The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-21
WOMEN's DRESS GOODS.
Some Things About Their Making
That Few Women Know.


New York Evening Sun.
Perhaps the most familiar object in the
average woman's daily life, and of the
substance of which she remains always
the most ignorant, is the wool and moha1r
goods that heap the dry-goods counters
and are sampled, measured, pulled, twisted.
Like the primrose by the rivers brim, 1T
is mohair, cashmere or alpaca to them and
belief that mohair and alpaca are one and
the same material with only little dit.
ference of weave: nc Now, W.. as mater OF OF
from exactly opposite sides of the world,
and from the time of the Peruvian Incas
to 1886 alpaca was a stuff unknown in any
woman's wardrobe. Its revival was wholly
due TO the inventive cleVernesS of Mr.. Titus
Salt of England, who afterward got a
title to dignity his odd name and VINO, in
the year above mentioned, stumbled across,
in a Liverpool warehouse, number OF
bales OF ill-Smelling black hair from South
America. AS no Ole seemed to have any
special desire TO possess 1t, he bought the
e every Woman grew SO nightly to fancy
that presently he had five large factories
in full opera ion- Now, the essential dlf-
ference between mohair and alpaca is that
the first is woven from the fine white hair
of the Angora goat and accepts any dye,
while alpaca is made from the coarser coat
of the South American llama, and is rarely
dyed, but sold in the natural tones OF
niaea gray or rusty u nnoug sn
many of the small findings and trimmings
of gowns, the average American woman
world must depend upon those little Prus-
sian towns. The best of mohair braids
are English woven, and just why the En-
glish surpass all other nations in their
Manufacture of goods from Angora goat
and llama hair is chiefly because of the
moisture in the English air. 1t is only in
damp atmosphere that this yarn can be
spun, an atmosphere that in Russia, Ger
many and France must be artificially pro-
duced, and in which the spinning and
weaving is not nearly so successful as IN
The difference between woollen and
worsted would puzzle, perhaps, the clever
est dressmaker, while to the majority of
distinction without any real difference,
though technically the distinction is great
For the manufactures fieeces and hair pro-
duce very separate material for wearing
from the lambs fleece he furnishes woollen
stuff; from the llama worsted, and worsted
from the Angora goat. Camel hair is
supplies both wool and worsted. The close
underground furnishes woollen; the longer
outer coat, worsted material. Bradford, in
England, is the town where the woollen
and worsted manufacturers rival those of
Rheims and Boubaix in France, but if the
English have not yet learned to make
cashmeres quite equal to the silky, soft
woollen goods in which the French are
supreme they produce at least in their CO.
the most costly of the cloths sold in New
York shops are woven. First among the
Australian output of superior woods are
f1eeces from Sir Samuel Wilson'S flocks
and so fine is the quality Of these that the
wool runs five hundred times through the
warp in order to complete one inch of
goods. In our country both the sheep's
fleece and. the requisite factories turn out
woolens of good order, and alpaca as we'll
but as yet the standard of European ex,
cellence has not been reached. The demand
for the foreign goods takes precedence of
the domestic weave, and any woman with
the requisite fine touch and sensitive an
prehension of a skillful shopper can detect
edge of the cloths and their processes Of
weaving be wholly hid from her