London's Social Season

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 430, 11 August 1928, Page 22

London's Social Season

WORTH 12 MILLION POUNDS

A.n Expensive Hall-Mark

week marks tlie first act finale of the world’s costliest spectacular production, and the audience sweeps into the metropolitan arena at the rate of 15,000 a week. Traders differ, naturally, in their computation of the cost of the season, but figures compiled suggest that the absence of the season would mean a loss of at least £12,000,000 to British trade. This £12,000,000 is made up by the money spent in London shops by visitors from all parts of the globe who are attracted by the social aspects of the period between May and July, as well as the various profits and expenditure of the various big fixtures. How conservative is this amount may be seen by the statement made by the manager of an American bank, who said: “There are at least 50,000 visitors from the Eastern States of America who spend over £2OO during their summer visit.” That means £10,000,000 alone, always assuming that only a small proportion of these visitors are attracted by the season itself. To Londoners themselves the season may mean little more than a pageant which is so near home that they fail to appreciate its beauties; but a tour of the dozen great hotels of the West End revealed that there were in one London hotel alone visitors from America, Argentine, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba. Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Holland, Greece, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland. The dress bill for the 10,000 women who go to Ascot in the enclosures and boxes amounts to over half a million

LONDON, June 30. The London season is nearing its end, and the curtain will be rung down at Goodwood races on July 31. A week later is Cowes, and after that —just the memory of another year of gaiety which has passed.

pounds, and some idea of the wealth of Ascot may be gained from the fact that last year the prize money reached the record sum of £36,100. Over 25,000 bottles of champagne are drunk during Ascot week! And 30 chefs and 1,000 waiters are employed by the catering authorities.

FLOWER INSPIRED SPRING FASHIONS : “Kew in Lilac Time” is the Mecca of many of the leading London dress creators and designers. They go to these world-famous gardens in search of inspiration for new and unusual blendings of the elusive flower colours in fabrics and embroideries, which are the rage among their exclusive clientele this season. This search for fresh ideas is particularly important when the dressmaking workrooms are filled with busy women cutting, fitting and making up the gowns for the Courts, Ascot and other fashionable social events. Vistas of bluebells in the pale mistly colours of their earliest blooming, the delicate bright greens of the wild hyacinth leaves, one of the most fashionable colours of this spring, clusters of pale mauve lilac, the changing hues of groups of pale purple erica, hya cinth blues, amid a cloud of white for-get-me-nots, are transformed in the eyes of the dress creator into terms of tulle and taffeta.