A PAGE FOR WOMEN
New York As Fashion Centre Will It Replace Paris?
...
Elsa Schiaparelli arrived in New York the other day on the Clip- per from Lisbon and announced that she had come to buy some clothes! The item was a fine bit for the American newspapers - one of the leading couture ex- perts of Faris come to the United States to buy clothes!
Perhaps only a joke; perhaps, actually, Mme. Schuapareui went only in connection with a lecture tour on "Clothes and the Woman.”
But the item has precipitated a Con- very interesting discussion. sidering all that has happened to Francz, to Paris, since last June, does Mme, Schiaparelli's visit pre- sage the ascendancy of New York as the fashion centre of the world. to replace the city on the Seine which has held that distinction in Our cra? The answer may be no; the present writer, after a careful Study of the situatiou, thinks it is no, but it is not an answer that could not come very close to a yes,”
the for: so much is involved in problem.
Mme. Schiaparelli was asked the question. Her answer is signif- Cant She said:
I see no reason why America cannot build a couture of its own. 14now there's, designing talent here, and, if it is given encourage- ment it will-develop more and more s
As if the American fashion in- in dustry got all the inferences that observation, some of the lead- ing manufacturers at once began to make her offers to keep her in America. Four of the best known producers of women's dresses are ..known to have expressed a will- ingness to pay her 5,000 dollars a year for the use of her name on labele, and at least one of them offered her 500 dollars apiece for
As one original designs. mentator put it, "You could almost hear them sigh, ‘Ah, thank heaven! Schiaparelli will pull us out this hole!'"
com-
of
Mme. Schiaparelli, however, re- fused the offers and announced she was returning to Paris in Decem- ber.
If Hitler Controls Parisy Paris Won't Control Fashions
Knitted sleeves In this green Cleverly gored tweed cult, skirt and matching tweed bag add atonic effect."
sudden flooding of the American market with pictures from Berlin couture of German designers' seems to indicate that perhaps the German capital may be aiming to centre of succeed Paris as the
world fashions although, if American fashion writers' red actions of these pictures are any test of the world's woman's re- action, the Nazis are setting them selves a hopeless-task..
The
principal reason
why
France has led the world in the designing of women's clothes is that, in the words of an observer, she had an "intuitive understand- ing
..of the direction in which the feminine' mind was moving with respect to clothes matters."
Proof of this isn't hard to find.
When Patou, for instance, raised the waistline back to its natural position; when Vionnet employed the bias cuts to reveal the curves Schiaparelli of the body; when manipulated the shoulder line to give new contour to the silhouette, they initiated trends which were based infallibly on an understand- ing of women's preferences.
;
But, then, Paris has frequently been, wrong, to her own great cost and the cost of all those in the business of couture the world over who followed her lead-as wit- ago, when ness two seasons French designers believed that the toe-tip length in the dance dress was definitely going out and that the ankle-length dress would be welcomed by women everywhere. The results were a dismal failure,
American commentators declare that this intuitive understanding of the direction in which feminine taste is moving isn't exclusively French, nor is it intuitive. They stress that the life about them is the source of inspiration of French designers and American alike. They point to the fact that a house like Sally Milgrim of New York won fame forty years ago for its genius in fitting the sleeve entering the shoulder in a suit; or that Tom Briggance of Lord & Taylor introduced the new side- saddle fullness in play clothes, displaying an uncanny sense of what the women of America and the rest of the world want. to wear; or that Clarepotter's sports clothes have been the envy even of the Paris designers.
The Influence Of Hollywood
A source of fashion Inspiration unique in the world, is Hollywood where, without having to think of costs, and certain of wide, publi-
city through the movies, designers work practically untrammelled! making the striving for an ideal a practical possibility.
under A fashion leadership, a group of American writers on fashion
Presuming that Paris, subjects have tried to make the German compulsion, or by reason noted women who will sponsor point that, "as long as Hitler con of the consequences of the dis and wear certain styles, in the that the leading trols Paris, Paris. won't control location of her economy as a r same manner fashions." It is, of course, too early sult. of the war, is no longer able. French, couturiers bad theif to predict what the exact offcct to maintain herself as the world's enterics of smart customers who the defeat of France will have un fashion centre, will New York, as wore their best or newest things the freedom of Paris to conduct a consequence, therefore, be able in advance, thus setting style what was in times of peace to take her place? What about standards; Women like Mrs. Hal- France's second largest industry. Loildon, which in recent years has rison Williams, often found on of the world's ten besti made enormous strides in attract lists The earliest intimations of Gering-the-best-dressed women of the dress women; Mrs: Vincent Astor, many's long-range polity toward world? There are a number of wife of the noted capitalist; Mrs. France were to the effect that she reasons Why New York might Lawrence Tibbett, the wife of the would be deprived of her Empire, conceivably succeed to the place singer: Miss Barbara Hutton, Miss and her position as a leading pow- of Paris and a number of reasonk Ina Claire, the nctress, Mrs. er on the Continent ended, but why she is not likely to achieve Bernard Gimbel, wife of the dis- that her production in certain the distinction... An examination tinguished merchant, and other's sulus of fine manufacture where" of these' covers the entire range have been gradually assuming the she has always led would be en- of the question of fashion in wo role of arbiters in feminine
fashion, couraged; On the other hand, the men's clothes,
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