40-GUINEA STOCKINGS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9338, 6 January 1909, Page 2

40-GUINEA STOCKINGS.

Stockings that cost forty guineas a pair are not an unknown luxury, says the Daily Mail. The price is not exorbitant when the worth of the fabric is taken into consideration, said an authority on.dress. One pair represents the labour of one man for one whole year, and there are very few men who know how to produce by means of the baudloom a pair of stockings so fine, so accurately woven, and so exquisitely shaped as those for which the sum of forty guineas is charged. A handloom weaver near Paris is the maker of stockings snob as these, and more exquisite specimens the world has never seen. The way in which fthe forty'guinea stockings are decorated is by means of a of handmade lace inset from within an inch and a half to the toes to a distance of from ten to twelve inches above the ankle. Almost the whole of the front of the : is therefore a film of lace.' Every thread of the lace is hand wrought. The lace is patterned in various devices. One exquisite pair shows a flight of butterflies raised from the background and yet not detached from it, with a “filling” of various stitches, alfe executed by the needle. Of infinite variety are the stitches that delineate the heraldic emblems of the Uni.

ted Kingdom upon a second pair of white silk hose. But some of the most valuable stockings are not even inset with lace. Their merit lies in the fineness of their weaving.