St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-10-25
THE GREAT WORTH.
The Man Mf1Iiner's Establishment De-
acrfbed.

/
The Man MnIiner's Establishment De-
scrfbed.
The great creator of stage millinery
looks far more like a wielder of the
cleaver than an artist of form and col
or, writes Paris correspondent.
Worth is of medium height, stout, bald,
red of face-and waddles. He wears a
! blue flannel sack coat that might have
been bought at the nearest ready made
clothier's, and a scarf of blue or white
loosely tied. His son is Worth pere
grown younger, and evidently bent on
following in the footsteps Of his father,
for he keeps pretty close at his heels
during business hours.
| After all one has read of "WOrth's"
she is naturally prepared to see some
thing imposing. On the contrary, the
sample rooms, with shelves running
nearly to the ceiling and filled with
fabrics, are as plain as possible, and,
with the exception of heavy hardwood
counters, richly carved, hardwood
fiOors-across which you skate for fear
of tumble-large mirrors and three
or four girls in gorgeous raiment who
act as lay figures, there is no display.
On the floor above where the pattern
gowns are shown there is more ele-
gance, but the stories of the splendOr
of this establishment have greatly ex-
aggerated the truth. Mile. Barre, who
takes all the orders-Worth concern
ing himself only with the Langtrys and
POtters-has as little personal vanity
as have most OverwOrked women. She
is short and plain and wears her dress
of rich materials with no concern
which is to say somewhat askew. She
is an invaluable aid to Worth. Dur
ing the hour | sat in the show room |
saw her, as she rushed from one custO-
mer to anOther-all Americans-tear
open and read a dozen notes, take five
orders for costumes or wraps, and UNI
pire not less than half dozen differ
ent fittings. The head filter, very
pretty woman, and about the only
FrenchwOman | have seen who is not
painted, receives salary of 5000 a
year. She does nothing but fit, and
when l asked her if she made the styl-
ish gown she wore she replied, with a
shrug of the shoulders: ooh, no; 1
never sew Il stitch"
And oh the fitting! Imagine
dozen blue bottle flies buzzing around
one poor little grain of sugar, fighting
each other off, then returning to the
charge, and you have some idea of the
heller SHELTER, noisy process of being
fitted to a gown at WOrth's. One girl
fits the body, another the sleeve, a
third hangs the skirt, fourth Grapes
the tunic, a fifth studies the effect of
different trimmings. Finally Mile.
Barre appears, and, with one swift,
all comprehending glance from your
head to your heels, orders the whole to
be torn off you and some other style
tried. You must have great faith to
believe that out of all this chaos will
be created perfect gown. But even
with this have given no estimate of
the amount of time, patience and ener-
gy needed to cope with the Paris dress
makers. August and September are
their harvest months with Americans,
and the latter allow themselves to be
kept waiting and imposed upon gener-
ally in a manner they would not endure
at home. Then when the costume is
sent home there are very few women
who are not honest enough to admit
that they could have got it in New
York, or even in their own city, quite
as pretty, nearly as cheap, and with
much less wear and tear of the nerves
and conscience. Yet summer after
summer the same comedy Is re-enacG-
ed. The clerk who fitted me to gloves
at the Bon Marche told me that the
American trade between June l and
September at their house was worth
S 100000. He said that of the 300
dozen gloves sold daily, fully two
thirds were bought by Americans. The
house has two great glove manufacto-
ries at GrenOble and ChaumOt. The
major portion of the gloves made at
them ultimately cover the hands of
American women. scarcely saw a
FrenchwOman at the Bon Marche or at
Worth's; the shoppers were nearly all
Americans-mOst of them tired out
and as all the pOrters and "garcOns" at
the Grand hotel speak English, and we
hear it on every side in the court and
restaurant, we ask ourselves every day
"Where are the natives 2"