WOMEN’S CHANGING “FORM”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21772, 11 October 1932, Page 15

WOMEN’S CHANGING “FORM”

Mr Holbrook Jackson, giving a fashion address to people attending the Summer School of the Drapers’ Chamber of irade at Oxford, anticipated the establishment of chairs of fashion at universities, tor the subject should be regarded as a science. _. .. . „ “There are fashions for everything, he said, “and perhaps the most remailiable fashion of all has been the variation of the style of the human form, almost every part of which has at one time or another been subjected to some kind of fashionable disfigurement. Women now refuse to permit themselves to expand m width or length, and to be correct to-day they have to be rather short, somewhat flat, and very slim. 1 It would be interesting to know what shape women will take in 10 years’ time.—(Laughter.) Parents cannot be certain whether their daughters will come to dinner with the same face that they wore at breakfast. No enthusiast for hedge clipping ever managed such variations as are imagined from day to day in the beauty parlours of London, Paris, and New York. “The power which influences large numbers of people to scrap their clothes before they are worn out, in order to buy new outfits, is obviously of supreme importance to business. Fashion is the greatest ■ stimulant known to commerce, and the country which controls fashion will control the world.” The inviolability of Paris as a fashion centre was an illusion deliberately fostered by propaganda in favour of French commerce. It was essential to the welfare of British industry that fashion control for Great Britain should Jiave London as its centre. During recent months, Mr Jackson stated, several leadinf French fashion houses had planned to open workrooms in London, and if this continued there was little doubt that in a few years the release of fashions for Groat Britain would be made in London rather than in Paris. Mr Trevor Anthony (of Messrs Harrods, Ltd.), said that drapers practically all over the country were going through a trying period. Money was scarce and the general public were exceedingly discriminating in their purchases. During the last few years they had had the additional competition of the-huge chain stores which had been opened all over the country. It was therefore essential, if they were going to progress or even exist, that they should put their house in order at once. Ho did not believe that the day of the small draper was over. He would come into his own again, but only if he would conduct his business on up-to-date methods. He would always appeal to a great section of the public which preferred personal service, and to those who would not go into large shops. When the problem of the customer who wears a garment, sent on approval, at an evening function, and then returns it next day with a complaint, was discussed, Mr Anthony said that he did not believe any up-to-date firm could afford to abandon the approval system. “ I know such abuse of the system of goods on approval is very galling to the draper, but I do not believe that any up-to-date firm can afford to abandon the system nowadays. Customers who want to purchase two or three frocks like to have time and leisure to consider their purchase in their own homes. In the fur and evening wraps department of my firm we have had to fix little metal tabs on articles sent out on approval to prevent customers from wearing them once and then returning them. The effect has been remarkable.”