The Fashions and Pleasures of New York

JOHN McMULLIN

THIS is carnival time for the cabaret, now that society has again taken to informal pleasures. The New York hostess has been put away in the camphor chest, so to speak, until the next crop of debutantes comes around. There are no more big parties. Everyone wants to be amused. The cabaret kings are working overtime making plans and, at the same time, filling orders for something different every night to satisfy the spoiled New Yorker. Florence Mills and the Plantation Review have gone to London and are playing there at the Pavilion. Such a sensation has never been known in London. It will go even better there than here, if that is possible. To take its place, the Plantation has a new review with hitherto unexploited talent, which has been up the producer's sleeve for a long time past. The New Yorker, who knows his New York, will remember last year that a most intriguing little Spanish girl, called Conchita Piquer, sang a Spanish flower vender's song in the musical drama, The Wild Cat, which was imported from Spain to the Park Theatre. Well, she is now singing at Monte Carlo and that thrill can be had all over again. The Rendezvous has started to caricature the world. Each , day d'Asir adds a new celebrity to the collection in the irregular panels on the futuristic walls of his unusual decorations. You may find him working there any night in a quiet corner, and it may be that, if you are a celebrity, he is working on you.

The Cabaret King

THE office of the cabaret king, Mr. Gill Bogue, is like the workroom of a toy shop. There are sketches and little models of cabarets to come, and all sorts of amusing devices in miniature, which are one day going to delight and amuse us all. It is like having a peep into the future with the aid of Aladdin and his lamp. Mr. Bogue has a flair for the artistic and only likes the good artists. That is why he got Norman Bell Geddes to decorate the Palais Royal. The result is such a fine piece of work that it outdoes anything of its kind in the world.

The Club Royal is another attraction where he has had a finger in the pie. It is as well done as the Spanish patio of a villa in California. In addition, it is one of the few places where one can dance until dawn, for it does not come under the ban of the "blue laws" of Broadway.

The word "atmosphere," as they understand it abroad, may be applied to the Russian Eagle without making a joke of this much abused expression. It is the most foreign sort of place that smart New York has ever known. The decorations are extraordinary and most effective and, at the late supper hour, the people are even more unusual. The music is good. And one can never tell when some great artist will get up and sing or play. The Moscow Art Theatre has added much to its reputation for, of course, it is the headquarters of these artists. New York not only likes Russians but it pretends to understand them perfectly. The New York drawing room has become a battleground over the relative merits of the Hopkins and the Stanislavsky productions of The Lower Depths (Mr. Hopkins called it A Night's Lodging).

CHANGING the subject abruptly to another pleasure, we have recently discovered that the best way to entertain one's lady friends is to take them to one of the men's favorite mid-day haunts. The ladies seem to like this, and indeed it is quite different from the kind of noisy places they are used to lunching in themselves. The Wall Street man can take a lady to lunch at the India House, if he is lucky enough to be a member, and give her real novelty. There are little places further up town like Stewart's, at 28th Street and Madison Avenue, where they serve all those special lunch dishes that men like. Then there is the Piccadilly, in West 45th Street, whe're a smart lady makes her companion the envied of all in the room. The grill at the Lorraine and the St. Regis are both haunts of the leisurely uptown business man. So is the Colony Restaurant, where the food is so unusually good that it can serve for very special occasions.