WORLD OF FASHION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

WORLD OF FASHION.

THE PARIS DRESS KINGS.

MUCH ROMANCE IN CAREERS

Many men. especially those with expensive and large families—of daughters—must imagine that dress-de-signing is a destestable job, suited only for the effeminate of their sex. The Pari3 correspondent of the Sunday Chronicle says that he thonght so, too, until he saw Paul Poiret and watched him bend an iron pipe with his hairy hands. Then he knew that' the kings of fashion are " he-men."

Take Captain Molyneaux, for instance. He wen enough medals on the Western Front to cover the breast of one oi the gowns he designs. Joseph Paqquin weighs about 14 stone—cf muscle and bone. They would be dangerous men to disagree with—even if it was abont the Drice of a dres3.

Each man had won his position in the world of fashion by his own resource. Behind their careers are stories as romantic as the struggles of many famous millionaires who have risen from office boys to controllers of great business trusts.

Pan! Poiret, delivered repaired umbrellas when he was a boy. He could draw, and one day a saw his sketches. A was offered to him and now, only a few years later, he owns haif the luxury dress salons in Paris — dress salons in which more money is exchanged than in any other dressmaking centre in the world.

Poiret's designs were revolutionary. Women m the salon where he was employed laughed at him. He designed simple dresses without waist, without collar, and without stiffening. He took his coioun from nature.. Paris jeered. He left the salon of his employer and started a shop of his own. Now, his word is law among many thousands of women who buy his dresses. Jacques Worth is one of the f»w men born to the dressmaking profession. His grandfather left London in 1346 for Paris. He founded the French luxury dressmaking industry.

Women have won fame as dress-de-signers in an equally romantic way. Marthe Regnier was an actress before she started making hats for her trinnds. Now she is one of the most famous milliners in Paris. Gabrielle Chanel, one of the four leading dressmakers in the world, now owns the building that contains the attic in which she started her business a few years ago.