International: Krug 1928

In London’s chill, dusty St. James’s Palace, workmen labored last week cleaning windows and installing a special hot-water system. Here, on Jan. 9, King George VI, whose own state dining room in Buckingham Palace was still not redded up for peace, would entertain the chief delegates to UNO at a banquet.

It would be Britain’s first state banquet since the visit of President Albert Lebrun of France, early in 1939, and the King planned to have everything in royal style. The palace chefs would have the night out; special caterers have been engaged to provide as lavish a feast as possible in austere Britain. Wines, including Krug champagne of the famous 1928 vintage, have been carted over from the royal cellars at Buckingham. Servants will don their prewar liveries of scarlet & gold and blue & gold.

The King would have liked his ministers and gentlemen to wear their state uniforms of red & gold with white doeskin breeches, white silk stockings and buckled shoes. But the uniforms cost $500 each, and Labor is in power. The invitations read: “Dinner jacket or day dress.”