FASHION KINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

FASHION KINGS.

LEAVING PARIS. BUYING BRITISH, Hard on the announcement that Britain's fashion kings are pooling their experience in a determined effort to place London supreme in the world of women's dress comes the news that many leading houses in Paris intend either to close down altogether or to make London their headquarters in future, says a London journal. There arc not only Frenchmen at thes head of the fashion world. One of the most prominent of the " big five " in Paris is an Englishman, and there are many English houses in Paris which depend for their trade on British custom. Recently I went to visit some of these geniuses who have done so much to make Paris the centre of fashion for the whole world. The first house at which I called, one which was once famous on both sides of the channel, I learned no longer existed. M " They have gone back to London, I was told.

"Why?" I asked. The caretaker shrugged his shoulders: " No English in Paris to buy," "he said. Captain Molyneux, the Englishman who has his home in Paris and is one of the most famous of all designers, put the situation in a nutshell. " English people not only cannot buy over here now," he said, ' but they will not. The wave of patriotism all over the country prevents them. They will buy British or not buy at all. " Now is the moment to m;ike use of the resources within the country. British wools, British lace and cotton materials are the best in the world, and it only remains for the designers in London to exploit them." " Meanwhile those British dressmakers who are able to carry 011 here through the crisis are using all-British material wherever possible in order to keep in touch with British custom and industry.