CHEAPER SUITS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 193, 11 May 1920, Page 8

CHEAPER SUITS

» A LONDON SENSATION. '■ A fe>v weeks ago London tailors and London men who have been paying un-heard-of prices for their clothes wero i mildly amused to read in tho newspapers a series of' advertisements announcing that Mallaby Deeley, a member of Parliament, had gone into the clothing business and was out to sell cheap suits (states a. London message to <t Ne,v York paper), They hqd all heard about cheap suits before, but somehow or other the cheap suits had not materialised. Everyone agreed that they were needed. Mallaby Deeley announced that he had secured control of four big clothing factories and had bought millions of yards of cloth and was ready to turn out suits "finishei! to measure" at prices ranging up to .£3. On tho first morning that he opened for business a line half a mile long formed .in front of his shop in thu Strand and half a dozen policemen wero needed to keep the eager buyers in orde/. The second day was worse, and oil the third day mail vans began to roll up to tho door in procession carrying the mail, orders. That was on February 27. Now Mallaby Deeley has been forced to throw up his hands. He figured on an output of 5000 suits a week. His orders navo amounted to 10,000 a day and the mails ar> still brininns,' tiiem. Tne lino in the Strand has become a permanent feature of the landscape nnd the busses stop automatically to disgorge their p-issengers at Mallaby Deelty'B door. Now, however, there is going to be a lull, for Mallaby' Deeley announces that ha is swamped. Ho has to stop selling until he has. filled tho orders he has taken or has acquired half a doz. : n more factories. When he is ready to begin again ho will notify the public. ■.■'-' In' the- meantime, ho has brought ordinary _ tailor's prices down. Most of tho tailors in the Strand have marked down prices by about 50 per cent in thu last fortnight, and while they aro scornful of Mallaby "n?eley's "hand me downs" they are evidently scared. Even Bond-Street, tho home of London's highest Spriced tailors, is stirring with rumours of marked reductions!