Evening star., 1919-12-28

vast variety of our American climate.
Our crowds follow the birds, and
fashion follows the crowd. IL people
remained at home, trade would suffer
but, out crowded trains are very good
evidence OF the fact that we all move
TO and fro in a ceaseless stream.
Those in the apparel trade never
rest. Whether they create demand
or supply demand, it is hard to tell.
The medical men are held responsible
for our constant travelling from one
climate to another, and the apparel
people may be held responsible for
the restlessness of the pleasure seekers.
No one denies that Palm Beach in
February and Santa Barbara in March,
that Aiken and Augusta at the new
year, demand different clothes from
New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
With Bermuda, Havana and Porto
Rico thrown in as winter resorts, the
demand for thin clothes, straw hats
and colored parasols becomes greater.
X X II X
There Is a feeling that prohibition
will drive the people to the latter re-
sorts, but this story, like many 9TH
ers. is built on a foundation of sand.
The first harbingers of the south
ern season are straw hats. They
make their appearance with Christ
mas.
They are not for the pleasure seek
for any reason. They set the style for
l.
they are significant. They are what
the people at home will wear when
the calendar pronounces it time to
change ones winter clothes. The
milliners have been working on them
since November just as the dress
makers have been working on sport
clothes. frocks of thin serge, sepa-
rate tunics and thin afternoon
gowns.
They will re-create these fashions
in other fabrics at the end of March
Today they are carrying out certain
designs in white flannel, in corn-col-
ored crepe de chine, In embroidered
poplin; when March comes they will
reintroduce these styles in serge, in
satin, and again in silk poplin.
The canny ones who take Paris for
their inspiration have always gone
TO the Riviera after Christmas in or
der to get ahead of the crowd in the
knowledge of what would be worn In
May: they have even gone as far as
Madrid and Rome and dipped dowr
into Algiers and Egypt in the days
before the war.
They knew that the master de.
signner sent all their sartorial ex.
periments to these places. Those who
wore them were women of fashion
the members of that set that must
be amused and that finds its CHIEF
amusement in congregatng at the
various resorts.
These are the women who actually
start the fashions, and it is they who
discard them as soon as the mass
picks them up. The same set exists
in America. 1t has become the Gus
tom for dressmakers to design indi-
vidual clothes for women who stanG
out from the mass by reason OF
wealth, social opportunity or achieve
ment.
designer whether the client is ia
nous in one way or another; the OBJ
ject in view is to make the new
gown conspicuous. 1t cannot play
that part il it is worn by an incon
spicuous woman. In America, as il
Europe. we run after the leaders II
all things.
Nothing so delights a designer a
to have an order for clothes that viii
be worn in brilliant manner at al
expensive resort To catch these or
ders one must design clothes prema
turely. One must be at the head o
the game, not in the middle or be
hind il, II is said the French tha
many a woman, has made up he
minf to go. to the Riviera becaus
she was lured into buying a marvel
Gus straw hat.
In America the same thing hap
pens. That Is why straw hats appea
at Christmas. That is the reason fo
the sweeping sales of winter finer
in November. So hurried are the pee
pie of the apparel trade to get ot
new things that they discard whf
is seasonable before the season set
in.
There is no shop which looks wit
~ Nx-t 4.