Methods in Paris Shops Make Modern Fashion Ordeal

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

Methods in Paris Shops Make Modern Fashion Ordeal

The Paris hat shop of to-day is like the prints showing the beauties of Marie Antoinette’s day submitting to every inconvenience in order to have the newest creation, states -a writer in an English journal. At the big designers’ there is a row of salons, to saunter from one to the other of which is a lesson in psychology. Of furniture today there is none, beyond the first principle of chairs or tabourets and mirrors. Against the polished floor dark blue chair cushions look distinctive. Otherwise there is nothing but a hat or two or perhaps a pile which has been laid aside by a mannequin called upon to display them to a customer. Mannequins, unlike other human beings, can wear all hats. This is because their hair and their faces are so treated that they have become standardised, j The only difference between them and, say, a dummy, is that they can move. Madame, who is probably also treated, I but with less standardisation, sees hats suiting the mannequin to perfection, and while she is much too clever to believe that the same thing will happen to herself, yet she is encouraged. Also she knows that a too long nose or too many eyebrows or lines on the forehead vill be dealt with the milliner. When a style is chosen, discussed at length, and, usually, the colours and the lines departed from, the business begins. A canvas is fitted to the head, land it does not matter what happens to the head and hair during process of such sanctity. The milliner’s fingers feel their way; they press little here, pinch a little there, add a little height here, take away a fraction of an inch there. The basic principles of the hat are thus established. Upon this sure foundation the milliner builds or housebreaks.

There is another trying-on, for which at the fashionable houses the customer may have to wait in an overheated salon while other customers pursue (their way, regardless of their sisters. It is of no use being impatient. When tho customer has reached the extreme of impatience and ill-will the milliner comes, bends over her beatifically, gives her the feeling that she has only been waiting for this moment, produces the creation in its newest phase, places it pontifieally on her head, and then stands back as if in ecstasy at the effect. The customer is moved; she relaxes; she forgives; she makes a sug-

gestion which is treated as an inspiration, even if it does not have much effect. The blue chairs, the shining parquet floor, the long mirrors, the hosts of other important customers seem to stand still for a moment, during which the perfect hat has been born.