The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-05-05
BUYING CLOTHES ABROAD
A Travelled American Declares She
Can Do Better at Home.

Her Gowns Bccame shabby From
Many Fittings, and the Sewing
Was Poor-SoGvcnir shopping
Failure i'm Regard to Novelty
woman who has been abroad and
knows whereof she speaks. declares that
New York is the greatest shopping place
in the world. She was wailinS over lhe
impossibiiity of getting souvenirs abroad
that would be novelties here, and her eN-
pe-ience. given to a writer in the New
York sun" took this interesting vein;
..N-hen il comes to clothes-well, when
II comes to clothes. l want to say TINS
loud and clear. The woman who goes
abroad to buy clothes
ITO put it politely, she is deficient, chg
Possibly that's the polite name for it,
but il wasn't what / called myself the last
time ! bought clothes in Paris. one does
not have to be polite to ones self you
know, so / didn't mince words. Mary l
said You're a fool When l got back
here to New York. l substituted double
dyed idiot and wished l had a better vo-
cabulary.
II 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 like cabled news. we read
about things in the morning which hap
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 novelty.
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 l mean the
novelties were just settling themselves.
There are beautiful clothes to be
bought in Paris and it may be all right
for eNtravagantly rich women to buy
their gowns there 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 popularity OF
the Paris dressmalers ana tailors. They
may have what we call style but they do
the poorest work l ever saw. All they
seem to try for is to make a gown hang
together until it gets out of their shop.
las for fitting they are hopelessly slack
about that. They depend upon covering
up defects of that sort. or they Try to
keep your mind on the trimming so that
I<les in your back and a collar which is
high in the front and low in the back.
y don't wonder that they don't succeed
in fitting They pin thei. faith to pins.
They almost never alter a 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 off and beam
ana say that it will go perfectly the next
time and bow themselves out. | suppose
hail the pins fall out before they get the
waist back TO the work room. / 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 were 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 q well-known house in Paris last
autumn. BY the time / did get 1t there
was as complete an absence of newness
in its appearance as il had worn it for
a month instead of merely trying to get
il finished.
Then I came home and started to look
for a waist and ! was actually bewildered.
There seemed 10 be no end TO the supply.
A 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
was from six weeks steady shopp.og in
Paris l was amazed by the richness and
bewildering variety Of all the goods shown
here.
Take ribbons, for instance. Ali the
ribbons in the Louvre and The Bon Marcht
together would not have shown the van.
ETY. to be found in a single one Ct the
largest stores here.
The Bon Aarche is said 20 be the larg
ce department store in the world, and Il
certainly has an enormous stock. But oul
best department stores wouldn't bother
with lots of the stuff with which the Boz
Marche is crammed. You could find al
you want of It in New York, but In lowe
grade stores. / doubt whether the vSlu'
of the Bon Marchs stock, immense as i
is in size, would come anywhere near tina
of smaller New York department store.
ut really seems hopeless to t:y to fin,
anything that would be strange to New
Workers.. For instance, I'm interested Fl
the new posters that came out and Il
Paris ! bought a few. But I didn't hav
anything new when l got home. TIL
dealers had brought over everything wort
having and everybody was perfectly fomil
iar with the things ] had bought
Il remember being in an antiquity sho
in Rome. several years ago. say a shor
though it was quartered IN the eToun
floor of a palace. The man showed me
lot of things and. incidentally. some rath
er striking shields They were not ger