New York Fashion Week started yesterday. I had a fascinating discussion this week with Nancy MacDonell, fashion historian and author of the new book Empresses of Seventh Avenue. Nancy talked in Back Row about what it was like to go to Paris to see the shows at the dawn of WWII:

“Let's talk about the very last journey they were able to make before the war made that impossible. Americans were able to travel to Paris, as they always did, in January 1940. It was dangerous to cross the North Atlantic, but they did it anyway. They pretty much all traveled on one ship. It could accommodate more than 1,100 passengers. About 160 made the trip because who was going to go to Paris to buy clothes at this point? They actually couldn't go to Paris because that was a belligerent nation. They had to go via Genoa.

“They took a train from Genoa to Paris. There was no heat on the train, there were no lights. Because everyone had so much luggage, they couldn't even get to the restrooms. It had been converted from sleepers to daytime cars, and it was filled with soldiers. So it wasn't a very comfortable journey. When they got to the border in the Alps, everyone had to climb out into the snow, have their passports checked, and get back on.”