UNDER the starry midnight skies of the French Riviera, international socialites are paying top prices to listen to one of the best-paid performers on the Continent. Her voice is vibrant, husky and compelling. As the last notes of the song die away the expensively-dressed audience are silent for a moment Then they clap, cheer, and roar, "Encore! Encore!"
      The girl who causes this exciteinent is no exotic French star. She's our own Petula Clark: the 28-year-old girl from West EweIl., Surrey, who left Britain two years ago to find fame, fortune and happiness in France.
      REMEMBER Pet 15 years ago-a 13-year-old child star dressed in sugar-pink organdie?
      REMEMBER her ten years ago-a Rank starlet in pastel satins?
      REMEMBER even two years ago-still a baby Britisb song-thrush; the little girl who couldn't grow up, still with a mop of bright curls and and frilly dresses?
      Today there is a completely new Petula Clark. Gone are the prissy curls, the fussy dresses. The new Petula dresses casually, with the clever, throw-away elegance of a real Frenchwoman. Her short hair is casual and chic. Her face-almost innocent of make-up--glows with happiness, and her eyes smile.

EXCITING

Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Belgians rave about her charm, her chic, her looks.

       In France Pet is known as La Petulante Petula. And petulante in French doesn't mean petulant in English. It means exciting, lively, irrepressible-qualities which have made Petula Clark a top-bracket Continental star, earning as much as film star Yves Montand for a personal appearance.
       Gone is the hesitance-the slight sadness in the eyes of a girl who was in love with the wrong man and knew.
       The most amazing change in Petula is the difference being in love with the right man has made.
       Two months ago she married, and happiness welled up in her and overflowed, communicating itself to everyone she meets.
       When she took the momentous decision to make a new career for herseif in France, Petula ended her on-again, off-again jinxed romance with Joe "Mr. Piano" Henderson, who had been her accompanist for 12 years.
       In France she met the man who is now her husband: tall, handsome 30-year-old Claude Wolff.
       On a lightning visit to Eng- land, Pet told me about the difference that snap decision to go to France has made to her life.
       "It was the biggest risk I've ever taken," she said. I'd gone as far as I could. In Britain. I was branded as child star."
       Branded is the word, for when she wore a low-cut dress on television four years ago, she was swamped with letters from outraged fans. Yet she was 24 at the time!

DISASTER

      "I had always wanted to act," Petula went on, "But I seemed to be booked for life as a dear little thing shedding sweetness and light. It was such a terrible strain.
      "Then I was invited to sing in Paris, and fell in love with the place.
      "My first appearance there was a near disaster, though. I wore one of my `English' dresses: pale pink and white, with a full skirt.
      "And when I went on the stage, the audience roared with laughter. They thought it was just about the funniest thing they had ever seen.
      "French people always imagine English girls dress in blue or pink. And there I was, straight from London to prove it to them! The worst comment was that I looked like a sore thumb wrapped in a bandage! But I didn't really mind, because it was Claude, my husband, who said it!"
      After that, Pet decided to study what French audiences wanted, rather than what she thought they ought to have.

UPLIFT

      "In France," she told me, "people don't go to a music hall simply to be entertained.
      "They go for a sort of spiritual uplift. When French stars sing, it is of love, death, happiness or grief, and they sing in a way that makes people respond. "That's what I have tried to learn.
      "Nowadays, I sing in a different way. It's no longer, `Here I am, look at me.' It's `Listen I can

show you hint at . . . what life is all about.'
      "At least, that's what I try my hardest to do!"

HYPNOTISM

      Pet now sings effortlessly in French, German, Italian and Spanish-but for her second show in Paris, with Henri Salvador, she had to learn the words of her songs through hypnotism!
      The songs were in French slang and the words wcre extremely naughty. "Luckily I didn't understand them' she told me. "I learned them under a light trance." The theatre was crowded every night. But this time, her audiences raved not because she was "sweet" or "English " but because they had found a new star.

ROMANCE

     By this time, Pet had met Claude Wolff, and had another reason for staying on in France.
      Her troubled romance with "Mr. Piano" had ended. For years. close friends had expected Pet and Joe Henderson to marry.
      But they decided that their careers were too important to them to risk marriage.
      Joe said he didn't want to be known as "Mr. Pet Clark" and added that Pet would not consider giving up her career just to be "Mrs. Joe Henderson. housewife." Friends wondered whether Pet ever would marry.
      But Pet's chance meeting at a Paris party with a stranger who stood on a table to fix a light bulb, soon had them thinking otherwise.

     In a few days the handsome stranger had swept Pet off her feet. "As soon as I saw Claude, I knew he was the man for me,' Pet told me happily.
      "I didn't know whether he was the electrician or the office boy. And I didn't care. It really was love at first sight. "But I'm afraid it wasn't a magic moment for Claude. He's told me since that he thought: Who is that snooty girl with the terrible red hair? I'd had it dyed for a film but he wasn't to know that, of course!"
      Claude wasn't the electrician. He was the publicity man for the record company that released Pet's French records.

HAPPY

      It was part of his job to introduce the stars to their musicians and see that they were happy. "So Claude saw a lot of me," said Pet. "It was only the day before I left Paris to come home that Claude realized he loved me, too!"
      Pet and Claude have bought a shepherd's little cottage in the South of France, and they're very busy making it into a home.
      "It's going to be a real home,"said Pet. "It's the most beautiful place. There are palm trees on the terrace and we have an orange grove. "We're planning to furnish the cottage with old

French furniture. That's another way in which I've changed. Before, everything had to be contemporary.
      "Claude has made me see the beauty of old things."
      Will Pet consider giving up her career now she's married? The old Petula would have said "No." The new one says: "Naturally, "What could he more important than your home and family?"

PETULA'S clothes have a distinct air of Parisian magic about them these days.
      And she was delighted when we asked if we could copy one of her favourite suits for Woman's Mirror readers to make.
      It's the good natured, go-anywhere cardigan suit.
      Petula has a number of these in different fabrics, all with carefully chosen, contrasting blouses.
      She finds them invaluable and we know you will too.
      The pattern costs 2s.--a low price for such high style. It's available in bust sizes 36, 38, 40 and 42 in. with long and three-quarter sleeve versions.
      Size 36 takes 3 1/4 yd. of 36 in. fabric for the lovng-sleeved version; or 3 1/8 yd. for the three-quarter sleeved style. The same size takes 2 `/4 yd of 54 in. material for the long-sleeved version, and 2 1/8 yd. for the three quarter-sleeved style.
      Sleeves For the jacket lining you will need 1 7/8 yd. of 36 in. fabric for long sleeves, or 1 1/4 yd. of 36 in. fabric for three quarter sleeves.
      To get your pattern fill in the coupon on the right with your name and address in BLOCK capitals, please, stating your bust size. Send it, with a postal order for 1s., to: Woman's Mirror Special Pattern, London.