CAN A WOMAN DRESS ON £50 A YEAR?

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 156, 21 March 1918, Page 2

CAN A WOMAN DRESS ON £50 A YEAR?

The . rumoured appointment of 'a Dress Controller had caused consternation among some women, in England, who,say that the suggested yearly £50 limit for clothes is uoterly absuru.. "Why should we be rationed in clothes sOlOiig as We can afford 10 pay for them?'' : said Lady Alexander to a.. ■"Daily Express" representative. "It is good that money should circulate, and if' women spent oilly i!SO a. year on dress 'Hundreds of girls would be thrown out of work. Aly dressmaker says she can only just pay wages and rent, and already some of the kige iirins have cut down their staffs. We have to think of this class of worker, 'temperamentally unfitted for very hard manual work, liesides, no Woman of position coiild dress well on £50 a year unless she had a very clover maid, whom sho wotild have to pay as much in wages. It is true we do not want evening drosses, but we must have pretty, bright frocks to wear at charity, matiuees, or how should wo raise money r" "It would be little use asking women |to cut down their dress expenditure to £50 a year," Bays Lady Canard. "If they-did not spend money on tlress they Would spend it on jewellery o~r pictures Or amusements. To be elfectivo you Would have to have'an all-round "limit: £50 a year is extremely little for a wnr-timo allowance.". , Mi's. Will Crooks thinks that there should be a different allowance for society women and those of tho middle classes.. "It would be rather hard for ladies who just sit about to be limited to' £50 a yeiir," she said, "because they need better clothes than women who have to rlo hard work.. I should suggest a £100 limit for them, and a. £50 limit for middle-class women. What 1 do not hold with is tho Bile of silk stockings at a guinea, pair. l\csll that wicked, and it ought to he stopped, but to pay a good price for useful clothes is not extravagance. Twenty pounds !i year does not go far vflen von cannot get a decent druss material 'under 7s. lid. a yitrd. t intended giri ing stockings as somo oF my Christinas I ])roseuts, but you cannot get anything under 2s. lid.; they' Used to-Jiie f»d. Very poor people, of cotirse, spend less than £o a year in clothes-. A neighbour told me tlie other day sho had one new dress in fourteen years; all her, other clothes, were "bought, secondhand." • ' ■

First aid bandaging was practised at tlm 'Wellington South divisional' meeting on Tuesday evening, a.fflir number of members being present. The Woodward Street Shop will bo managed and l stocked by the division on I'Yidny noxt, and a, good day is hoped for.