The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1888-09-15
ooTHAM's STYLES.
A Talk With the Woman Who Has the
Reputation of Molding Them.

n I8lk WIFI INC WOnioh WIN Ah1o SAAc
Reputation of Molding Them.
I have been talking dress this week
with a dressmaker. Don't be fright
ened. am not going to write chap
ter on the styles, but I'm going to say
something about somebody who can
sway the fashion in feminine fabrics
and fancies by scratch of her head.
She's a little old maid of a French
woman, and she has a garnet at the top
of house on Fifth avenue. She has
but few patrons for whom she makes
gowns, two of her best customers being
Fanny Davenport and Ada Rehan; but
there are several great New York
houses which receive their new ideas
of feminine wearing apparel from this
hard-featured little foreigner, and she
is an artist of acknowledged ability.
1t is treat to see her when she is
evolving new drapery or new effect
of some kind or other Mademoiselle
has her models, the same as any other
artist, and they are flesh and blood, too,
mind you, and no dummy figures. She
will stand one of the models in the mid
die of her garnet, arrayed in the gown
which is, perhaps, to inaugurate an en-
tirely new style in fashions realm, and
as she circles around the figure, just as
Indians in dime novels dance around
victim tied to the stake, mademoi-
selle looks sharply at every portion
of her dress, and at the same
time scratches her head vigorously
with her fore-fnger. Ever and
anon she darts at the figure as eagles
are supposed to dart at their prey, and
with little poke here, little pinch
there, and small yank in several
places at once the drapery is arranged
in different way, and mademoiselle
begins her war dance anew and scratches
her head more vigorously than ever,
When the draperies and things are
finally arranged to her entire satisfac-
ton, the model must do the walking
about, while mademoiselle sits still on
q high stool, watches things closely,
and scratches her head. The model
must initiate a lady walking on rainy
day, getting into a cab, bending, bow
ing, and sometimes dancing; she must
manipulate a fan, arrange her couture
at the back of her head, and go through
other movements that display to ma
demoiselle the effect of her arrange
ment in every particular. Mademoi-
selle complained to me that she could
not copyright her new designs in dress.
She sells them outright to two or three
large establishments which make from
fifty to five thousand or more gowns
from the design, which, If successful,
is copied by hundreds of other houses
without the formality of even asking
permission. Mademoiselle believes she
could retire in five years if dress de-
sign copyright law was passed which
would allow her a royalty out of each
pattern sold of her inventions. :.
The little French lady remarked to
me that the women of Washington
dress in better taste than their sisters
of New York and Boston. In New
York, she says, the women dress
''loud," in Boston they are "dowdies, "
but in Washington they have notions of
harmony and artistic elegance which
do them much credit. She also told
me that she is now making designs
which contemplate the abolition of that
mysterious piece of impedimento, the
hustle, at which announcement am
sure every body should rejoice and be
glad.-N Y. Letter.