TALK ON FASHION

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 97, 18 January 1933, Page 5

TALK ON FASHION

Industry of Considerable Importance “To talk about fashion at a time so full of sadness and hardship seems to ■be almost a fault of tact, but, if you want to think about it, isn’t fashion one of the great industries, not only of France, but of the whole world?’’ said Mlle. Gabrielle Chanel in a speech recently in London which was broadcast to Australia. t “An astonishing economic mistake, an almost unbelievable ignorance of commercial truth, have made us divide in two kinds the industries, the work through which man secures his living. We have called one just industry and we have called the other the industry of luxury, implying thus that one was more necessary than the other, as if work—that is to say, the right to live —could be allowed to one man and denied to another. “And we almost forgot in our strange blindness that the flower whose culture gives work to millions of men in the world, through the perfume industry, is as necessary for those men as wheat is necessary for the men who grow it. “The industry of fashion, taking only the gown and the hat, allows. millions of men and women to earn their living. For the industry of fashion includes the wool, the cotton, and the silk industries, also the industries of feathers and. artificial flowers. Also the industry of material weaving and the dye industry. And do you realise what the transportation of those goods means? Packing, using wood, steel, and paper. “Do you realise what it means, too, for the railroads, the navigation corporations, the customs people, the merchants, the owners of shops, large or small, the salesmen and the sales-

women? I am far' below the right figures in stating that probably more than 25 million people in the world are getting their means of living through the fashiqn industry, directly or indirectly. Knowing this, how could you call fashion a luxury trade, and don’t you agree with me that it is my duty to defend the industry of fashion and claim for it the right to be? Helping Other Industries. “In fighting for fashion as I do, in keeping it alive as I <l6, I have the great pride of knowing that in my way I am helping the wool industry of Australia, the great stores of Sydney and Melbourne, and of yo\r other cities, great or small. I know that lam fighting for work against unemployment, and in that way I may be helping you, too, farmers of Australia, for when there is too much misery in the world your wheat doesn’t sell. “Looking at fashion in that light, as you should, as you must, don’t call frivolous any more the woman who often buys a new gown, or a new hat. Each time she does it she gives work to a dozen people, and in my heart I think it is a greater and a finer action to give work than to give charity. Besides, elegance is not a matter of wealth; elegance is not acquired only with money. Any woman can be attractive and smart within her means, because elegance does not mean waste. On the contrary, a truly elegant woman does not waste, she buys. “Don’t call a coquette the woman who wants to be ‘a la mode.’ Because, to be dressed in the latest fashion really means to look young, as the latest fashion is always the newest, which means the youngest. And that desire to remain young, is it not the symbol of the eternal fight of beauty against the destruction of time? Don’t forget if a woman wants to remain as young looking and as attractive as she can it is because she wants to remain as long as she can in the eyes of the man she loves, as attractive as she was when he looked at her for the first time. Gift of Happiness. “In doing so, she is defending her love, that is to say, her happiness . . ■ and yours. Instead of discouraging her, understand her, and help her as much as you can. Think that the new gown she will buy will not only mean more work for several great industries, but a little happiness for her. Therefore a great happiness for you. “Maybe you expected me to tell you if this summer your gowns are going to be long or short, what kind of material you will wear, and what will be the colour ‘a la mode.’ But I don’t know yet. All I know Is that I am going to do all I can to make your gowns and your hats as becoming to you as possible, in order to make you as attractive as you must be. And that is the work that I am going to start to-morrow: the work of creating the next, spring fashion. “It is always, 1 assure you, a great

and., serious work, but at the present moment, greater and more serious than at any time. In spite, or because of. the present business depression, I will do my best to make the next fashion happier, if I may say so, than it has ever been. I want men to be confident of to-morrow, looking at the women dressed in the fashion that I am going to create to-morrow. But although I am a woman, I am not vain enough to pretend to know to-day what to-morrow is going to be.”