the american beauty was so much in vogue in its day that katharine white remembers a debutante who wore a special dress designed to be worn with the roses:

the floor-length gown, as i recall it, was made of rich white satin with a very low neck, and with it she wore, of all things, bright-green silk stockings. in the v of her low neckline she tucked two huge american beauty roses. if one of her partners commented on their fragrance or their rich colour, this saucy girl was reputed to lift her floor-length skirt daintily to show her pretty green ankles and maybe even a bit of her slim green calves, and say demurely, "yes, lovely. and here are the stems."