THE WOOD-SILK MAIDEN

NZ Truth, Issue 985, 11 October 1924, Page 8

THE WOOD-SILK MAIDEN

Vegetable Adornments

Remarkable Rise of "Artificial Silk."

The challenge to animal products by vegetable products is one of the, great facts of the world of to-day. The challenge of vegetable butter to animal butter is so peremptory that the cow cannot how get too l'ar ahead (m price) of the coconut tree; the have by no means relinquished their mission m a meat-eating world; and silk manufactured from wood (called artificial silk) is a fact that gives 1 the silk-worm owner occasion to reflect. The romances that arise from silk stockings and silk ties can no longer be' .blamed Avholly and solely to an industrious little insect that works overtime for the Japanese. What is it that clings so lovingly round Clarissa's dainty calves? Why, just a product of a tree; she is really sheathed m wood, but wood -J^'with a difference." And Algernon's tie? Yes, just wood — exactly like his head. Into the field of women's wear comes artificial silk as a conqueror. Like Caesar, this wood-silk had a Rubicon to cross. The Rubicon was the washtub. The fibre, or yarn, or- whatever you call the product of the artificial silkmill (this article dtfes not pretend to be technical) is still sufficiently woody to resent being put into water, thoroughly soaked, and then pulled about m any old way. It will not stand that treatment and then spring back to its original state like a strand of wool. But the vendors of artificial silk garments claim that if a lady washes them carefully and without unnecessary violence, they will not deteriorate and will last for years; further, that ladies who dp not buy their artificial silk jumpers r"eady-made, but who knit them from the artificial silk yarn, have been known to unmake and remake a- jumper three or four times m the course of years, the yarn not haying suffered by the careful washing received. In Wellington' there is a wholesale house that supplies artificial silk yarns and also finished garments (all English, made) but not the cloth. This firm states that what cloth is imported comes mostly from America, but that the English makers (helped by preferential duty) have wrested the yarn trade from the Americans. Both private people and people m business buy the yarn for spinning purposes, but the principal business demand is fov the made-up garments. Even m England, the growth of the artificial silk industry is a matter of not much more than a dozen years. Goods produced include knitted jumpers, robes, gowns, jackets, sports, coats, lingerie, hose, 'neck-wear, etc. When the American cotton growers reduced their planting m order to extract higher prices from the cotton manufacturers they also extracted a higher price from the public. Some of the public thereupon dropped dear cotton goods for artificial silkens (just as the poorer public goes from dear butter to cheaper margarine), but the artificial silk people say that now that their article is better known it will retain on merit the place it won through the price-rise m cottons, even though cottons again return to normal. Downs Bros., m Lower Cuba Street, are among the Wellington pioneers of artificial silks. They are sole agents for a well-known Leek (Staffordshire) firm, Clemesha Bros, and Birch, Ltd. *