£300,000,000 FOR DRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 359, 9 April 1910, Page 10

£300,000,000 FOR DRESS.

DAME FASHION'S STAGGERING LITTLE BILL.

Few people realise what immense talent, labor, and effort are involved in the maintenance of a first-class dressmaking establishment in the front rank, says a Home paper. Ladies who "dress" on £2o' a year stand aghast when they read of certain favorites of fortune who nonchalantly order dresses costing anything from £IOO to £4OO, dressing gowns from £3O to £SO, silk petticoats from £25 to £4O, corsets from £6 to £l2, hats from £lO to £4O, sable coats at £IOOO, stockings at £lO a pair. Wealthy women will often order twenty hats at a time, and forty hats in a year is not considered extravagant for a woman who professes to dress. really well. Orders for twenty dresses

are not unusual with American millionaireesses. who want to return to New York with "something to wear," and obviously this involves a large expenditure oh the various other articles necessary to complete these stunning gowns. The leading actresses are splendid clients of the dressmakers, and one famous atriste recently confessed that although she dresses Royalty and the .cream of aristocracy, she is particularly, interested in dressing actresses, for their gowns offer special scope for the development of her talent. The fashionable dressmakers give long credit. Money comes in slowlv. but it comes. Usually the more aristocratic the client the longer the firms have to wait. It would probably be found that every eight years a bis firm has to wipe off bad debts equal to <in average year's turnover. A certain firm had at one moment £400,000 outstanding on their books, and the chairman said that he regarded this colossal amount as the finest proof of the firm's prosperity, and, considering the illustrious names in their ledgers, this was probably a sound commercial .proposition. The lending dressmakers have a clev- ■, fcrly organised secret service, whose

business is discreetly to discover the bad, reckless or doubtful clients: guard against the pirating of their most exclusive models: and prevent unscrupulous rivals from tampering with their confidential employees. Perhaps the most dangerous clients for the dressmakers are those evtravn-' gant ladies who suddenly quarrel with., or abandon, their husbands, who have, hitherto footed their bills. Who should pay now? Sometimes these delicate problems are settled in the Law Courts.! While ex.iet figures are not. of course, available, it may be calculated that, directly and indirectly, the yearly dress bill of the feminine community aggrej gates quite £300.000,000.