WINTER CLOTHING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23527, 16 June 1938, Page 19

WINTER CLOTHING

AN IMPROVED DEMAND EFFECT OF COLD WEATHER Stimulated by the wintry weekend and yesterday’s first heavy frost of the season, the demand for woollen clothing has awakened from the state of torpor in which it has been hitherto, and has made a belated attempt to reach the figures set by previous seasons. The run has come too late, however, and it is doubtful whether the demand will reach normal proportions even if the weather is consistently very cold from now until the end of winter.

One effect of the delay in the arrival of winter from the point of view of the drapery trade has been that people who are now buying winter clothes as a result of the sudden access of cold weather are not going in for such expensive articles as they would have a month or two ago. If winter had arrived earlier there would have been a good sale for woollen dresses and women’s coats at five or six guineas two or three months ago, a prominent retailer told a Daily Times reporter yesterday, but now women are buying fewer and less expensive clothes. Nevertheless, there has certainly been an increase in the demand for medium priced goods, although unless the weather is continuously cold from now on the winter season will probably be a little less favourable for retailers than usual.

Men are always later than women in the buying of clothes, the retailer stated, and due to the cold weather they are now beginning to buy from necessity. It is a fact, however, that the prolonged favourable weather has had the effect of delaying the demand for men’s clothes even more than that for women’s wear.