New-York tribune., 1910-01-09
MYSTERY OF MODES
Men Responsible for Fashions,
Says Economist.

At this season of the year a large part of
the business world is occupied in getting
ready the clothes which the women of Eu-
rope and America are TO wear for the next
season. New fabrics are coming from the
looms new designs are being matured, and
when the products are put upon the mar
ket it will be found that they are all differ
ent from those of last year. Some things
Will be only slightly different, and others
will be entirely new. Then every woman
who can afford it will proceed TO array
herself in new apparel, and if she cannot
afford it she will borrow money go in
debt, or piece out her resources by making
ard remodeling things herself.
She viii not do this because she needs
new clothes. Probably her last summers
garments are still perfectly good, nor is she
in many cases at all dissatisfied with them.
1t may be that she is particularly attached
to some of them, and the new things may
not please her at all Perhaps she would
rather spend her money and her time in
some other way. but, except in very rare
cases, il viii not occur to her that il is
possible TO do so
The necessity must he great which i'm
pels to such action, and yet on the surface
there is no necessity at all. This has long
been a great mystery, and in the absence
of any satisfactory explanation it has usu-
ally been attributed to the innate depravity
and unreason of the female mind. but econ
omists now tell us tnat it is no mystery
at all and that the female mind had moth
ing whatever to do with the creation of
the situation.
1T is as simple as the egg Of Columbus
says an economist, who is not above study
ing these apparent frivolities, and all we
need to do If We want 10 know the secret
is to ask not the modern woman who buys
Easter bonnets, but our savage ancestors
who didn't wear clothes at all.
The older political economists used to
tell US that it was the pursuit of bread
and butter that made the world so round
but we now know that it does nothing of
the sort The bread and butter we must
have, of course but people don't stop doing
things because they have enough bread
and butter on the contrary. they often
work harder than ever, because they want
other people to look up to them and envy
them and want to be able to look down
themselves on other people.
Now, in the savage days il the
man who could kill the greatest number
Of his competitors who received the great
est honor, FOR which reason he hung
the scalps OF his victims at his b=lt and
adorned his lodges with trophies of the
chase. OF course. a savage like this was
bound to discover sooner or later that he
could make other saVages work for him.
and when he had done this he found that
there was a way of displaying his power
just as effective and more artistic than
the wearing of scalps. savage who could
he idle all the time himself and yet make
an abundant display Of this worlds goods
obviously possessed the power to make
others do his will. He needed the sca!ps
no longer. The more property he could
display the more evident he could make
the fact that he had not earned 1t himself,
but had made others work for him. and so
he tried TO make as great a show as pos
sibe and if he had to cconomize he did
II where no one would notice it, At the
same time other sayages were doing the
same thing, and there arose among them
a great rivalry to excel each other in this
sort of display. This rivalry, beginning
among the savaGes of primitive society. has
continued down to the present time and
is the underlying cause of fashion
'Inasmuch men strive not for any def
mite good not for physical comfort or
beauty, or even fot pleasure. but chiefly
TO get ahead of one another, there can be
no end to the race. Life must constantly
grow more complex and the cost of living
must constantly rise.
Until we get over this childish desire TO
show off life Will always continue to get
more complies We Will have to have
larger houses and more Of them. more fur
niturs AAd ..4ore clothes, more servants and
more cIahorate meals. untn We are sunk
so deer IN the mire of matter that We shall
never set out OF it. And not only shah we
have a. have ALI tueS4 t1iuss hut wa shall
have TO keep continually changing their
fashion, that every one may know that
we have money enough TO renew them at
frequent intervals.
"And that brings us to ths question Of