SOCIETY'S EXPENSES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 97, 24 April 1912, Page 9

SOCIETY'S EXPENSES.

DRESSING ON £715 A YEAR. American ladies generally, even thos« of the millionaire class, are protesting against Mrs. Charles Anthony's estimate of £10,000 a year for wardrobe as extravagant, wrote a New York correspondent last mouth. Half of the articles mentioned in Mrs. Anthony's list, as published already, are declared to be superfluous, and Miss Margaret Gage, a well-known society lady of Washington, who is' often ''described by our fashionable papers here as " descended from a, thousand earls," protests that many women of fashion have worried along very well with wardrobes costing less than. £1000 annually. Miss Gage and everybody else admito that there is tremendous extravagance in feminine dress in America, even domestic servants spending frequently £40 or £50 a year mi that item, a 6um which does not strike the native as exorbitant, because a good domestic servant in an American city receives usually £6 10s monthly, with all found. At a convention of women held here recently it was suggested ae. a remedy for the prevailing extravagance (that a " queen of fashion " for the United States should be appointed, and her ukase on dress followed. It was further suggested/) that the convention should elect as queen a woman of- strength of character and common-sense, whose, judgmentt would not be swayed by every whim of the Parisian modistes. The election is ytfll pending, and hi the meantime Miss Gage suggests a list of necessaries for a year's wardrobe costing only £715, which is only half as 'much as Mrs! Anthony paid for cix pairs of diamond-studded shoes. Miss Gage's list }s as follows: —

Total £715 4 This list does not include lingerie, which, Miss Gage says, is a matter so entirely of individual taste that it is impossible to estimate it. Since tho publication, of Mrs. Anthony's expensive wardrobe, such social leaders in Washington as Miss Yvonne Towneend, Mrs. Murray Cobb, Mrs. Richard Reid Rogers, Mrs. William F. Donnis, and Mrs. William Barrett Rigley, have openly, declared war against, plumed humming birds and diamond-heeled shoes.

Three evening gowns, at £30 each 90 0 Three evening gowns, at £40 each 120 0 Ono dress hat 10 0 Two afternoon gowns, at £30 each , 60 0 One hat 7 0 Six dozen pairs of 'long glovee, at £1 ... 72 0 36 pairs of silk stockings, at £1 4s a> pair 43 4 One evening wrap ... j .. 40 0 One evening wrap .„ ... 30 0 Set of ermine furs ... ... 60 0 Set of lynx furs „' 40 0 Fur-lined coat 4 *.. 30 0 Fur-lmed boots ... 3 0 One trotteur suit ... „, „.. 20 0 Ha,t to. match ... * 4 0 Black silk velvet gown \ 30 0 Hat to match fa 0 Foot blouses for street costumes— two at £8 and two at £3 ... 22 0 Six p'&irs of evening slippers at £2 12 0 Eight pairs of shoes, a-t £2 ... 16 0