WOOL'S TURN COMING

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 117, 20 May 1930, Page 10

WOOL'S TURN COMING

EVERYBODY . CAN ASSIST

FASHION'S CEOSSWAYS

"Will the artificial silk manufacturers be able to win many millions more trade by inducing men to wear short pants and silk stockings?" "I don't think so," replied the expert. "If women were as little subject to fashion changes- as men, wo would still bo selling woollen gootls as wo used to." BRIGHTER WOOLLENS. ' As we used to—in the days before cheap artificial silk gave wool a- bump. In the last few years art silk has led i^ the artificial silk section, and in ait -silk, said tho expert, wool has found an ally. ■ ' "We have ,to admit that wool in itself, made up in the old styles, is not attractive in appearance. Woman wanted something less 'dowdy.' She found it in the new artificial silks. But the silk-wave has reached its zenith. These psychological waves rise and fall. There is a certain silk satiety just now, and the field is ours if we can make wool fabrics more attractive. And we can do that. Wo, are, in fact, doing it. Look at this fabric —wool and art silk, and as handsome and serviceable as you could wish." It was gathered that in such wool and art silk mixtures the volume, of wool would be not less than two-thirds, and in the cost of raw materials wool would account for not less than two-thirds. In fact, the percentages of wool, in volume and cost, would probably be well above 66 per cent. '' What the wool loses to art silk, tti such a utilisation of the two, is no loss to wool, if the sale of the'fabric is more than double the sale of the pure wool fabric," said'the expert. "We must popularise wool for women. The British manufacturer has been too slow to see certain salesmanship aspects. B.\ ho is seeing them now. And he has a great opportunity—so also have the New Zealand woollen mills —in the fact that women are willing to swing back to woollens if woollens are able to1 make any concessions to a woman's, taste. • LOCAL INDUSTRY'S CHANCE. "In men's wear, in children's, and in underclothing the New Zealand woollen industry has a great fiekVinto which it can further enter. In that matter the retail trade will co-operate with it. And the public is also co : operating.. Never have I rioted sogreat a tendency of the public to ask if goods are New Zealand-made, and to give such goods preference, as in the last year." It seems that fashion's present leaning to a light tweed for feminine wear is one of the tendencies helping wool. The New Zealand industry can copy an English-mado product "perfectly," and the obstacle to doing this is not quality nor appearance, but the fact that a New Zealand woollen mill would have to manufacture not less than an economic unit, whereupon a difficulty of distribution would occur. Whereas an oversea manufacturer, with many channels of distribution, could scatter a certain, style of goods over a V wide area, a New Zealand-made lino would have to be sold in too great quantity in one place, destroying that cxclusivoness in wearing apparel which women covet and which men do not worry over—at any rate, not yet.

■ In.the D.I.C. this morning the bulk of the space was given over to a wonderful Golden Fleece exhibition, and as* lie passed hero and there among the bright materials the expert pointed out that even-five years ago such a brilliant display of colo,urs, styles, , and finishes in woollen and mainly woollen goods would not have been possible. But competition had stimulated design and all branches of manufacture and salesmanship, and the old reproach of "dowdiness" against wool had gone. Among many fine exhibits were New Zealand imitations of British products, in which no difference was detectible. But it would require a woman to, do justice to a display like this, and every woman has now the- opportunity to go and judge. National welfare as well as personal interest demands it.