EXCESSIVE PRICES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 254, 15 July 1918, Page 3

EXCESSIVE PRICES

AND A WOMAN'S PROTEST. ' Women who work in London offices are up in arms against the ever-increasing cost of millinery and wearing apparel, and are threatening to start a "110-hnt" brigade. If they succeed in establishing the French work-girls' custom of no hat excepting for Sunday wear, it will probably be the first case in the world's history of a change of fashion being caused by money.

"It is particularly hard," said one bright girl typist to a "Weekly Dispatch" representative, "on what I call the middle-class girl.- I mean the girl who comes from a decent home, and now that ,I]er brothers are away she has to help to keep things going. *■

"We dres.s as well as wc can,- not only because of the effect on others, but because it helps us to maintain our selfrespect. Only a woman, for instance, can tell of the. difference in the moral and mental outlook brought about by wearing silk stockings. '

"Take hats, for instance. There are few, girls that I know, and there aro hundreds working in my place, who can honestly afford to buy a lint these days, and when they buy it T doubt whether it i:-i worth wearing. And it is just the same even with the simplest shaped hat. "Why, only the other day, I got out a list of prices wo girls have to pay for out- things to-day, *and what we could buy them for before the war. All the girls agree lhat the. prices are fair, although, of course, a rich woman would have much more expensive things.

1(111. mis. £s. d. £s. d. Hat for city 010 11 I 511 Hal. for> best ft 15 ii, |17 fi Costume 3 3 0 7 7 0 Shoes 010 6 15 6 Blouse 0G II 13 9 tmdenvear (per set) 012 6 110 0 Stockings 0 1 Gj 0 .1 11 (■'irsel's 0 411 015 0 Lam collar 0 0 G3 0 211 Hair pins 100 a Id. 6 aid.

"The trouble is that not only are things dearer, but they don't last so long, and have got an extraordinary way of looking shabby alter a short while. And how can a girl pay such prices out of £2 a week?

"In our office the girls mean (o keep down expenses somehow or other. There are some things we have just got to have whatever the price, but I don't see that thery i.-i any reason why wo should wear lutes excepting it's a habit." The male proprietor of one of the leading millinery establishments in the West l.nd denied that there has been profiteering in hats. "Take it from me," he said, "there is more money in selling things cheaply than dearly. Our place would not be affected, because our customers como to 'tis for exclusive things, and these'are- always dear.

"Of this you may be certain—nobody can afford to sell things at .pre-war prices, or anything like them. Everything is dearer and more difficult to get —labour, material, light, etc. "I doubt whether English girls could adopt the French custom of 'no hats.' In the first place, it would take a lot of courage to start it, the climate is against the fashion, and the Irench girls know how to do their hair."