PIRATED STYLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 12

PIRATED STYLES.

PARIS POLICE RAIDS.

FRENCH CREATION "BOOTLEGGERS."

COUTURIERS AND TRADES SUFFER,

The French police announced recently | that they will continue their activities against Americans engaged in "bootlegging to America" the latest dress designs of the big Parisian couturiers. Nineteen of the leading fashion houses in Paris grouped themselves in an association for the protection of their creations and are responsible for the action of the police in two raids on one day, in which fashion sketches were seized in the possession Mrs. Caroline Davis and Mrs. Ida Oliver, American buyers. The following day two other raids were carried out. Mile, de Paillerot, a French sketch artist, was accused of making drawings of fashion models. Another raid on an apartment in a building in Passy was unsuccessful, for its American occupants already had left. Vigorous Action Planned. M. Lotus Dangel, president of the Courturiers' Protective Association, told an American newspaper correspondent he would make a determined effort to check this illicit traffic in French designs, which, he said, was already working a serious hardship on French dressmaking houses through a decline in sales to American buyers and to visitors to Paris, Avho preferred to purchase cheaper imitations of the French models in the United States to having authentic gowns made by chic Paris houses. The French Press was unanimous in approving this campaign and in denouncing the persons, said to be Americans, engaged in the so-called "bootlegging." "A great decrease in American orders has had the immediate effect of putting largo numbers of our dressmaking employees out of work," says "La Liberte," "and it has also had a bad effect on the silk and textile industries of Lyons and Northern France. No doubt the slump in American buying is due in part to the economic crisis, but it is also the result of pilfering of French creations, which are reproduced cheaply by American firms almost before these gowns have been launched in Paris." "La Liberte" says fashion copyists visit the large houses where the models are created, usually in the guise of prospective clients and accompanied by a friend who acts as interpreter. The friend in reality is usually an artist, it is said, and during the fittings surreptitiously makes drawings or takes notes on all the models shown, and afterwards makes a series of detailed sketches. So expert are some of these artists that they are said to be able to memorise 20 or 30 gowns at a sitting and afterwards to draw them in all details.

Artist Tells of Methods. Tho majority of these artists are French and. are paid from 4 to 40 francs per drawing, according to a statement by Mile. Paillerot to the police. These designs are sometimes coloured cr perhaps accompanied by samples of the materials and by full descriptions, often in code, dispatched by the fastest trans-Atlantic mail steamers or sometimes carried by messengers, she said. American cloak and suit firms, it is said, are thus always up to date on the very trend in Parisian 6tyles, and often succeed in advancing the productions of Paris dressmakers. No definite police charge has yet been placed against the persons involved by the investigation, though a law exists in Prance against copying commercial or art creations. There may yet be a test case in the courts. Among the American buyers in Paris for tho style openings there was considerable dismay and not a little uncertainty as to just what constitutes a violation of the French law. They say tho purchase of fashion designs has been customary for many years, and new models often are produced in newspapers and publications.

Pattern Smuggling. Tlio dressmakers themselves realise that copying from sketches is a minor matter, and that the real competition in model stealing comes from secret establishments with access to actual cloth patterns. Midinettes in dressmaking houses receive smaU wages and sometimes are tempted to increase their earnings by smuggling patterns. The dressmakers take many precautions, but often their watching is futile, for instances have been known where practically entire collections have been sold to copyists. Dress pirates operate among small wholesalers and dressmakers, offering the use of cloth patterns for a limited time at a set price.