The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-03-28
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM ALTON
BURE AU
FREDERIC J. HASKN, Director,
Washington. D. G
"WHAT ARE YOU SAVING TO
WEAR2'
Washington. d. G

the result of wearing clothes They /
don't want to<wear clothes, but being |
a simple, impressionable people, they |
| have yielded to the demands of the |
European missionaries, who insist that |
| the wearing of clothes is necessary to |
salvation.
| In the same way, millions of Amer
| lean women are now toddling about
the streets in hobble skirts. wasting
| time and energy. cramping their mus
| cles and risking their lives every time
| they attempt to climb on street car.
| They don't want to wear hobble
| skirts. They know that they are UNI
graceful and unhealthy but they have
submitted to the DEGREES of the ready
E-ade clothing industry, just as the
| Pacific Islanders yielded to the fatal
| aries.
| At a national conference of women
| held in Washington some weeks ago,
an almost unanimous resolution was
adopted to wear nothing but healthy,
| comfortable clothes. 1t was agreed
| that it was possible for women's APP
| parel to be beautiful without being
uncomfortable; that the rapid rise of
women in industry necessitated more
! practical modes of dress, that they
could not be sitting about on wired
| tunics one year and hobbling about in
a sort of wooden stove-pipe the next.
l But this brave resolution apparently
never went any further than the con-
| ference hall. Or, if it did, it made no
| impression either on the manufacture
/ ers of women's wear or on feminin-
| ity in general.
The hobble skirt is just as popular
| this season as it was several years
| ago, before women had experienced
| the comfortable security of uniforms
or had taken over so much of the
heavy work of men. 1t is a step back
ward toward the shackles that the sex
| is striving to throw off, but it has one
| fascinating merit in the feminine eye
that of style.
! The truth is that the majority of
| women are apparently born without
any ideas concerning clothes. Neither
do they acquire any. They have all
their ideas thrust upon them by a
large industry, which rules them like
a deSpOt.
! nificant. 1t means that the era of
thrift is over. Women will again be
| encouraged and persuaded to buy
many clothes. Radical styles are al
ways most satisfactorily e&travagant,
| because they last for such a short
time, and the hobbie skirt is the most
radical of all. In few months it
! will be hopelessly old-fashioned, and
the c1everest dressmaker will be I'M
| able to make it over into a new style.
/ 1t hasn't enough material.
| So argue the clothing manufacture
! ers bent upon recovering the trade
| lost during the war. Thrift was all
very well, then. The manufacturer
| did not like it, but they were willing
to admit that it might be necessary
in order to permit the public to
finance the war, and what they lost
| from the civilian population was large
ly made up by government orders OF
, clothing for the army. After all, IL
was the retailer who lost the most
| and even he did not lose as much as
| eypacted
, For, while women of wealth actually
did practice economy in their ward
robes, this loss to the clothing trade
was partly made up by the greater
expenditures of the working classes
The woman who was in the habit of
buying several hundred dollar gowns
a season simply reduced the number
when she started doing war work and
buying liberty bonds. So many society
women moreover, spent thier days
rushing about in uniforms that they
had little use for other forms of street
clothes. and at times-especially dur
ing liberty bond campaigns-it was
positively fashionable to wear one
frock again and again.
The laborng people on the other
hand, were for the first time making
big money. In the large war plants
it was not unusual for men to make
as much fifteen to twenty-five dol
/
took advantage of this sudden wave of
prosperity. They enjoyed it while they
could. All the clothes that they had
yearned for, but had never been able
to afford before, they bought-and the
! clothing trade looked on in gratified
amazement.
A story is told by a southern buyer,
for example, of a negro who kept
small tobacco shop in his home town.
Before the war it had afforded him a
fairly comfortable living, but when the
Il United States troops started training
the price of tobacco started rising.
things really came his way. His in
come more than doubled in one year.
and he began throwing out his chest
and fIourishing a silver-topped cane as
he staggered down the main street.
Not to be outdone by her husbands
glory, the mans wife went to the big
gest store in town to enrich her ward
robe. First of all, she wanted coat
She had been in the habit of paying
| twenty-five or thirty dollars for coat,
but the sales girl knew her husband
bad been making money. so she brought
her several models marked at eighty
and ninety dollars. The >negress only
glared at them Indignantly.
| 81 dom want none. of this cheap
trash she exclaimed haughtily. My
4 husbands maxim money now, and
want somethin' real,''
The sales fri finally had to send for
the buyer of the store, who was also
the son of the proprietor. You ain
got a thing here I'd wear, Mister
George" complained the stores most
fastidious customer. THE next time
you go to New York won't you kindly
buy me coat? You can go as high
as two hundred dollars for it. if neces-
sary but bring me somethin' I can en-
joy wearin'-" When Mister George
came to New York he bought this COL
ored woman a coat for S175.
4 This is the sort of thing. combined
with the army orders. which kept the
clothing trade fairly prosperous dur
ing the war. but it is now after that
trade which it did lose. In another
six weeks all former customers are
going to be gathered back into the
fold BY an ingenious device known; as