NOVELTY AND DISPLAY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19971, 4 July 1930, Page 2

NOVELTY AND DISPLAY.

FOREIGN GOODS AND FEMALE MIND. Sir' Sydney Skinner, president of the Drapers' Chamber of Trade, presiding at the annual meeting of the Chamber in London,- said unemployment was one of the greatest difficulties of the trade. He had had many conversations with Mr Thomas, and had assured him that anything they could do by the purchasing of British goods would be done. "'But," he continued, "I do think people are apt to exaggerate the cure they aTe going to obtain for unemployment by continually stressing this need for the purchase of British goods. . . . People have got the extraordinary idea that, because they see advertisements of foreign goods, then, necessarily, all goods tney buy are foreign. "The foreigner produces the novelty, and the novelty represents display. The novelty in your window has a psychological effect on the feminine mind, and possibly on the male mind as well. These novelties, however, only represent the show side of our business — they do not represent the sales. "Excluding food, I should say that the amount of goods we sell of foreign origin would not be more than ten to eleven per cent.''