OUTFLANK PROFITEERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 27, 31 January 1920, Page 20

OUTFLANK PROFITEERS.

. A very suggestive article has heenj published in an English paper upon n.l means of beating the profiteering class. It contains much good advice that can lie applied in New Zealand. Visitors to Auckland comment on nothing .so much I as the lack of good taste ami oricrinal thought in dress. When it is felt "that good taste forbids walking costumes, brogues, and silk stockings being seen in! the street together, the vogue of that' cheap (in appearance alone) article, tho I silk stocking which never saw .1 silk I cocoon will be ended. In the. shops all sorts of alluring and , seductive little triiles which mount up and which one I can so easily do without, are displayed.! Gorgeous laces, feathery hats, shimmering silkr, ami exciting brocades, regnInr mine fields of them, all priced so high t'\at one feele eversopoor and discontentedly hard up. "Villi's" advice in an English paper is, study the latest fashion journals at home in the solitude of your chamber, surrounded by 'i'he contents of yoi.r o'd glory-box, and keep clear of the allurements of the large and fashionable establishments until prices are normal. Compare your last season's straw lint with those of to-day's journal. .Surely if I you refresh it with a coat of the new dull hat lacquer and turn it up somewhere or even back to front, you will eatoh the latest mode. That piece f faded ribbon will be |uite. rejuvenated in a bath of '•Rit." All you have to do is colour your rinsing water with it. No boiling, mess, or fuss. Strip the plumes of 1014 and you have the latest ostrich feather fringe which is sn fashionable for trimming just now. That old net cut into strips and accordeon pleated at sixpence per yard will look e<iual to the same kind of thing sold at two shillings in the shops. Although the fashions of to-day are 1 elaborate, there is this about them I commendable—they are so varied, so j easily copied, and last yearfs frocks being full are so readily convertible to the present style. Reliable patterns are now procurable, almost any size. All one has to do is to -give one's chest measure aud the number of the picture chosen. Deft lingers mould their own button.-'. beads, and buckles, and. by the. most simple means in the realms of stiu-hery. every conceivable embroidered effect is possible and better still one may create one's own designs and still be more fashionable than ever. After all there is a deeded sa.meness in *he readv-to-wears. What'l mean is, cays the writer, there arc always ever so' many alike about town. A little originality is always pleasantly surprising and distinctive. Some of our smartest ladies, who stand out alone for fashionable appearance will tell you confidently that their frock, which you admired -o much, is really their last season's one dyed and reconstructed with the addition of a few new accessories, and these ladies are really happy in the knowledge that they flanked tone profiteer, and they lack that al!-tlie-i-ame-and-one-iclea appearance which unfortunately is apt to catch on in each town every season. It is a great mistake to confine one's purchases