The times., 1901-05-05


Many Fittings. and the Sewing
Was PoOr-SoUvcnir shopping II
Failure i'm Regard TO Novelty.
A woman who has been abroad and
knows whereof she speaks. declares that
New York is the greatest shopping place
in the world. She was waiiing over the
impossibility Of getting souvenirs abroad
that would bc novelties here, and her cN-
perience, given To writer in the New
York sun. took this interesting vein:
When it comes to clothes-weil, when
it comes 10 clothes, l want to say this
loud and clear. The woman who goes
abroad TO buy clothes-
ITO put it politely, she is deficient, eh2'
Possibly that's the polite name for it,,
but it wasn't what / called myself the last
time ! bought clothes in Paris. one does
not have to be polite 10 ones self, you
know so I didn't mince words Mary, l
said, you're fool When 1 got back
here TO New York. ! substituted double
dyed idiot and wished I had a better vo-
cabulary.
Il don't deny that the fashions come
from Paris. They do. But they come SO
fast that they get here before they start
You know it's Ike cabled news. We read
pen in the middle of the afternoon That's
the way with Paris novelties.
Our importers buy everything in sight
and New York is flooded while it's just
sprinkling in Paris. They are slower over
there about bringing forward a novelty.
j came home last December from Paris
and what we could call the early winter
trade was just beginning over there. The
stocks for sale were about at the level
which ours reach in October. ] mean the
novelties were just settling themselves.
There are beautiful clothes to be
bought in Paris and it may be all right
for eXtravaganty ~ich women to buy
their gowns there so as to get exclusive
models. But where there is one beautiful
gown or waist or neck fixing in Paris
there are ten times as many in New York.
There is another cheerful peculiarity of
the Paris dressmakers and tailors. They
may have what we call style but they do
the poorest work I ever saw All they
seem to try for is to make gown hang
together until it gets out OF their shop.
AS for fitting they are hopelessIy slack
about that. They depend upon covering
up defects of thst sort. or they Try To
keep your mind on the trimming so that
you won't be alive 10 such triaes as wrin-
ldes in your back and collar which is
high in the front and low in the back
4 don't wonder that they don't succeed
in fitting. They piE their faith to pins
They almost never alter q garment on
you. They just put in few pins. \ pin
set in up and down means one thing: set
in horizontally means another; two pins
crossing each other mean something else.
and SO on.
When they've stuck in thirty or forty
pins they take the waist of and beam
anu say that it viii go perfectly the next !
time and bow themselves out. | suppose |
half the pins fall out before they get the /
waist back TO the work room. I'm perfect
ly positive they disappear before anybody
gets TO work on it,
And so the next time you go for fit
ting you find precisely the same faults
there We're before. The only difference
seems to be that the waist has accumulat-
ed new assortment Of wrinkles.
why, it took me a whole month and at |
least eight or nine fittings to get one gown !
from a well-known house in Paris last
autumn. By the time I did get it there !
was as complete an absence of newness /
in its appearance as II had worn it for ,
month instead of merely trying TO get |
it finished.
Then I came home and started TO look /
for waist and ! was actually bewildered /
There seemed TO be no end TO the supply
great many Of them came from Paris
it's true but at any rate here Jhey were
TO be bought in New York Fresh as I
WAS from six weeks steady shopping in
Paris / was amazed by the richness snd
bewildering variety Of all the goods shown
here.
Take ribbons for instance All the
ribbons in the Louvre and he Bon Marche
together would not have shown The yari-
ETY. to be found in a single one of the
largest stores here.
The Bon Marche is said TO be the larg-
% department store in the world, and il
certainly has an enormous stock. But our
best department stores wouldn't bother
with lots of the stuff with which the Bon
Marche is crammed. You could find all
you want Of ii IN New York but IN lower
grade stores. ] doubt whether the value
Of the Bon Msrche stock immense as IL
is in size, would come anywhere near that
OF smaller New York department store
1T really seems hopeless 10 t;v to find
anything that would be strange 10 New
Workers. For instance, I'm lntefested In
the new posters that came out and in
Paris ! bought a few. But I didn't have
anything new when I got home The
dealers had brought over everything worth
having and everybody was perfectly f3miI-
lar with the things ] had bought
Il remember being in an antiquity shop
in Rome, several years ago I say a shop
though it was chartered IN the ground (
floor Of q palace. The man showed me a
lot Of things and. incidentally, some rath-
or striking shields They were not gen