DRESS PIRATES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 73, 23 September 1930, Page 13

DRESS PIRATES

DEFENCE OF PLASTIC ARTS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) ' LONDON,' 15th August.

Paris dressmakers have determined to prevent clandestine copying of their designs and models, and they have ro•cen'tly formed tho /'Association for the Defence, of. the Plastic Arts." At; the request of the association, the Paris police carried.'out rqids at the weekend on tito-promises of: alleged fa'ahionpirates. <' - '...■...' "•'..■■'..".."

A Paris correspondent reports that a party, including several detectives and scores of experts from various leading dressmaking establishments, assembled in the Champs EJysees, and, with a convoy of ten cars, went first to the apartment of a former resident of New Orleans, where- .several thousand designs, each bearing f the names of. wellknown dressmakers, were seized.: During the search a woman designer called with a number of . sketches. These also, were taken ■ possession of by a Commissioner of Police. The , other woman denied indignantly that the designs in her apartment were surreptitiously obtained copies.

Tho scene of the second raid was a luxurious apartment in the Avenue de Brotcuil, the home of a native of Chicago, Here also, in spite of the woman's protests, many designs wore seized, as well'as several soaled envelopes addressed to dressmaking firms in the United States, and the "key" to a secret code, used, it is alleged, in correspondence with these dressmakers. 'Here they found several persons busily classifying sketches, and other details of fashion displays were being prepared for dispatch to the United States. While they were there a young French artist arrived with several more sketches, for which she said she was paid 8d each. The occupier when question by tho police, admitted that she paid as much as 6s, and even sometimes 17s, for good sketches.

The woman, who is stated to have acted as dress buyer in Paris for twelve. years, maintains that all her operations have been strictly honour-, able, and that all the sketches found in her apartment were bought perfectly openly. She added that she was merely employed by newspapers, journals, and fashion houses in the United States to provide them with information about the opening of the various P,aris exhibitions of fashions. She frequently visited the salons herself and bought dresses which shft' liked.