Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-11-12

lighted if none of her friends discovers
where she got that hat.
One of the strangest features of this
peculiar business is that, while no mere
man may hope to understand the vagartes
of the fashions, or hazard a guess as to
the probable cost of a hat, yet it is the
man milliner who is at the bottom of the
whole thing. The vast majority of the
working mlliners those who make and
trim the hats, are women. But the de-
signers. the merchants and the jobbers
are men, and 1t is they who direct the
semi-znnual assault of the milliners upon
the bank balances of the nation.
In no other branch of ordinary mercan-
tile business are profits so great as in
womens hats. How over. the milliner is
able to set up a very forceful argument
in defense of his 500 per cent profit. In
the first place the hats of one season are.
as useless six months later as the birds
nests of yesteryear. In theory they are
absolutely. dead stock. AS a matter of
fact, however, very few trimmed hats are
carried forward from one season to an
other, the manufacturing end of the bust
ness being in such close relation with the
selling agencies, and shrew observers
have discovered that radical chages in
the styles or hat shapes never take place
when the wholesale houses are carrying a
surplus stock of last seasons shapes. At
ter all, it is the jobbers who direct the
current of the styles.
But perhaps a more cogent argument
in defense of huge profits in millinery is
that which relates to the selling end of
the business. Any bushes man who COM
plais to a millinery merchant of the I'M
fjust and unreasonable profit levied upon
womens hats, is invited to spend the day
in the hat salesroom. There is not one
man in a million who would go forth from
such demonstration without being con-
WINGED that a milliner is justified in
charging all that the traffic will bear.
1t is estimated that the average woman
| in the city who buys a SIS hat consumes
the time of one or more statesmen for two
hours in each of eight shops, a total of
16 hours to a hat. OF course. there are
many who devote at least whole day in
each one of these shops for the selection
of the fall hat, but there are others who
visit only one shop and these cut down
| the average. 1t is not the fur and feath-
ers and ribbons and velvets and buckles
and so on that make the hat cost 1t is
the ephemeral character of the styles, and
the great difficulty and patience necessa-
ry to sell the product to the ultimate con-
sumner.
Domestic manufacturers make artificial
| feathers, flowers and other millinery trim
mings to the value of about $50, 900 a
year. about three-fourths of this is made
| I'm New York city alone. This does not
| include straw. braid, ribbon. silk, velvet.
wire, fur, plush or any of the materials
which go to make UP the body Of the hats.
Neither does It include the imported mil
linery supplies. 1t is very difficult to OBJ
| tain accurate statistics concerning the
| millinery business as the manufacturers
prices are manifolded many times before
| the retail shonkee9er makes his sale.
One conservative statistician has es-
! timated that it costs $4,000. 900 n
| year to furnish American women with
| headgear. This is an average Of less
| than three dollars a year for each
! American woman, and probably is
! much bellows the mark. While there
may be some railing against the mill
| liners and their prices in the privacy
/ of American households, at only one
! point have the mlliners been attacked
! publicly in an organized fashion. The
! Audubon societies in seeking to protect
! the wild birds which are slaughtered
| to satisfy feminine vanity, nave made
some serious attacks upon the millinery
! business.
| One writer estimates that more than
| 3OO,O00,0O0 wild birds annually give
| their lives as sacrifice upon the
altar Of Dame Fashion. The milliners
utterly repudiate these figures, declare
that they are grossly maligned and
| that the tales of cruelty to birds are
vastly exaggerated. The millinery trade
journals vigorously defend their call
| ing against such attacks as those IF
| the Audubon societies and those made
by some ministers. They deny that
the women c>eate the vain and foolish
fashions so much criticised and they
have courage boldly to assert that it is
the whims and fancies Of the men
! which force the women to deck them
| selves in such outlandish headgear.
| They say that the average man de-
mands that the women. OF his acqUaint-
ance shall follow the styles regardless
| of where those styles may lead them.
Styles in millinery are usually i'm
| ported from Paris. The great design
ers there ransack the fashion plates of