LADIES' COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

LADIES' COLUMN.

Mow Some London Society Women Dress* BY A WEST-END DRESSMAKER. * Within the last few days, writes our London correspondent, a decidediy m\vv- ( esting article, entitled "Women and ' Dress," has been contributed to a ieau- | ing London paper by "A Dressmaker." It is quite possible that your readers may like to have the ' opportunity of seeing for themselves what this "dressmaker" has written, so instead of quoting from them I &end you. her notes in.extenso. The article runs : — "Has anyone a finer opportunity for studying contemporary manners and methods than a fashionable v^est-e^A' ir ode-maker if I think not! What a book ' she might write ; what a sensation it would make ! Her concern, however, with such a study is to apply it to her own business, and that 1 -have learned to do with a result wholly ' beneficial to the same. There are far fewer tricks of < the-, trade than is popularly supposed. Everything is veiy straight and fair in. a really good business. The credit system is, I am told, very bad for the consciences of my clients. * 1 regard it as an excellent result of my study of purchasing human nature that mine have consciences. Those of so many of my colleagues in business appear to have been got rid of, without surgical operation, as wholly ,un» necessary and; frequently inconvenient. Three things are absolutely necessary in such an occupation as this. First, capital, then talent, then tact. To serve a really' good connection, with so long a credit system as ours is, no private business on a^arge' scale can be successfully car-* ried on under a capital of between twenty and thirty thousand pounds. Without _ tact, even that would soon vanish into beautiful creations fon unscrupulous ladies whose consciences have' been dispensed with. I am fortunate enough to have an intuitive knowledge of this kind of customer. i ' "She comes in exquisitely dressed, smelling strongly of the latest and' most expensive perfume, wearing a jewelled chain, and surveying vs — myselfand assistants — with an air of condescension worthy of a duchess who settles half; yearly 1 . She betokens her willingness, to see my latest, my very latest frock, with "I don't so much want it up to-day as next day," and proceeds to talk to a less well-dressed, but also quiteun-the-swiin-looking, lady 1 in what is called the smart jargon, which she supposes I don't understand ;' frut I do ! I politely assure her that my books are so full of orders I find it quite impossible to take any more just now, and; with a "Dear me, how very remarkable," and a haughty stare, which shows me that she knows I know her, she dfeparts, telling her friend that "these dressmaking creatures are making too much money , and are giving themselves quite absurd airs." Our fortunes would not be great had she and her fellows the serving of them. She is one of a set whom a bright assistant of mine aptly calls daylight robbers. "There are always fresh recruits to the non-paying brigade. So far — in a.' good hour be it written — I have not been caught by one of these. You see, we art permitted, nay, expected, to ask a new customer for references. Should these not prove eminently satisfactory, I send the most polite note to say that on referring to my order-book I find I cannot undertake to let her have her dress until — some impossible time !. I have, of course, the advantages of a large capital, and a first-rate and extensive connection, so that I can afford to* send \ away ' a doubtful customer without a qualm. That she will go to others, and they, unable to refuse work, will execute her order, and wait and wait, and go to law, and lose half in getting any of her bili, is the likeliest sequel, but how is that to be prevented? "Extravagance in dress is not so rampant as writers on the subject say it is. Of course, I know that mine will be taken as a biassed opinion. What is rampant is a spirit of irresponsible emulation. This leads a woman who has five hundred a year to dress on to order at the rate of a thousand a ' year, finally to lose her self-respect in her desire to be smart, and to resort to the dodges against which' we . dressmakers have to be on our guard, and by which, so many of us are crippled, and frequently ruined right out. To dress well is not only right,- but a' positive duty, the greater part of the duty, however, is to dress well within your income! If our clients would do that we dressmakers could go on our way rejoicing, busy ourselves, giving employment right and! left, for there are few people of the working classes that a big dressmaker does not patronise.' I am asked if 1 will make frocks for cash down for less than for credit. This I am not very keen, about doing. My estimates are made out carefully, witli proper proportion for all expenses, and except in the case of a customer who will, I am tolerably sure, not pay for three or four years, nothing is added because of the credit given. I am well aware of another dodge on the part of women who dress beyond their incomes. It is to order to the extent of about £5200 and then pay at long intervals sums of from £40 to £50 on ac-» count. Invariably soon after the last sum on account has been paid — frequently by post-dated cheque — the customer wants anotiier frock, and frequently — so great is the folly of the human dressmakershe gets it! "A further dodge — there is no more dignified term to express these methods — is when a customer deep in one's books wants a new dress, ana knows her name to be on what we call in the- trade the black list. She comes in, bewails her unhappy fate, and whines, and finally suggests -intfoducing a very rich woman who will be a splendid 1 customer. I am never very enthusiastic about these introductions. If they ever come off it is manifest to my practical eye that the rich women have been goaded to it at the business end of friendship's lance. On one occasion such an unwilling rich lady was brought to me by a friend who tried far more persistently to sell my frocks than I did. At last the spoiled child of fortune said, "I might take that one, but you know I am sure I could get it cheaper at so-and-so's." The faceof her friend was a study indeed, when I said ''I have not a doubt of.it, madam, not quit© the same, but cheaper , certainly," and signed to niy young ladies to remove the models. The friend came back again soon alter, and verbally rended me, and said it was very hard on her, which perhaps it was, but she had only herself to thank. I get big prices for dresses— £2oo is an unusual figure for a singlo gown, but I have had it. Average prices for very ' fine Court, gowns and ball gowns are from £150 to £170. Many cost over £100. An exceedingly beautiful dress can be turned out, and frequently is, for seventy guineas, and, as a rule, the chief expense is caused by the embroid-

cry. I have paid £70 out of my own pocket for the embroidery on one dress. From £30 to £50 each are ordinary prices for dinner and ball gowns, of rich materials. Girls, of course, get oil' much less expensively. I have known thousands of pounds' worth of lace put on a dress, but that has belonged to the customer. "Sometimes I am asked to take jewellery when a. customer is in straits for money, but this does not suit me at all, us in my business it is the turnover of money that is important, not locked-up capital. At times, in common with everyone in business, I have my troubie in obtaining .a cheque for an amount; vt hioh has grown too large to reside comfortably on my books. When I get it I am a th'ankiul woman, and trouble no aiore about the signature than to make * sure it is that ot a solvent person. I regard this morbid shrinking from facing run I circumstances bravely and honestly as the rock upon which nine women out »f ten wreck their financial ships. The tenth is a swindler who enjoys her own viciousness, and thinks not at all of the ruin and unhappiness she causes. The other nine begin with the best intentions— l have many conddents among my clients — they get into a little debt and do a little racing, or a little stock jobbing, or play a little bridge, and make enough one way or 'the other, to square accounts. ' Next time getting into debt is. getting out of it harder, and' the down-hill journey is just tobogganing until those who started lair haye 'as little tenderness of feeling a?i those ■ who never had any, and they are all- of j tliat ignoble ' army of ftdventuressea^/iwhoae' creed it is to get dress and, keep in the swim honestly — that is by gambling— rif they can, but, at all events, to keep in I "Dressmaking js hard work, demanding the exercise of a special talent, continually calling for tact 'every day except Sunday, when it m*y be deemed christened charily. , Affording a marvellously wide field for the study of feminine humanity,' I could :ommend it to the dramatist. If worry is added— as, alas! it so often is — from ;he incursions made on capital by x uriicrupulQus customers, then, no woman alive is strong enough to cope successfully with a big. business. Either she loses heart and kills it out and out, or it kills ' her. For those who sttprt without, or with inadequate, capital the end is always in sight. And that is a situation, penury 'op, the workhouse, all three are jiujid lines for womew r#ady and; willing to work, often possessing special talent. With our J credit system, however, capital is the bate necessity of. busii»ess. Even with it ruin irmv be" wrought by the ignoble army of adventuresses, unless tuck, and that freemasonry which exists between its all, and use of our friendly black lists, are frequently resorted to. Yefc a further dodge, to which I should have alluded earlier, is that of the separate income. Before this .was better understood many of us made gowns for customers thinking that their husbands —solvent men— were responsible. Too often, too late, it has been left to us to discover that the husband is not liable, us the wife has a, small separate income! A great matrimonial convenience — truly ; a little list however, helps us with this dodge also. The great thing is to have a good balance at one's bank, to be as sharp as some customers are smart, and never to be in a position to be tempted to, work for doubtful payers. Far, far better be in a good house on a salary than your own mistress an an inadequate capital, the slave of some and the prey of many."