During the early days of the Covid lockdown, I was extremely pregnant, extremely anxious, and very soothed by watching Murder, She Wrote. The 1980s detective drama stars Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, a successful mystery writer who also happens to be better than any sheriff at solving a local murder. Jessica lives in Cabot Cove, Maine, a bucolic, coastal locale, and—judging from the number of murders she is tasked with solving—the most dangerous place in America.
Because Cabot Cove can’t play host to a murder every single week, the show often journeys farther afield. Jessica has more friends and nephews than a Kennedy and always happens to be visiting one of them at the time of a ghastly crime that only she can solve.
For one 1987 episode, tellingly titled, “A Fashionable Way to Die,” Jessica travels to Paris, and the show’s crew joined her, with much of the episode filmed on location in the city of light. The first glimpse of Jessica is striding up to the foot of the Eiffel Tower in a pearlescent pink pleated skirt suit, entering the landmark s iconic restaurant, Jules Verne.
The episode has all the ingredients of must-see TV: a climactic scene set in the actual Vogue World: Paris war room (otherwise known as the Westin Hotel ballroom), a scurrilous, womanizing loan shark who from the first scene in a Montmartre cabaret club is clearly the soon-to-be the murder victim, a lanky model-of-the-moment with a past she wants to keep hidden, an American fashion designer in desperate need of cash, and a charmant French detective who describes Jessica as the “le Watson” to his Sherlock—all set against the Hausmannian backdrop.
The designer, Eva Taylor, owns a boutique and fashion label called, The Taylored Look–a pun I can’t imagine a French passerby would clock, but I digress. Her flamboyant nephew is her aide de camp and the two of them are preparing for her runway show in a flurry of bravado: “Givenchy, move over!” the nephew crows as they adjust a shapeless sequin shift on a mannequin.
Eva has even secured the model of the moment, Lu Waters, to walk the show, but Lu demands a fee of $10,000, money Eva does not have. She asks Maxim Soury, the loan shark, to loan her money for this “investment” and instead he offers a Faustian bargain of money in return for 50% ownership of Eva s business. Yes, this is a set-up for Eva’s motive when she becomes the prime suspect after Maxim is shot twice in his hotel room, but it also accurately reflects the financial pressures and agonizing business decisions facing designers both real and fictional.
The fitting for Eva s fashion show takes place in the ballroom at the Westin Hotel, then called the Hotel Intercontinental, on the Rue de Castiglione—also where Vogue World: Paris set up headquarters leading up to the fashion extravaganza at the Place Vendôme in June. When I entered the Westin war room in the days leading up to Vogue World, I was greeted by snaking racks of the over 500 looks clipped with print outs and accessorized like scarecrows, fashion assistants scurrying, models mid-change, and stylists dashing madly across the baroque patterned carpet issuing urgent requests in both French and English. I also was greeted by a strong sense of deja vu that I couldn t quite place. It was weeks later when I realized my deja vu was actually a memory of watching Jessica enter a similar scene in this exact room when I watched this exquisite episode of Murder, She Wrote during lockdown in 2020.
Furthermore, at the fitting Jessica is introduced to Lu Waters, the star model. When Jessica innocently remarks, “I’ve seen you on the cover of Vogue, or was it Bazaar?” Lu blithely replies, “Both.”
The fashion show is in a different reception room at the hotel with tables surrounding a runway, salon style. There is even a Vegas-worthy announcer describing each numbered look: “This one is perfect for the many moods of an evening in Paris,” he promised of a moiré sheath. Backstage the models swill champagne and an air of panicked frenzy reigns. A perfect backdrop for someone to sneak away and commit a murder. But who?
After Maxim is killed the dashing yet doltish Inspector Panassié accepts Jessica’s help gratefully but not without a few choice ripostes, “I have boiled the ragout down to the simple meat and potatoes you can understand!”
The day after the show Eva is heralded in the press as, “the return of the great Coco Chanel” and doesn’t return Jessica’s urgent calls (warning her that she is about to be arrested!) because she was with buyers from Dallas talking, “seven figure guarantees!” She apologizes to Jessica, then breathlessly explains, “A week ago the only thing I could get out of Vogue was a subscription, now they want me for a cover story!”
I won’t spoil the whodunnit, but I will note that when the fashion show emcee describes white sequined look 531 and instead number 530, a blue sequined halter dress, appears on the catwalk, we know foul play is afoot backstage leading the inspector to declare, “the perfect alibi! The runway!”
