Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1888-03-31


overshoes.
Notwithstanding all the uncertainties of wind
and weather, our streets and dry goods stores
have been filled with dauntless shoppers; some
only looking and pricing, others meekly limiting at
the desrabity of SAMPLES while many, very
many, expend money in amounts that render their
less fortunate sisters breathless with establishment
Easter tide is at hand and of course all the world
must have a new bonnet One may possibly get
along with renovated gown, but the bonnet must
be fresh through and through. The perplexing
question in connection with this important article
just now is, What flower shall l choose for it?
Fashion DEGREES that flowers shall again be lead
ing feature of millinery and dress decoration. AS
a consequence the windows of wholesale and retail
millinery stores are bright with garands and clus-
tiers, whose beauty taxes the imagination some
what to realize that they have been formed in
factories or humble dwelling places instead of first
breathing the air in the purity and warmth of sun
light
While viewing the masses of flowers that
are heaped upon tables placed row after row in
military order the length of great rooms, the mind
is apt to conjure up visions of green woods fra
grant meadows and cultivated gardens, all of which
find representatives albeit artificial, among the
various ferns, grasses and blossoms that lie half
hid meath snowy paper The appearance of such
myriads of floral beauties enrichng their dull sur
roundings with light and life takes one to Paris,
which is the headquarters of the artificial flower
trade of France. There one can revel in blossoms
whose perfection of finish and grace of arrange
ment make strong appeals to the aesthetic sense.
All along the boulevards and in the magazns are
sold flowers of singular loveliness in shape and
hue, lacking only the odor to convince one that
they have not been brought in fresh from the sub
urbs in the cool of the morning. For mere song
one can buy great box full of any OF the larger
flowers, while the small delicate ones (hand made)
are proportionately reasonable. Many American
women tempted by this cheapness, invest in
quantities that prove burden and sorrow when
the time for the return voyage arrives and trunk
room is at premium. No such inducement is
offered the bargain seeker in Chicago. Would
you know the reason? 1t is that one must pay
for the skill of the little grisette, who from her
airy perch under the caves looks out over the
housetops of Paris, the brilliant, the fascinating
and huns lively chansonette while she groups
tremendously together various flowers OF different
coors or buds and blossoms of the same hue. 1t
is to this talent of the 'monteur" that the mar
ketable value of these exquisite creations is due.
That France leads the world in the manufacture
of artificial flowers is fact which owes it's exist
ence to the natural taste of the French which has
been aided and developed by the amount of atten-
ton paid to art culture, so general throughout
that country. Does it not seem more than
strange that Chicago, which controls the trade of
the Mississippi valley and the west generally, has
not with her wonted enterprise long since added
to the list of her industries that of the artificial
flower? New York furnishes her with the coarse
and medium grades and Paris supplies the finer
ones What field for work it would open up to
many of our women who now wear their lives out
in establishments where sewing.machine labor is
the principal element. Take it altogether, it is
light, clean employment pre-eminently womanly
in its details, and one which may justly be classed
among the art industries, for it is trade in which