were in Europe and didn’t return home though you were pregnant?

Karan: I went straight from the fabric show in Germany to Paris. Anne was in the audience and I was in the back dressing the models. Between contractions I’m putting buttons on a navy jacket backstage. I’ve never seen so many diamond tiaras and I was just a Jewish girl from the Five Towns.

CW: It wasn’t only fashion.

Karan: The French – and this is the goddamn truth – they gave it everything they had. It was the girl from the Kit Kat Club. It was Rudolf Nureyev. Josephine Baker.

CW: What did the Americans do? What were Anne’s clothes like

Karan: Joe Eula (the illustrator and set designer) did the wrong sizes in inches instead of millimeters so we had no backdrop. There was Liza Minnelli. Anne was the first to show. Bodysuits and big skirts. Black. Red. Billie Blair came out. The audience was screaming. They had never seen anything like it. For the French designers, the girls walked out with cards.