Business: Haute Couture

(See front cover)

Not for three months will the, horse chestnut trees on Paris' Champs-Elysees begin to turn yellow. Yet last week on the brief and severe Rue de la Paix autumn had already come. And on hand for its coming was an excited little army of U. S. dress buyers who crowded through closely-guarded doorways into the salons of the great Parisian couturiers. Inside the warm air was heavy with perfume and the smell of new silk. Buyers who usually paid $100 to get in (refunded on the...