Musical Chairs

Beneath the crystal chandeliers at the St. Regis Roof, an ornate auditorium that tops Manhattan's St. Regis Hotel like a tiara, sat a glistening segment of New York's feminine society. The girls had gathered for the usual ritual: a fashion show (this one a benefit in memory of Mrs. Angier Biddle Duke, who died in a plane crash last year). As usual, the crowd vied in splendor with the mannequins displaying the new summer modes. Mmes. William Woodward, George F. Baker, Frederick Gushing and John R. Fell turned out with their fanciest friends, some sporting the new ascetic Marienbad coiffure, and all dressed to the nines. But this was a fashion show with a difference. For it demonstrated that not only fashion but fashion editors can change.

There sat Diana Vreeland, a regal figure in black. For a quarter-century Diana had been fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar. But Diana was eying the procession as associate editor of Harper's rival, Vogue--having switched magazines last month. And of the lithe models doing their stylish slither down the inter-table runway, none so captured Diana's rapt attention as China Machado, 26, an exotic blend of Portugal and Siam, glorious in a cocktail-hour getup that included pants and an overskirt. China (pronounced Chee-nah) was there in two capacities: as a model, and as the newest fashion staffer on Harper's Bazaar. Said she of her latest venture: "I have so much to learn that I'm killing myself."

Not all of fashion's new team of sibyls were there. Wilhela Cushman. the Ladies' Home Journal's fashion editor since 1937, stayed away because covering fashion shows is no longer her job. That privilege now belongs to Catherine di Montezemolo, a marquesa who left Vogue's corral of fashion writers last month to succeed Wilhela on the Journal. Cathie did not show at the roof either; she had seen all these summertime fineries before.

Absent, too, was dapper, Paris-born Baron Nicolas De Gunzburg, 57, who. in this fashionable game of musical chairs, remains firmly seated behind his desk as fashion editor of Vogue. Nicky has sat there for 13 years, and no mere slip of a woman is likely to replace him.

Or is she?

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