Show fashion sells women things not required 0 by GRETTA CRETTA PALMER Wor woman narim pace face editor nw new york world telegram there are hardly any women in the united states who enough dresses and coats coata and accessories to at least keep them warm and decently clad one of the things we have to remember constantly Is that we are selling women things they dont need to have said a leading dry goods merchant in a burst of candor and there you have the paradox ox of fashion neatly wrapped la in cellophane and handed to the customer it la Is the astonishing feat of modern merchants that they can induce women to go without their lunch lunches ea and walk to work in order to buy a hat bat they do not need and would never have wanted it if they had not been shamed into it by the imaginary tyrant F fashion men are never tired of asking why we do it and usually the they support their contention of mans greater mental poise by proudly showing a tailors mark in the suit they are wearing proving that it was made in 1025 so far as we know there Is only one answer to make and that Is to explain to them theory of waste and plead guilty to the charge of snobbery it involves this theory mead mesdames es states that oram as soon as a man or woman oman has more money than Is seeded needed for the regulation comforts and necessities of a well ordered existence the unspent income begins to worry him ite ile has worked hard for that money and he wants the world to know he has it it Is a vulgar impulse but there it Is what can he do he can buy something he really need or intrinsically desire just to show that he can afford it it ile he will buy six automobiles although it Is obvious that he can ride in only one at a time he will build a BO 60 room house and live in one wing of it he will buy Rem brandts even it if he does not care for paintings and diamonds that he cannot tell from glass after a few generations the wealthy usually grow accustomed to the tact fact that they are rich and are less interested in advertising the tact fact they can then shed their ostentation and stop buying things they do not want and begin to enjoy themselves but in almost every instance you yon will still find them consuming a great many more things than they enjoy consuming because a certain amount of waste Is demanded by the conventions which surround their rives lives it is on this foundation that fashion rests formerly it was possible for a woman of high degree to buy silks and satins gatins which were prohibitively expensive their very fragility marked them as wasteful and snobbish possessions for their appearance pe arance proved to all observers that madame was unaccustomed to the scrubbing of floors and so long as silk was the mark of high estate so long could fashions jog quietly along with few changes from season to reason but manufacturers devised ways of making silk so BO cheaply that all classes could afford it and I 1 its ta possession ceased to be a proof of solvency yet the snobbish I 1 impulse in pulse remained how could it be expressed well you yon and I 1 and fifty million other american women know the answer to our sorrow borrow instead of buying one taffeta dress a year our grande dame began to buy twenty and each one was so BO differently devised from its predecessor that the onlooker knew it had come smack out of a shop window within a week pretty soon we were all trying to keep up with her panting a little blinking our eyes going into bankruptcy but wearing the dress of the month instead of the very pretty model left over from last lad fall and that grandchildren Is why there Is no such thing as fashion in any socialist community |