Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1902-01-30
BEAUTIFUL BAGS AND PURSES A
SEASONS FAD.
NEW DESIGNS RIVAL OLD
Fancy Furnishes Occupation for Wo-
men Who Need Light Work aid
Pride Felt in the Work-Genuine
Artists Do the Designing.

during the last few years have at
tanned the proportions of fad. They
are more beautiful and elaborate than
ever before, and the best designers
are puzzling their brains over mount
ings for them while manufacturers
are turning out machine crocheted
beaded articles by the thousand.
The best of the bags are hand made
and the amount of work put into them
renders even the simplest of them ex-
pensive. The more elaborate patterns
in combination with costly mountings
represent appalling figures in their
prices.
One famous firm which was perhaps
the first in the country to start the
renaissance of the beadwork has
brought the art to remarkable de-
gree OF perfection Its bead crochet
ing is all done as piece work That is,
the workers do not work in a shop or
factory, but each woman receives
her beads and design and does her
work at home. The workers have all
been trained, and an outsider can
rarely come in and take up the work
with satisfactory results from the
start.
ut has taken practically fifteen
years to work up this industry" said
the superintendent who has charge Of
the department There were no
workers sufficiently skilled to make
bead work fine art and that was
what we wanted it to be.
"Our great-grandmother used to
carry beaded bags, and it was the
fashion for gentlemen to do bead
work, but it was a crude sort of work
Samples of it float in here occasional
ly, now that the fad has revived.
Women have kept them as family
relics, you know, and bring them in
here to be remounted. Usually the
silk on which the beads were Gro
cheted is rotted so that one can hard
ly touch it without damaging it, but
we al ly it to a firm silk, line it
mount it, and it will hold together.
Here's a very old piece that was
brought in yesterday
He unfolded a tissue paper and
showed a large unmounted bead bag,
on which crimson roses, bright blue
birds and purple lilies rioted over a
dark blue background.
There was a suggestion of faded
rose leaves and lavender about it, a
flavor of antimacassars and old ma
hogany furniture and poke bonnets
and hoop skirts and wax flowers under
glass cases.
Gust compare the two" said the
superintendent.
He laid beside the old bag new
one over which tiny arbutus sprays in
coral were scattered. on a group1 of
crystal and steel, while the superb
silver mounting was inset with coral
medallions.
There was no lavender about the
new bag. 1t was intensely, aggres-
sively. exquisitely modern and up to
date.
The red roses and blue birds and
purple lilies grew sitter than ever in
rigid protest against the gay and al
Turing beauty The old bag undoubt-
eddy must have been full of mute dis
approval of a charm so foreign to its
canons of fitness and propriety.
The superintendent wasn't man
of sentiment He frankly pointed the
finger Of cnorp of tha onaaipaD of tho
dead generations taste.
Pretty bad, isn't it?" he asked
| airily, Look like fright with any
costume, but the owner wants ii
mounted, for the sake of association u
Sentiment is matter for women.
Fair hands are busy with bead work
again, as in the old days. and bead
crocheting was much in evidence on
| hotel verandas last summer. The har
vest of the summers industry is al
the shops now, being mounted for use
Some of it is exceedingly pretty
but none of it up to the standard OF
the professional work. The superin
tendent had many specimens of the
| amateur work to show, some of them
superbly mounted, but here again the
fine scorn of the artist rose to the sur
] face.
+, You see. they aren't glaringly
hopeless. like the old bag" he said
lingering purse of gray and pink and
pearl disdainfully. They are just
well, just common.
! There's no character, no finish. nc
fine art about them. In the first
place. the amateurs can't get the right
beads. They aren't in the market
| I'VE import all ours and choose
them with infinite care and pains
They are smaller, finer in quality
more perfect and varied in color.
Then we have designers who are
genuine artists, working out designs
that will be beautiful and permanent,
| suited 10 such work. The design Il
fitted to the shape, the color, the
scheme for mounting.
"All is in perfect harmony. The
workers, through training and ex
perience, are able to carry out the de
signer's ideas. They are artists. too