AN AMERICAN FAD.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 122, 23 May 1908, Page 11

AN AMERICAN FAD.

A New York correspondent, writing to th.c Argonaut, has given a deserved trouncing to the American woman who will look at nothing unless it is "imported." That this is so is a curious commentary upon a patriotism that revels in superlatives and sometimes comes perilously near, to boastf ulness : — ; i "Very pretty, indeed!" said an acquaintance who Was out with me the other clay, as we were examining some beltbuckles. "I never saw such smart buckles in my i life!" said I, as I picked out a favourite from among a dozen or bo which were being shown to - us by the saleswoman. "I'll take this." "Are they imported!" asked the New York woman. -"No," answered the saleswoman ; "French buckles over on the other side." "Well, I want a Paris one!" and off she went and bought a so-called Parisian buckle, not nearly bo smart or pretty as the acknowledged American one. Indeed, aha admitted as much, but the word "imported" attracted her. Then there is the girl who must have "gloves from Paris." Rightly Jb she called fr "poor little snob and iijnoramue." She can get all the gleves she wants made in her own country and equal or superior to anything that ever crossed the -A.tla.ntic, find she van got them, tog, for about half the price. But the word imported, like "that blessed word Mesopotamia," has an irreMstible attraction for her poor little soul, and she will willingly pay a heavy figure for an article that positively has no other charm or value than that it was not inside in America. Now in the matter of dress there can bo 1.0 question whatever that gowns are made overy day in America that are fully equal io any product of Paris. Why even if we deny the necessary skill to tho American dressmaker, there are still lots qf French dressmakers who are resident here and who surely did not leave their abilities behind them. And there are, of course, lots of American dressmakers who are unsurpassed in their trade But no, the dress must be imported, and the average woman much prefers an ugly imported dress to a home-made and beautiful one. This, of course, bears out the uncontradicted assertion that women have no sense of beauty in tho matter of dress, nor even a desire to be beautiful. They want to be unusual, extravagant, bizarre, and they will attain these ends at the cost of a beauty of which they know nothing and which does not enter into their calculations. In some respects men aro nearly as bad, that is to Bay, some men are nearly as bad as most women. Behold the lofty condescension with which the society man will deign to drink a glass of California wine. He knows it is from California because he road it pn the label, and he does not know that he often drinks tho same wine after it has been sunningly poured into other bottles with "imported" labels. They only know it is "the thing" to laugh about California wines, and many who use them pour them into empty foreign bottles they happen to have about the house. They think it is a great joke that California wines are often shipped abroad and sold there as French wines, but the joke is roally against the American snobs who do not appreciate the products of the California vintages till they are shipped back again to this country in bottles labelled in foreign languages. This sort of thing floes not strike the foroighcr as at all admirable, and it, ia only found among that class that hastens to purchase pnectors and a family tree as »oon as a guddenly acquired wejJ.li makes