Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-08-11
HOOPS AND BUsTLEs.
now fhese Feminine Indispen-
sableS Are Manufactured.-T
Western Trade.

| heaped before each machine, and were
quickly changed by the def manipulation
of the workers into single Wristbands
with broad ribbons of tape depending
/ from them like streamers. Younger
girls gathered up the sewed tapes into
loose heaps and carried them over to an
other cluster of girls who sat before rows
of wooden frames that looked like big
truncated cones. These girls fitted the
wristbands snugly over the top of the
frames, and in an instant were deity
braiding strips of linen-covered wire
through the tape streaners that hung
loose from the Wristbands. They worked
with surprising swiftness, and chatted
pleasantly in low tones.
Here" said manufacturer Malcolm
Smith, ''you can view at glance the in
! teresting details of an industry that keeps
an army of girls busy eight months in a
year, and which Just now reaches its
greatest rush. These girls are making
hoopskirts and bustles."
Hepointed to curly haired blonde who
sat before one of these wooden frames
nimbly working with tweezers and strips
Of wire.
"Watch her closely" he said, aand
| just see how simple it is to make hoop
skirt"
There were six streamers of tape at
tached to the waistband that the girl had
fitted on the frame Each streamer had
twenty-five little loops orpockets cut in it
and extending in row from top to bot
tom. The girl ran strips of wire through
the pockets of the six streamers at a wink
and fastened them to each pocket with
little brass clasps by deft twist of pair
of steel tweezers. In just eight minutes
the whole of the twenty-five rows of wire
were in place, and the girl lifted com
plete hoopskirt of the ordinary style from
the frame.
"Of course all hoopskirts are not made
so quickly. That one is the simplest and
cheapest made, and the workers can
average five dozen of them day right
along. When it comes to making skirt
with hustle, and skirt with hustle is
the correct thing, you know, it is slower
and more elaborate work. The wires are
sewed in place in each pocket instead of
being fastened with clasps of metal, and
care has to be exercised in shaping the
contour of the hustle skirts are all that
the best worker can complete in a day.
The tape used for holding the wires is
manufactured on purpose for the trade,
and is sent to us with the pockets already
cut. All that is necessary to get it ready
for the skirt-maker is to have our machine
operators sew the tapes to waistband.
That takes us about minute. The wire
used for the hoops is flexible steel, and
can be bent or folded without breaking,
and will allow the hoopskirt to be sue
aacCct,llry oolyo1 in oil h11,oLla
Anybody who ever tried to pack an old
fashioned hoopskirt in bundle will I'M
derstand at once what an advance
civilization has made in this direction
over the days of our grandmothers.
The manufacturer walked down stairs
into his show rooms Skirts hung upon
the walls on all sides, and bustles were
heaped in great profusion on the wooden
counters. The variety of shapes displayed
in the hoopskirts attracted the eye of the
visitor.
"Do the fashions in hoopskirts vary
much ?"
"Well, l should say so. One year
they're big, the next year they're small,
just as male trousers are tight one year
and big and baggy the next. But a
singular thing about the hoopskirt fash
ions that masculine creation knows moth
ing about, and even the women them
selves are scarcely aware of, is that the
kind of skirt that the women of one sec
ton of country wear will not do for an
other section. Each demands it own
particular style, and gets it."
The manufacturer yanked new made
hoopskirt down from overhead as he said
this, and put it upon the counter before
the visitor.
'It may be truthfully said," he con-
tinued with laugh, ''that Boston just
now takes the cake for big bustles. There
is weird and wonderful expanse to their
bustles that gives the women of the Hub
an exclusive distinction in the matter of
hoopskirts This is the Boston style of
skirt you're looking at now"
1t looked like giant conical rat trap
that had been bulged out at the back.
The skirt was thirty-six inches long, and
the hustle of the same length.
Two strips of cloth were fastened at the
back of the hustle. They could be drawn
together with lace like the two parts of
a corset. The lace permitted the bustles
to be contracted or expanded as a sailor
might reef or shake out ships sail.
eff a Boston girl wants her dress to stick
out very prominently behind" the manu-
facturer said, "she just takes reef in the
stays, and is happy"
"What do the Gotham girls fancy ~ the
visitor asked, as the Boston hoopskirt was
hung upon the wall again.
"They come down just six inches on
the hustle part" the manufacturer re-
piled, "and they are mighty particular
that the skirt shan't be longer than thirty
four inches. The hustle is only twelve
inches long, and rests easily on the hips.
1t is called hip hustle. The critical eye
would direct, furthermore, that the New
York girls don't take anyreefs in their
bustles. They are made of flexible wire,
and covered over with light fiounced or
pulled cloth"
''What do the Philadelphia girls
wear ?"
'"That's ALL" said the manufacturer
abruptly, as he tossed small hustle on
the counter.
= It was made of three coils OF wire that
looked like sausage piled one above the
other.
$50 far as it concerns bustles," he
added oPhiladelphia is away behind the
ace. It's girls wear the smallest bustles
on the continent, and they never appear
to change their taste about it,. either,
DESPITE the ambitious example set them
bv the girls of Boston. The Philadelphia
hustle is a shy and retiring thing that
stands just above nowhere in the fash
ionale hoopskirt world"
''The girls of the boundless and grow
ing west, the hoopskirt maker concluded,
care not particularly prejudiced about
any one style of hoopskirt or hustle
They just take their pick from the fashion
plates that are sent along with the orders
Of retail dealers. We sent mis-
ooIlonoous assortment of all the STYLES to