The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-02-24
Elaborate Styles In Tailor-mades Plaids Are Tn Extreme Vogue Skirts De- cidedly Longer More Materials
 of Every Kind Required.

They have arrived, and favored patrons Ire being cautiously shown into the priv ate salons of well-known houses to view the models and designs that are to lead the procession of novelties in the Easter parade.
 Those charming outdoor costumes that The best makers of France and Vienna for this latter city is far and away the best tailor made town in Europe, taking the tailor made costume in It's pristine severity, the one that demands faultless fit and a superfaultless cut-those charm ing designs have been repeated for the best trade of America, and are expected to make their debut. somewhere about Easter time.
 Right after the Christmas holidays were over designers and buyers alike fiocked to Paris and to the Southern winter resorts to pick up ideas wherewith to construct novel gowns for the spring trade on this side of the Atlantic. Not that they were on piratical deeds intent. Very far from it. Their visits were first made to the best-known houses, where models were freely displayed for their inspection; and the American buyer does not hesitate to pay big price for a copy of any model that pleases his taste or for which he imagines that there will be a goodly ac- ceptance among people of taste and means.
 Indeed. more than one of the leading houses in Paris owe their supremacy to- day to the American buyer. He 1t is who does not hesitate when he finds a good model to advertise it's originator freely Truth to tell, one of the leading tailors In Paris whose models fetch high price higher, in fact, that many of his com petitors-put In some years in New York at his trade where he established his pres IIn HA for himself among the few manufacturers of that day-it is some ten or dozen years ago-and they are the men who recognize his eleverness today to such ex- tent thar they are willing to pay him $200 or $500 for q good model, and then pay only 60 per cent. duty upon that same for the privilege of bringing 1t home to he copied here.
 But to get to the salient features or those new models Is the point. Visits not only to Paris, but to Monte Carlo, Cannes, Nice, Biarrltz, Pau and even across the frontier to Spanish San Sebastian have been made in search of novelties; and the fruits of those excursions are now being spread before American purchasers even before the seasous at those dluereht re- sorts have closed.
 For one thing, one cannot escape the vogue of plaids. This is fad or fash -ion--whicheveP way one chooses 10 view it-ethat has been extremely slow in gain iug ground. The little checks caught on like wildhre, but the larger patterned plaids were long in finding acceptance. To be sure, those so called shadow plaids of a year ago did much to injure the vogue of \ higher class and more artistic weavlngs. but they soon ran their brief race, and are now well-nigh forgotten.
 In siciliennes, bananas some soft French serges and other wooden weaves there are charming melanges of coloring that cannot fail to win approval from even the most fastidious. In the raw silk weaves, too--although 1t is rather early to talk of those-the same delightful combina tions present themselves. Large open squares defined with hairlines and crossbars Of color are more favored than the large blocks of color that the ac- cepted clan tartans present.
 Ths cheeks that the new season pre-