Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-02-17
HOW FASHIONS ARE LAuNcheo.
Popular Actresses Are the Best Agents feI
Starting a New Style.

Popular Actresses Are the Best Agents fos
Starting New style.
On the whole It might be found theA che
most profitable ''block" which could De sub
sidized by dressmakers and milliners jsthe
actress in vogue who shines pre-emipeptly
in modern comesy or modern vaudeville
In such pieces AS La Famille Benoiton,"
lie Monde on Pom s'Amuse" and LES
Femmes Fcrtes" some of the lady members
of the company, who wore as many as three
or four costumes in the course of the evez,-
ing-dresses made from the costliest mate
rails and confected with the most exquisite
taste-served, perhaps, as better advertise.
:nents than if they had been only beheld
or few hours and at irregular intervals
II the Bots, on race course or at some fash
iCnable concert or bazaar.
The ''mannequin" of the stage is NOV
able; the ladies in the boxes and the gen.
Samen in the stalls can criticise the dress
Pom every point of view, and decide
9>ether the corsage and the train eoualed
or surpassed the bodice and petticoat seen
from the front. Even the plebeian element
in the audience is pleased and melted to
emulation by the spectacle of these daz.
cling and strictly up to date costumes, and
when the dresses are associated with the
names of justly favorite actresses a stamp
of approval is at once given to the dress
making establishment, to which cunning
paragraphs in the newspapers never fail to
draw attention.
Nevertheless it must be we'll understood
that the mere putting of dressmaker's
business by supply tasteful costumes to la
dies and actresses, who wear them on the
understanding that they are not to pay for
them is not, in Paris, at least, the sole
method by which widely spread fashiona.
BILE acceptance can be obtained by the art
lists in costume. The 'mannequin" or
BLOCK" system is a very old one in a modish
sense, and has been applied in bygone times
to dandies as well as bellies. Beau Brum-
NELL was never called upon, so the scandal
mongers of three generations since used to
whisper, to pay for a coat, or a hat, or
pair of boots. He had but to name his tail.
or, his halter or his bootmaker in ordinary.
and the grateful tradesman, to whose shop
crowds of would be beaus had resorted, was
not only too glad to let his ''manneauin"
have his equipments for nothing, but would
also occasionally present him with check
for good round sum.
AS matter of fact, however when the
poor beau collapsed financially and had to
take refuge at Calais, it was found that
among the creditors who had hunted him
out of England were whole brigades Of
tailors and other tradespeople Precisely
the same calumny, of having acted as a
tailor's block, used to be circulated, and
probably with about the same infusion of
truth in it, concerning Count Alfred d. Or
say, who between 1880 and 1910 was unde-
niably the leader of London fashions for
gentlemen, as the great Stultz and the
greater Sugee were the acknowledged mon
archs of the kingdom of tailory.
AS respects the launching of fashions for
ladies 1t is not improbable that well known
names, whether they be aristocratic, opera
tic or dramatic, render very signal service
In enabling successive types of the good
ship-"Fashionable Frivolity'-to walk the
waters like so many things of life, but be-
fore fashion can be launched it must be
built and before it is constructed it must
be devised, and if not absolutely invented
it must he skillfully adapted from soma
bygone mode.-London Telegraph