The times., 1901-03-24
THE LADIES' TAILOR.
He FIourished in France over Three
Centuries Ago.


At least three centuries before the name
of Worth became a household word
among the female French votaries of
fashion the ladies tailor" as we now
term him, hourished in France That
inveterate gossip and scandal monger
Brantome, mentions him as a familiar
purveyor to the court beauties during the
reigns of the last of the Valois, and the
first of the Bourbons; Nine de Sevigne,
il letter dated November, 1876, gives an
elaborate description of q gown made for
Nine. de Montespan by Langlee, the son
Of a chamber woman Of Anne of Austria;
and upon the whole. there is. a grave
DOUBT ABOUT women having borne any but
subordinate share in the production of
outer garments for their sisters. To be
absolutely correct, says the New York
Commercial Advertiser, there is no doubt
at all, considering that it wanted nothing
less than royal edict to enable women
10 enter into anything like competition
with men in the manufacture of the upper
wearing apparel Of their own sex.
The measure might have been DELAYED
for another century but for Louis XIV's
personal feeling in the matter, for com
mon fairness had nothing to do with it,
During his long occupancy of the throne
Of France he looked upon himself and
required others to look upon MIN as little
less than divine, though like the gods
on Olympus he could be as jealous as
the meanest mortal The first trait caused
| him to dislike being handled and touched
by tailors while being measured and
fitted for his clothes; the second made
him even more reluctant TO see the wo-
men he loved, or prOfessed TO love. sub
Jected 10 the same ordeal, especially after
CoGrtler who was present on one Of the
latter occasions remarked that the tailor
thus operating was plus modiste que
modesto Consequently, notwithstand-
| ing the opposition Of the taiIors, he
granted letters patent to the seam
stresses to form themselves into cor
poration.
There were still many vexatious re-
strictions imposed upon them. For in
stance, they could not keep a stock of
materials for their patTOnesses TO choose
from, the latter being obliged to furnish
their own stuffs. At the present time the
number Of 'Teady-made' gowns exported
from Paris TO all parts Of the civilized
/ globe amounts TO thousands and the can
( ital embarked in that trade is said TO run
! into millions Of francs. Up TO the Revo-
! luton these frocks had to be despatched
on the backs Of life-sized dolls or dummy
| figures, the traffic being considered as
! business in dressed dolls" and in the
| archives Of the French Foreign Office
| there is to be seen an amusing cOrre-
| spondence between the Cabinets of Yer
sailles and St James on the subject of
| the .safe-couduct' OF such a lay figure,
| which was anXiously expected on the
banks Of the Thames at the moment of
/ the outbreak OF the Spanish war
In spite Of this clogging of fair trade
and hamperlng Of individual liberty, there
/ stresses woman who in the fashionable
/ world presided over by the ill-fated Marie
! AntOlnette, attained q degree OF celebri-
/ ty and Of whose self-suficiency, assump-
! tion-not TO say presumption-and over
weening professional vanity many anus
| ing stories are told, although the Me
moirs'' she Is supposed TO have left must
/ be read with caution, inasmuch as il has
/ been proved beyond doubt that the great
| er part Of them are purely apocryphal
| The fame Of Rose Berth was. however
/ COLI FIV 81 10
! death by Leroy, who Ike Worth half a
| century subsequently, began his career
| in partnership with woman.
There was not a woman Of fashion in
Europe wh6. between the years lsO3-26
did not figure on the Iedgers Of LEROY
his most notable clients among the Eng
| lish aristocracy being the Duchess of Wei
hnSton, the Duchess OF Deyonshire, Lady
Ailesbury, and Lady Waldegrave Never
thcless, the taflor-made dress, as we un-
| derstand II. was not so much as dreamt
of. Even Worth man Of genius in his
profession though he unQucstionably was
had no definite conception Of It until the
latter years Of his at-one-time unchal-
lenged autOcraCy I'm the world of feminine
adornment Tho beauties OF the Second
Empire, wandering through the gladcs of
Senart, and making the roads of Com
| piegne resound with laughter, certainly
wore cloth jackets, tailor made, and cloth
! skirts. festooned and looped up over re-
| splendent scarlet petticoats distended by
enormous crlnolines, but there was not
call the unity Of Design" in their cos
| tunes, such as We know 1t today.
There were no apparently rough home
| spuns no cunningly woven tweeds of de.
! liberately conspicuous designs; there
were no signs Of any intended approach
to " Inasculinity:" there was no evidence
Of the tailor instead of the dressmaker
| having presided at the conception and
execution Of those yestments. The
tailor made" in fact. was probably the
| slow evolution OF the riding habit and
I q IN ha ~ ha fafr
| indebted for the former ia its latest and,
/ perhaps, definite shape to England, there
/ is somewhat striking collateral evidence
! that the germ of IL did not spring from
| an EnRlishman's brain Enquiries in
| variably lead TO the discovery that, in
| some OF the best houses, both in London
and Paris. the principal cutters and fit
| ters OF the tailor made gown are
| neither Frenchmen nor Englishmen but
i Germans and Poles. In the Paris strike,
| which has not as yet run its course the
chief agttators and ringleaders belonged
4 TO those nationalities.