BRITISH TAILORS PROTEST

Southland Times, Issue 24887, 29 October 1942, Page 6

BRITISH TAILORS PROTEST

NEW UTILITY SUITS Strong criticism of the British Board of Trade regulations simplifying clothing is made by the trade journal, Tailor and Cutter, of London. It affirms that the tailors are not getting a fair deal. It was neither just nor reasonable that a great industry like tailoring should be run by civil servants and ministers of the Crown, whose knowledge of the subject was virtually nil. “We have quietly put up with the mistakes and misguided moves of a body of men who do not and cannot understand such a complex matter as the clothing trade,” says the journal. “Everyone sees the necessity for conserving wool, and most folk accept utility cloth in lieu of something better. What the majority of men dislike is being treated like children. Imagine the ‘sauce’ of fiddling with turn-ups of trousers. Fancy the nonsense of reducing waistcoat pockets to two when every man knows that four are needed to contain season ticket, fountain pen, watch, and other impedimenta.” The journal wants a practical tailor at the Board of Trade, although more than pockets is the issue. Indeed, it is clearly indicated that under the restrictions the great tailoring trade may be jettisoned, a few “factories-cum-chain-store” securing the business. “Famous firms as well as the small traders will go down like ninepins unless the Board of Trade changes its views,” says the journal. “To kill a craft like tailoring is madness. When the war is over we shall have precious little export trade. Few are aware of the amount of money spent in England in normal times by visitors from overseas. For over a century, London has been the centre of high-class tailoring. Men have come from every part of the globe periodically to get the best clothes money can buy.” WHAT MEN CARRY The pocket problem is discussed by a writer in the Irish press. “The utility suits,” he says, “beside dispensing with dust-gatherers round the ankles, have no dummy buttonholes at the wrists. This is good news. It will teach those dictators, the tailors, that if only they had consented to supply real buttonholes so that we could turn up our cuffs in comfort when working at the desk, they would have had an excuse to continue with buttonholes and buttons.

“Pockets are cut down to three in utility suits. This is not so good; in fact, I consider that it makes nonsense of the title. What has more utility than a pocket? The comfort of carrying all your notebooks, pockethandkerchiefs, pocket-knives, pencils, pens, story-books, smokables, playingcards, money, marbles and chalk to make the ring—all the necessaries of civilized life—was one advantage that menfolk had over the ladies hitherto. Henceforward, with drastically rationed pockets, men will have to carry vanity bags. Is this economy?”