FOREIGN GLAMOUR PREFERRED

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 125, 14 November 1941, Page 42

FOREIGN GLAMOUR PREFERRED

The Sad Experience of Edward Bok |

AST week we published in The Listener a short article on American-designed fashions. Soon, American couturiers are confident, the American woman will cease to look to either Paris or London for her inspiration. She will see the logic of adopting a style of dress designed for her by her own country women, by those who are familiar with both her needs and her preferences. But logic has little relation to fashion, and though fashions may change, feminine nature doesn’t. American fashions have found, and are likely to find, a welcome in countries outside America-they have already established themselves firmly in Australia and New Zealand — but it seems likely that after the war American women will again raise their eyes from their contemplation of American models to see what Paris is then doing. It isn’t merely a case of the cabbages in one’s neighbour’s garden being so much larger and greener. The fact is that glamour, with its ingredients of mystery and exoticism, cannot be home-grown, and that therefore clothes, if they are to have "that certain something," the sartorial equivalent of "oomph," must come from abroad. Edward Bok, in his autobiography, has a chapter headed " An Excursion into the Feminine Nature," in which he tells with

disillusioned acceptance the story of his ill-fated attempt to persuade American women to adopt American fashions. Edward Bok was for thirty years (from 1889 to 1919) editor of the highly esteemed Ladies’ Home Journal-thirty years high-lighted by many successful campaigns. But his campaign on behalf of the American -designed fashion was

not so successful, for here he found himself up against that inexplicable mystery -feminine nature. "Deceit And Misrepresentation" Here is the account from his book: "The strangling hold which the Paris couturiers had secured on the American woman in their absolute dictation as to her fashions in dress had interested Edward Bok for some time. As he studied the question, he was constantly amazed at the audacity with which these French dressmakers and milliners, often themselves of little taste and scant morals, cracked the whip, and the docility with which the American woman blindly and unintelligently danced to their measure. The deeper he went into the matter, too, the more deceit and misrepresentation did he find in the situation. It was inconceivable that the American woman should submit to what was being imposed upon her if she knew the facts. He determined that she should know them. "The Journal engaged the best informed woman in Paris frankly to lay open the situation to the American women; she proved'that the designs sent over by the so-called Paris arbiters of fashion were never worn by the Frenchwoman of birth and good taste; that thay were especially designed and specificaliy intended for ‘the bizarre American trade,’ as one polite Frenchman called it.. Women Easily Duped "This article was the opening gun of the campaign, and this was quickly followed by a second equally convincingboth articles being written from the inside of the gilded circles of the couturiers’ shops. Madame Sarah Bernhardt was visiting the United States at the time, and Bok induced the great actress to verify the statements printed. She went farther and expressed amazement at the readiness with which the American woman had been duped; and indicated her horror on seeing American women of refined sensibilities and position dressed in the gowns of the déclassé street-women of Paris. " Bok now followed the French models of dresses and millinery to the United States, and soon found that for every genuine Parisian model sold in the large cities, at least ten were copies, made in New York shops, but with the labels of the French dressmakers and milliners sewed on them. He followed the labels to their source, and discovered a firm, one of whose specialities was the making of these labels bearing the names of the leading French designers. They were manufactured by the gross, and sold in bundles to the retailers. Bok secured a list of the buyers of these labels and found that they represented some of the leading merchants throughout the country. All these facts were published. * Meanwhile he had engaged the most expert designers in the world of women’s dress and commissioned them to create American designs. For months designers and artists worked; he had the designs passed upon by a board of judges com(Continued on next page)

IMPORTED GLAMOUR (Continued from previous page)

posed of New York women who knew good clothes, and then he began their publication. ; All In "Bok published pages of Americandesigned fashions; their presence in the magazine was advertised far and wide; conventions of dressmakers were called to consider the saleability of domesticdesigned fashions; and a campaign with the slogan ‘American Fashions for American Women’ was soon in full swing. "But there it ended. The womerr looked the designs over with interest, as they did all designs of new clothes, and paid no further attention to them. The very fact that they were of American design prejudiced the women against

them. America never had designed good clothes, they argued; she never would. Argument availed naught. "He talked with women on every hand, his mail was full of letters, commending him for his stand; but, as for actual results, there were none. One of his most intelligent women-friends finally summed up the situation for him: ‘You can rail against the Paris domination all you like; you can expose it for the fraud that it is, and we know that it is; but it is all to no purpose, take my word. When it comes to the question of her personal adornment, a woman employs no reason; she knows no logic. She knows that the adornment of her body is all that she has to match the other woman and outdo her, and to attract the male, and nothing that you 7" can say will influence her a particle,