Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-03-16

world but the wholesale houses can get
several hundred copies into the world
before the original has been worn by it's
purchaser.
X
Here is where the shoe pinched. The
American woman refused an original
because she had already seen 1t In a
dozen windows selling for a third of the
price. The buyers who brought over
original and high-priced gowns could not
always sell them or their copies because
OF the wholesale trade.
If the French houses could afford to
bar any head of a clothes factory or
wholesale house and refuse to sell to
him, these copies by the hundreds might
not appear; but even Cailot's effort proved
fruitless last winter, because small dress
makers who had cards and private GUS
toners who pretended to buy for them
selves were really buying for the houses
whose representatives were barred.
1t may be here stated openly and fear
lessly that for tricks that are canny the
American is quite the rival of the French.
The Paris dressmaker is famously shrewd
and suspicious. but she has been made
so by the secret warfare carried on
against her by large mass of Ameri-
cans.
The latest move in this new fight
against copying is the banding together
of Callot Worth. Paquin. Drecoll, Ber
nard, Beer, Doeuillet Cheruit, Bechoff-
David and Poiret not to deliver any pur-
chases until March ), and not to de-
liver to the hotels or houses of the buy
ers, but at the port of New York or to
the steamer as passenger baggage. This
has delayed deliveries of new modes to
such an extent that the French designers
feel by continuing it they can outwit
wholesale copying at cheap prices, and
therefore protect the buyers who are
going to keep up the standard.
1t is because of this that the French
gowns and the enormous output of copies
before this date in America were gowns
made In Paris earlier than the spring
openings.
The false label exposures have been
distinctly unpleasant episode, in the
history of American trade. The trade
journal called Women's Wear discovered
this and made an exposure so authentic
and undeniable that the trade has re-
ceived another blow. Labels photograph
ed from the French belts, then copied
by thousands in the original colors, have
been openly sold for years to those who
make gowns and sewed by them into
their own hats and gowns. 1t is claimed
that the French designers can do nothing
about this, but I doubt it. law can be
made if it doesn't exist not only to pro-
tect the Paris people but the American
woman, which is far more serious prop
osition to u.s. for it viii save thousands
of dollars to private purses, even though
it takes them out of the pockets of the
dishonest.
What are the consequences of all this
chicanery? deep rooted feeling in the
Paris dressmaking trade. which is the
heart of Paris, that the American nation
is dishonest and that it's representatives
have to be watched like members of the
rogues' gallery are watched by the police.
Pleasant thought isn't 1t?
And it works against the unknown
honest person who visits Paris house.
One woman who was especially anxious
for coat suit made by Drecoll was put
through a most courteous but painful
cross-examination because she had chat
ted with buyer whom she saw in the
salon. 1t seemed that this buyer had just
been found out in underhand methods of
getting clothes, and the innocent woman
was instantly held under suspicion. She
explained her position satisfactorily, but
she didn't get her suit until the morning