The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-01

and distinct from any other in the busi- ness and recognized as very important, r A head decorator is paid sufficient sala- ny to focus his attention on the matter, and he hires such help as he can to work under his orders. Old windows are altered over, and new windows are planned especially for the display of goods, The windows have to be prop erly lighted and ventilated"
 ventilated? The goods don't breathe?"
 NO; they don't but the window dresser and his assistants do. Some times the men work for hours at time in window with the shades drawn down. It is natural that they would hurry the job and not have much pa tience for artistic effect if their heads were bursting from the close air and they were cramped for space. Ventila- | tion is strong point. Just now our window-dresser is at home asleep. He worked here all night last night. He does that often. Sometimes after all his pains the window is ordered out be- | cause the effect is not right Some times we spare his feelings, but In the course of a few hours some one of the | firm discovers that there Is a. certain | line of goods that has not received proper advertising, in which case there | is a compelling motive for that partic- ular window being plotted out and a | new one arranged in it's place.
 "The most difficult window to dress, because the most tedious, is notion window, and yet it is one that brings | in, perhaps out of all departments, the most practical return to the firm for | the time and thought put into it. Next | to the notions come silks. The shades | and lustre of silks are full of beautiful possibilities for the window dresser | but the silks are the most expensive goods in the house and must not be pinned must not be crushed, rumpled or allowed to have the slightest bit of bloom taken off of them. Wash fabrics are not easily managed; the ginghams and cotton stuffs are stiff and unyield- 1 ing, and refuse to lend themselves to design at the hands of the decorator that can easily be exhibited in softer | goods There are twenty different styles of plating and overlapping and draping silk or wool These styles can | be regularly taught to boy or girl anxious to learn, though some peoples | fingers are so clumsy that they might l take lessons for years and be but bum glers in the end. The successful win dow dresser must have knowledge of | no1op nd ba nd
 value of the goods he deals with, but he must know something about history
 and mythology likewise, and be quick to get up new designs for Decoration day, for St. Valentines, for the fall
 school-opening time, for the Fourth of July, Washington's and Lincolns birth
 days, Easter, Christmas, any and all
 public and religious festivals and cele-
 brations that touch the whole people
 Whether the occasion be of national or
 only commercial importance, the judi
 cious use of wax figures is a great fac
 tor, Wax figures give realism and
 life to the window that cannot be dis
 pensed with, but they must be good
 figures and must be disposed in an ar
 tistic way. A man can have his win
 dows arranged so as to show off the
 cheapness of his goods pure and simple
 and again he can give the better price
 goods such prominent place and ar.
 range them so dexterously as to con.
 centrate the shoppers attention on the
 value of the better grade in contrast
 with the cheaper"
 ''Where do our best window dressers
 come from?"
 "A good many come from England
 from apprenticeship in Cheapside ant
 St. Pauls churchyard A good many
 learn the trade as boys, from helpins
 under the head decorator of a store
 some excellent window -dressers ar,
 evolved from the statesmen in tn,
 stores. Our most satisfactory window . dresser, who is paid sixty dollars (
 week, began work with us twelve year ago as a cash boy. He went througl several stages as salesman, and by thu 2 time he had got to the Woolen dress goods department, the delft way il n which he arranged the bolts of variou I colors, and displayed the goods on hi
 counter told plainly that he could b , better employed elsewhere The sor e of salesman who is never found show
 ing reddish blonde woman a pin s gingham or a red-flowered challie, an - who instinctively knows the shade C l. dress goods likely to please brunette - will most likely develop into window s t, , The t Qssl