No. 5 (a clerk) adds the following note to her dress account:—
“To give a true impression I think detailed dress accounts should cover three years’ expenditure; things like, e.g., winter coats and best evening dresses cannot come out of the same year’s income on a £40 dress allowance. In considering the effect produced for the money, people should certainly state whether they are a ‘stock’ size. I can wear nothing ready made. People who can may reduce the cost of all their outer garments by about half.”
No. 7 (a clerk), who is perhaps more representative of the middle class working women of the future than the others whose accounts are given here, inasmuch as she appears to regard bicycling, tennis, hockey, society, and pretty dresses as being as much the right of the girl wage-earner as of her stay-at-home cousins, has given me the list of additions to her wardrobe made by her family during the year, the items being: one pair of good evening slippers, one blouse, one dozen handkerchiefs, one lace collar, a total value of £2 4s.; and sundry veils, ribbons, and belts, value not known.
She writes:—
“What comes so expensive when one has to go to work straight on, say for the first six months of the year, is the having to keep up the same standard of respectability in the ‘between season’ time as at other times. The holidays always come between the seasons at school or college, and it does not matter much what one wears. But at the office by April I felt that I had simply ‘nothing to wear,’ and yet I hardly knew what to buy, as it was too early to get summer things. If one once got into the way of getting inter-season clothes as well, the expenditure would be enormous.”
No. 6 writes:—
“I walk a great deal in all weathers, and boots and walking dresses are subjected to hard wear. I generally have about three new walking dresses a year, at about 4¹⁄₂ guineas each on the average. My boot-bill is extra heavy, because my boots have to be made to order.”
And in answer to further questions on this latter point:—
“I find that my average expenditure on boots and shoes for the year I gave you and for the year just ended (September 30) is £4 14s. 9d.; I never kept my accounts before, so that I cannot be sure about my permanent average, but I should say it was generally about 5 guineas. This year was a very dry year, and not so ruinous as usual, and I cycled more and walked less.”
It should be noted that the three office workers who spend over £40 on dress are all dissatisfied with the result, and consider that they have to exercise rigid economy to keep their expenditure down to that limit. At the same time, all three are a little ashamed to find that they spend so much. This arises from the fact that the expenditure is always compared with that of the girl living at home on an allowance. The comparison is not justifiable. The office worker wears out more clothes and has no time for making or mending.