In Vanity Fair: A Tale of Frocks and Femininity

by Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd

Naturally it is not only in the province of clothes the money-spending mania of America asserts itself. Among Americans of wealth the cost of living has swelled to a startling figure. Numerous magnificent homes equipped with every luxury that money can buy, entertainment on a princely scale, servants by the score, horses, carriages, automobiles, steam-yachts,—all these are the necessities of the multi-millionaire who is in society. The floral decorations for a dinner or ball often cost thousands of dollars, and five hundred dollars' worth of flowers for a small dinner in New York or Newport is no unusual order. Cotillion favours for a large ball have been known to cost ten thousand dollars, and thousands of dollars go to the caterer upon such an occasion.

When the Castellanes, during their social career, spent forty thousand dollars on one evening's entertainment, all Paris was agog, but that sum has been far exceeded for single social functions in New York, and from ten thousand dollars to twenty thousand dollars is no surprising cost for a successful ball.

Every year the social standards mount higher, in point of expenditure, and new methods of getting rid of money are added to the already long list. The motor, for example, has added from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars to the annual expenditure of numerous wealthy men who have motor mania in its acute form, buy many superb cars, employ expensive machinists and chauffeurs, build fine garages, and race their cars.

But all this extraordinary lavishness is confined to a comparatively small part of our population, affects but a little clique of millionaires, and while even in smart society a large contingent is living beyond its means, a majority of the most extravagant American money-spenders have fortunes ample enough to justify their annual expenditures—at least from a financial point of view. It is the increasing extravagance in dress and luxury among the classes of more moderate incomes that is most interesting to a social student, and the American tendency is, proportionately, as marked here as in wealthier circles.

All along the social line American women are spending more for dress than ever before. Each year marks a rise in the grade of goods demanded and sold, and manufacturers, merchants, and dressmakers all testify to the remarkable improvement in American standards of dress during recent years.

The rise of the ready-made frock has had much to do with bringing about this result, and few outsiders have any conception of the growth and importance of this industry. Forty years ago very few models were brought to this country from Europe, and very few women even of the wealthiest class knew much about Paris shopping. As for the woman of humble social position she was quite out of touch with French fashion. About thirty-eight years ago, A. T. Stewart launched the first ready-made frocks, and record has it that they were frights. Shortly after that there were four small establishments in the United States manufacturing women's ready-made garments. To-day there are forty-eight hundred houses devoted to such business in New York City alone, and some of the largest American dressmaking factories are in towns outside of New York,—in Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Everyone of these manufacturers sends men to Paris at least twice during the season to buy models, obtain sketches, notes, and ideas. Even the cheapest of the ready-made costumes to-day has in it some faint echo of Parisian art, and there are American manufacturers of ready-made coats and frocks who make no low-class goods at all.

If one walks into Paquin's establishment and pays five hundred dollars for a frock, one feels that she is paying a good price, but there are specialty houses in New York turning out ready-made models at five hundred dollars and making nothing for less than one hundred dollars; and these expensive costumes find ready sale.

Occasionally a woman retains the old-time prejudice against ready-made garments and wonders why anyone will pay two or three hundred dollars for a ready-made gown. Given a choice between a gown made to order by Paquin and one at the same price from a New York manufacturer, it would doubtless be the part of wisdom to take the Paquin creation; but there is no Paquin in New York, and though there are some exceedingly good dressmakers here, there are also many who charge high prices without the ability to justify them. Many women who have had disastrous experiences with such makers claim that, at least, in a ready-made frock one can be sure of the general effect, and that if it comes from a good maker, whether French or American, and is well cut to begin with, it will even after alteration fit better and do more for one's figure than a made-to-order gown from incompetent hands.

There are still cheap ready-made garments on the market, but demand for good materials and fine workmanship is steadily growing and, through the efforts of manufacturers to meet this demand, ideas of better dressing have been spread broadcast.

Fortunes have been made quickly by men who have kept step with this improvement in taste and supplied good models of Parisian design and excellent workmanship for the American ready-made trade.