A Renowned Dressmaker.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 84, 24 December 1887, Page 4

A Renowned Dressmaker.

M. Worth, ths Parisian king of dressmakers, is an Englishman, about 48 years old, good looking, and of pleasant manners. He is said to have obtained admission to the saloons and opera box of a celebrated foreign princess and leader of fashions as a settlement of her long unpaid bills—a composition which so offended the court dignitaries of her native country that she narrowly escaped social ostracism on her return home. The same Madame de M—, it is declared, being anxious to make a display without a great outlay, arranged with Worth to hire his dresses for one wearing, and then to return for sale to those ladies who were desirous of imitating the toilettes of her highness. Worth himself is said to be fond of personal display, his finger is bedecked with valuable rings—one a superb single stone diamond, another a large square antique gem sot in fine diamonds and so forth. He is also fond of building, and spends large sums of money in altering, arranging, and redecorating the magnificent mansion which he possesses in the suburbs of Paris.

He ia a man of tireless activity i every department in his immense establishment la under hia own personal supervision, and it is difficult to obtain more than a few momenta uninterrupted conversation with him, so frequently la he called upon for advice; or, as he impatiently remarked to an interviewer, " the workwomen cannot as much as put in a sleeve without coming to me about it.” He buys the material, sees the customers, designs the style, and selects the colours himself, and his taste is said to be very good, only that he has a weakness for arraying blondes in certain bright shades of yellow. The prices paid by unhappy husbands and disconsolate lathers for his productions are something fabulous. His charge for an ordinary silk walking or evening dress may be computed at fifty or sixty pounds ; but upon grand occasions even this price is largely exceeded. Notwithstanding these exorbitant figures be is literally overwhelmed with orders, his customers including not only Parisians but large numbers of English and Americans.