Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-23
NOBLE SHOPKEEPERS.
Mrs. Ashton Dixie Writes of Lady
Granville Gordon, the Milliner.
DUCHESS OF HAMlLTON'S DAIRY.
Miss Charlotte Robinson, Home Art
Decorator to Her Majesty.
TAKING DINNER AT THE DOROTHY

~
the time for seeing the London shops at
their best. This year the shop windows are
gayer and more attractive than ever. The
great dressmaking establishments offer us
quite bewildering wealth of many-tinted
garments, while the bonnet shops almost
rival in gaudiness the tulip beds in Hyde
Park. In the general competition for favor
and custom, the lady shopkeeper-thatm most
recent product of our inventive Nineteenth
century-Is not left behind. She, too,
hurries over to Paris in the Easter holidays
and decks her shop on her return with all the
| latest novelties and most bewitching concoc-
tions of Partisan art. Initiating the example
of their brother artists of the brush, these
artists of the needle have their 'showdays"
and their afternoons at home in their show
rooms, when their lady friends gather in force
to drink tea and inspect the new stock. and
when both buyers and sellers fraternze with a
democratic equality which would be positively
startling, did one ever allow oneself to be
astonished by society's latest whim.
1t is quite 1.-THE thing" nowadays for our aris-
tocracy to 60 into trade-not in a backhanded
surreptitious sort of way but with much self
advertisement and in the full light of day.
The hated word, which 20 years ago filled
fast losing all its old sting, and everybody at
least knows somebody else-"quite in our own
set, assure you"-who has taken to business
soT ond or abnTe tRet W nssS
money, which is usually described as bad
times" have all contributed TO the result.
Our male aristocrats started the movement.
For several years the Marquis of Londonder-
ry's coal carts have perambulated the streets
of the metropolis bearing his Lordshp's name
in full The Earl of Shrewsbury's hansoms are
the smartest and swiftest in London, and quite
recently the Earl of Coventry has blossomed
out into bona fde manufacturer of Jams and
pickles. Soon the ladies began to follow suit.
If Lords may sell Goals, why should not ladies
sell milk? And so the Duchess of Hamilton
has started a most successful dairy at Ipswich,
and no one thinks any the worse of her Grace
for doing so; while the Honorable Mrs Maberly
presides over daintily furnished establish
ment of a similar nature somewhere in the re-
gions of Noting Hill.
ADDED JOYS TO SHOPPING.
For the most part, however, ladies have taken
to the eminently feminine occupations of dress
making and millinery. And in this they have
shown their wisdom. Good taste is natural
gift, which English women of the lower classes
seldom possess and never acquire. What these
cultivated shopkeepers lack at first in practical
knowledge and business habits, they make up
for in refined taste and novelty of ideas, and
each lady is moreover, backed in starting by
ready-made clientele of curious and interested
friends. The result is that the movement SO far
has been distinct success for those who ven-
tured boldly into the stream of competition;
ladies find that 1t adds an extra pleasure to the
already varied joys of shopping to discuss their
purchases with woman of real taste and re-
fnement. and the only people who regard this
new social departure with dismay are the bona
hde dressmakers, whose feelings can best be
compared to those of the hard-working actress
when she sees society beauty step straight
into the front rank the boards
The interesting point is that the social posi-
tion of these ladies has hardly been affected at
all by their business enterprise. People rightly
admire their pluck and energy. and they con-
tinue TO dine out at night with the ladies who
have patronized their shops by day Perhaps
the gracious sanction of royalty, which has not
been wanting in the present instance, has had
a good deal TO do with this unusual tolerance.
When pretty Mrs. Charlie Pocklington, whose
husband is in the Fourth Hussars, set up as a
dressmaker in Grafton street, under the name
of Mime. Lii. Princess Christian was one of her
earliest customers, and both the Princess of
Wales and Princess Beatrice have ordered
their gowns from her. And when Mrs. Pock.
llngton goes to court herself, it Is Mime. Lili
who provides the gown-a feat of a Jekyll-and-
Hyde nature, which, for economical reasons,
many women would like to copy. Another
making not long ago, is Mrs. Charles Gurney, a
beauty in her day, and sister to Val Prinsep,
the artist. and niece of the Countess Somers.
Her daughter, Miss Laura Gurney, is budding
appears in her mothers most artistic DRESS
making triumphs. From all which it Is evident
that in these days of equality society and trade
60 very happily hand-in-hand.
Lady Gordon's Venture.
Ibelieve one of the very first ladies to take
up millinery in sober earnest was Lady Gran
vile Gordon, who has tiny little shop at As
Park street, Mayfair. In the window, shown
off to advantage by a dark plush curtain, are
or thraa dainty 1ittla frash fro,,,
Paris. Inside, all is pretty creamy paint and
artistic wall paper, with glimpse through
curtained doorway of tiny workroom beyond.
called in the other morning to be coached up
in the latest fashions for this summer, and was
shown charming little erections of lace and
flowers, very small and simple, in the way of
bonnets; and for hats, the large low-crowned,
broad-brmmed shapes, with streaming ribbons
behind, which somehow never get thoroughly
acclimatzed in England. Lady Granville's
prices are by no means ruinous; of course, at
times they run up to four or i've guineas a
bonnet; but she says that she often has to
make hats at 30 and IS shillings, for ladies de-
clare they are SO poor they can't afford to pay
any more.
Lady Gordon, who, by the way, trades under
the name Of Nine. Lerre, enjoys her business
very much. She is almost always to be found
in the shop makes capital saleswoman, with
pleasant graceful manners, and though the
actual trimming of the bonnets is left to an ex-
perieneed forewoman, she directs and suggests
and overiows with ideas most valua BILE ac- |
complishment when you have buyers who know |
neither what they want themselves nor what |
suits their faces Mime. Lerre prides herself |
gets her models from Paris, but tones them |
down bit to suit the more sober English taste. |
She told me she had made bonnets for good |
many American women, and also for the Prin- |
cess of Wales, to do so being the height of am |
bition OF every milliner in England. |
II is hardly fair to speak OF Mrs. Charlotte |
Robinson as shopkeeper, for she is an artist |
in every sense of the word, but as she Is also |
the possessor of one of the most fascinating |
shop windows in London, at the corner of Brook |
street, Now Bond street, cannot resist the |
OF describing her work. called in |
not long ago with a view of investing in a |
rack, of new and ingenious con-
structiOn. l was quite enchanted by all the |
latest notions and clever lodges in the furni- |
ture line, which emanate from Miss Robinsons |
fertile brain. Besides being
A BORN ARTIST,
with real eye for decorative effect, she pos
sesses a positive genius for inVentiveness. |
White wood music racks, Louis XVI. screens,
painted gim-crack tables, and photo-frames of
every size and shape both in wood and in deli
cate tinted glass, the latter a special patent
Of her own, crowd the little shop.
But this shop, as have said, is only one side !
Of Miss Robinson's work. Her real occupation
Is house decorating and she is never without
two or three houses on hand, which are often
eft entirely to her discretion from cellar TO
garrett One envies her the opportunity of such
perpetual practical application of taste and
talent. Americans will be pleased to know
that it was while travelling in their own country
that Charlotte Robinson, struck by the decora-
lion of some of the great New York houses
she visited, resolved to devote herself profess
'ionally to the work. This was some eight or
ten years ago,and the recent kindly patronage
Df Queen Victoria, who has bestowed upon her
the title of Home Art Decorator to Her
Majesty" may be taken MS sign and seal of
her success.
In her artistic work the lady raceiyes much