BUYING IN PARIS

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2179, 5 July 1928, Page 6

BUYING IN PARIS

THE INVISIBLE SHOPS. In the matter of shopping, French Paris is very different from the tourits's Paris —ijniuch cheaper and more interesting. But the uninitiated visitor goes there and comes away without knowing it exists, or disappointed because she has no key to it (says E.J. in the'Manchester Guardian). The Paris of tourists resideis in the " grande magasine " and in all shops With window display. Here you find gowns and fripperies sufficiently attractive, but sufficiently high-priced also, and lacking that subtle elegance associated with French clothes. These places are for all and sundry, not for the true Frenchwoman. But for every shop that fiaunfe itself, there are fifty little shbpsi tucked away on second and third storeys with no visible sign of existence at all. These provide the excitement of Paris shopping, and transform it into an art —one which is never tedious though it may be tiring.

The traveller who wants to make francs work like guineas begs all possible addresses of these places before starting to shop in Paris, because no matter how reasonable the price asked in a big shop there is nearly always a small one which sells the same article, or another even more enticing at a lower price. To know these confidential little salons is a matter of luck and perseverance. And when you have found them it is no good to glance and come away, for it is their characteristic that they are seldom what they seem on the surface. One that I know claims to sell only sports suits. Yet through it one can obtain exquisite lingerie at next-to-nothing prices, bottles at a few francs of the identical perfume sold by a famous dressmaker at a staggering price the ounce, and —strangest of all—fresh eggs from a, Normandy poultry farm. Hardest of all to find, because they operate in semi-secrecy, are the shops that sell copies of model dresses. The fashion bootleggers who 'run them will admit their traffic only to their known friends or to friends of friends, and the best entrance to such a shop is a card to a saleswoman of the house. Paradoxically enough, it is from saleswomen at the big houses, more than in any other way, that I have learned of good copyists. Many a vendeuse already in receipt of a handsome commission on sales from the house that employs her, is secretly receiving further commissions from a copyist at a small place to whom she has introduced clients. These copyists are nearly always found in obscure quarters of Paris, on upper floors of unpretentious houses. They are not ashamed 'of their professioni, bub they have a well-developed bump of caution. A type of shop worth looking for is the one that sells model dresses discarded by the dressmakers who made them. The turnover on Paris collections is now so rapid—the life of a model being only about three months in the house that creates it —that there is an almost constant supply of model costumes available at sale prices. There are 25,000 models created by the first-class houses every year, and they cost no more than a few guineas. There is one drawback, however, to these bargains. They are made for idealised figures. The Paris slender, and altogether unnatural figure, is not universal. Some of the clothes can be remade, but the majority can only be worn by the exceptional customer—hence their price. The woman who buys clothes in Paris must allow at least ten days for their completion. The shops which work more rapidly are, as a rule, the more careless and expensive ones. But, genei-ally speaking, Parisian