DRESS SPIES OUTWIT PARIS DESIGNERS

Chronicle (Levin), 9 March 1948, Page 7

DRESS SPIES OUTWIT PARIS DESIGNERS

Dress styles now showing in Paris under a pledge of seerecy were being sold two weeks ago to women in America, says-a London correspondent.- .. i

;"For- example, a hooded cloak whlch was a "secret" model was §howhm Paris for the first time by Gres oruFebruarry 7. But on Januar'y 20— nineteen days earlier — the New York Times printed an adver-' tisement including a photograph of the same cloak. Tt was described as: A special trahslation of Gres' new spring cloak — price 135 dollars. Hqw is -it that the elabdrately guarded designs of the "Paris dressmakers are common property in New York before they have been seen in Paris? In the example above, . special business arrangements were' made, but in other cases "leakages" of informati-on are encouragefl and paid for. This is one result of the longrange dictatorship that the American fashion in'dustry is exercising on Paris. Black Market Copying "Midinettes" who work in the best Paris houses smuggle out the paper patterns from which the dresses are cut, to sell to the highest bidder. Thirty well-known black market copying firms _ and hundreds of gmaller firms in Paris work with them. In a recent raid the police foiind 50 sketches in one firm's flies of secret models- designed . by famous houses like. Dior, the New Look man.

Though the private firms are well-known, and the penalties ■ f or proven copying range from 50,000 francs to, 3,000,000 francs, the fashion black marketeers have a get-Hout. They escape the penaity if they can prove that they have altered one detail. ' A mass-produced pattern of a model stolen from one of the best houses fetches many hundred francs. Most of them go to America because the black marketeers prefer dollars. Dollars Influence Fashion I believe many Paris fashion designers now concentrate solely on creating what they think the women of America want to wear next. That is why Paris leadership means everything to the Americans, practically nothing to the British-, and even less to the French. There is another more subtle result of the power of dollars to influence fashion. American firms anxious to promote some special fabric or fashion accessory send their representatives to Paris long before the collections. They proftiise the designers: "We will buy every model in which our produet appears." So the American fashion industry thrives— complete with a Paris label which looks just'like the real thmg.