NEW MOVEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 40, 17 February 1932, Page 11

NEW MOVEMENT

LONDON FASHION CENTRE

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 14th January. The London Fashions Group, representing fifty leading fashion houses, designing, cutting, and supplying the latest modes for women, .inaugurated by a luncheon at the Savoy Hotel their movement to establish. London as the fashion centre of the future/by providing buyers of the great retail shops and stores throughout the ' country with fashion garments equalling any made in the world, both in quality and price. Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, Secretary of State for the Colonies, proposing "Success to the London Fashions Group;" said the group had done well by starting their movement at a time when legislation and national sentiment were alike favourable—the order relating to abnormal importation, and the genuine popular" desire to buy British goods. Once the fashion houses had captured the home market by the quality, design, colour, and line of- their goods they would hold it for all time. As to exports, they could not have a great trade in them. unless they had a largo home trade on: which to base it. Their capacity to sell abroad depended not only on quality; but on price also, and as it was only big orders to our factories which could command the low price, he looked to this new movement to create a spread of employment which would increase the purchasing power of the country, and thereby expand the homo trade. Such a movement deserved universal support. It had the good wishes of the Government. POOLING. IDEAS. Mr. H. Scott, replying to the toast, said the group recognised that individuality was the keynote of- fashion. Each firm would therefore retain its individuality, but the group collectively would pool their ideas and experience in the common interest of British fashion progress. On 22nd February every member of the group would open the forthcoming season by a special display of ne-w season'B models. The women of this country had consistently refused'to wear clothes, howe-fer smart, that were not also eminently. becoming to themselves. For that reason the London fashion houses must not rely upon the creations of other countries, but must create for themselves. The group were convinced that there was the -artistry and creative power in British designers to supply this demand. London had already made'great strides as a fashion centre. Its ideas and designs now attracted attention in countries which had hitherto looked to Paris. The American woman, following the lead of her Husband, who had always bought his clothes in Saville Bow, was. looking to London" for style in dress appropriate to Anglo-Saxon ideas. ;■ When Mr. Churchill imposed a 33 1-3 per cent, tax on imported silk garments the homo trade greatly increased. The anti-dumping duties, would enable them to produce every type of fashion, garment made in wool —a trade which in the past had been almost'" exclusively German, and Austrian. The group hoped to bo able to employ another half a million workers in the'fashion industry • alone. He believed that this extension of their trade would lead, to the employment of 'another Half a million in the trades dependent upon it— the textile and dyestuffs industries. (Hear, hear.)