KING ALFONSO’S CLOTHES

Evening Star, Issue 18158, 26 December 1922, Page 1

KING ALFONSO’S CLOTHES

AN EXTRAVAGANT MONARCH. The King of Spain is itho most elaborately and expensively attired monarch in Europe. It is doubtful if the youthful monarch has ever been seen more than half a dozen times in the same suit, and it is certain that there are many suits in which he has been scon but once or trice. 'The King keeps from 100 to 150 suits in tho Royal wardrobes, and. 1 buys on an average 100 suits a year. •His Majesty's bills to his tailor alone average £1,500 a year, of which sum London tailors get a good share. There is no monarch who is so punctilious about being dressed in the extreme of fashion as His Spanish Majesty. Any suit tho cut of which has become in tho least out of date is at once put out of tho Royal wardrobe, though it may have been worn by the King but once, or possibly not worn at all. H.o has not any particular fancy for any material (except, perhaps, a striped flannel for summer wear) so far as tho pattern of it goes. Ho appears equally often in light and dark clothes of-different patterns, but he never wears a heavy material of any sort. His Majesty has a particular liking for fancy waistcoats. He buys dozens of them, and pays from three to five guineas apiece for them. Like all very well-dressed men,_ he is extremely particular about having ties that harmonise correctly with his clothes. He nurohases about 100 ties in the rear, which cost him from 25e to £2 10s each, and buy® most of them in Paris. .On shirts he spends -about the same as he does on ties. King Alfonso changes hl« collar and shirt three times a day, and rarely wears a shirt that has beon. laundered more than Hire® or four times. One way or another, King Alfonso on his ordinary attire spends about £2,000 per annum, which is the largest enm spent on dress by any European monaroli. The King of Spain’s wardrobe rooms consist of throe large apartments devoted respectively to his clothes, underwear, and hats and boots. The wardrobes are in charge of four valets, the chief of whom receives a salary of but £3OO per annum, which is probably the lowest salary paid to any man occupying a like position in any Royal household in Europe. But in point of fact the King of Spain's valet is quite aa well paid as any Royal valet, and probably better than several, for he receives the whole of his employer’s castoff clothing os a perquisite. At a low estimate this must be worth £SOO per annum to the chief valet,_ for in addition to this he makes a substantial sum. in commissions from various tradespeople patronised' by the Spanish monarch.