WHAT WOMEN ARE DOING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19906, 28 September 1926, Page 14

WHAT WOMEN ARE DOING

THE DRESS DESIGNE D Dress designing is a branch of commercial art, or, if you prefer the ter- applied art, which offers a '-areer with what the Americans call “real money.” attached to it (says a London vjrr -pendent). If you ere clever, willing to work hard, have a sense of colour, and a flair for dress, you may get a position eventually worth anything from £IOOO to £3OOO a year. I know at least one woman recently who had a five years’ contract with a firm for n salary of £3OOO and a commission on the sale of all the frocks she herself designed Salaries of £7OO to £IOOO are paid by bit; wholesale houses to a clever designer with a business head. . , “It is uphill work, and any girl who means to go in for designing for wholesalers needs pluck as well as perseverance, Mrs Leslie Wall, who is an important personage in a very big wholesale firm m Cavendish square told me last week. ‘ A tiaining in a good commercial art school is essential, as all the best firms go to these rather than to the Slade and Royal Academy Schools. The L.C.C. have various centres " teaching fashion drawing. The girls are at first only paid from £1 to £1 Ss a week, and their job is to sketch the ideas of their seniors, and to make themselves generally useful while tne*y are learning the hundred and one things necessary They must learn all about, materials, their wearin- qualities, and their possibilities—some materials drape well, others don’t; patterned materials need special consideration when being cut, etc. Then they have to learn to sket a frock that can bo easily carried out and will he suitable for what wo call ‘catalogue numbers.’ This means simple enough to be made in large quantities in factories and p ret tv enough to tempt p • wl»o see the sketch Simplifying is a -cal art.” Salaries increase quite rapidly at first, and some girls -'ll get two or three pounds a week after three months. If they are anv gjind at designing for themselves they -ftil! be earning £6 weeklv by the time thev have been three or four vears in a good firm. Of course the work i? very interestin": it usually means fo”?- trips a vear to Paris nt the firm’s espouse, too! The rl-'i-rnor. after reaching tin’s figure, wi’ probably got a commission on the sale of all the dresses she designs.