MONEY IN HAIR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 318, 3 June 1911, Page 9

MONEY IN HAIR.

Considerable fortunes are made nowadays bv artists who design those weird and intricate methods of arranging the hair which are adopted by fashionable and wealthy women. Some years ago it was regarded as purl, of the ordinary duties of a lady's maid to arrange and dress her mistress' chair, but of late years it has become the fashion for smart women in society to employ specialists, whose *kill and knowledge far exceeds that of any ordinary maid. * A eoifi'ure-artist with a fashionable clientele makes unites a good an income a> a doctor or barrister in a first-rate practice. He dressed his client's hair usually twice a day—in the forenoon and before dinner—for no fashionable woman nowadays wears the same si vie of coiffure in the afternoon as in the evening. For this service, a fashionable coif-fure-artist would charge, at least. £4 4a a day. and if liis client wanted him to come to her house !::.■:: .:.'. ~. .'...-lag to his establishment, his charges would be double that, figure. Frequently a wealthy woman will pay a large sum of monev to lie the exclusive wearer of a specially effective coiffure which the artist she employs to arrange her hair may design. A well-known American hostess » few years ago paid three hundred guineas to ne the exclusive wearer of a coiffure, designed bv a leading specialist : but prices for exclusive designs bnvo risen since then, and a strikingly original coiffure would now cost the woman who desired to wear it exclusively probably five or six hundred guineas. Apart, however, from the fees he receives from his clients, a fashionable designer of coiffures makes a good deal of monev out of various little side lines in connection with his calling. He encourages his clients to adopt new methods of arranging their bair as often as nossible. and each time a woman does so it, necessitates the purchase of ;i number of new plnits, etc., and frames, on the sale of which the coiffure specialist makes big profits. A coiffure specialist, however, finds It difficult to get into n lucratice practice as anv other professional man. As a rule, he begins bv exercising his art on (he hair of some pnmilar actress or singer. He does so, of course, without making any charge; indeed, nowadays, he has often to pa* for the privilege of doing so. If be strikes upon some partisensational svtle of coiffure, which is, at. the same time, extremely becoming to the wearer, he will probably secure some wealthy and fashionable' clients. and soon be nbl" to work up a good practice. But if bis profits are large bis expenses are considerable. He has to maintain an establishment in the most expensive quarter of the West End, his consulting and dressingrooms have to be arranged in the most elaborate and costly manner, and he has to keep a large staff of skilled assistants. . One of the lending coiffure specialists reckons his weekly expenses at three hundred pounds.