Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1895 — HOW H. R. H. DRESSES. [ARTICLE]

HOW H. R. H. DRESSES.

Th* Wonderful Outfit of the Prine* of Wales Described. In a chatty article on the Prince of Wales and his clothes, a writer in Cassell’s Saturday Journal says: As a matter of fact, the “First Gentleman in Europe’’ does spend a great deal of money with his tailors. It should be remembered, nevertheless, that much of this is for uniforms. The Prince is popularly supposed to possess seventy military uniforms—and this total is about accurate. When we remember that a cavalry outfit may cost £l5O, as a low estimate, and that subalterns entering a line regiment rarely begin with a lower disbursement than £SO or £6O, the amount that the Prince's uni- i forms have cost him is easilyto be | gauged. The Prince, of course, possesses, for the most part, colonel’s uniforms, but as a field marshal he is compelled often to renew the terribly expensive outfit suited to that rank ; and it is in this fine tunic that lie appears at most military ceremonials, and at royal weddings, or other great occasions of state. In addition he possesses many naval uniforms and dress of a large number of German, Russian and Austrian regiments. Putting aside the question of uniforms. upon which his Royal Highness cannot spend less than three or four hundred pounds a year, we come to his ordinary dress. It is admitted universally that very few men in town manage things with more taste, or have a quicker eye for a good cloth. There are youths, no doubt, whose tailors’ bills are far larger than the Prince’s, for he is by no means extravagant, although exceedingly particular about his clothes. Nor does he, says the writer, pay absurdly fancy prices, as many people suppose, being charged at the usual rate of a West End house. This means that a frock coat may cost him twelve guineas, which most people would regard as very “fancy" indeed; a dress suit somewhere about fifteen, trousers four guineas, and an ordinary “ditto" suit from eight to ten guineas. When in town the frock coat is invariably worn by the Prince. No doubt, during the London season, he “consumes’’ a large number of these articles —perhaps two a month, of which one will be a light gray one And it is a habit of his never to wear a coat two seasons running, even if it has only been used two or three times by him. As he is in town perhaps six months in the year, his total of “frocks’’ may be set down roughly at twelve. In dress suits he is supposed to be particularly extravagant; but this is not really the case. Any man about town has five or six dress suits a year. The Prince may have a dozen, but the story told in a contemporary recently that ho had one a week Is pure nonsense. When the Prince is going to Newmarket he often wears a “ditto’’ suit with a light covert coat over It. In “ditto" suits, perhaps, his total would astonish the humble man who pays his tailor thirty pounds a year and considers that heavy. It is certain that he never wears one of these suits more than- two or three times, and his stock of them is tremendous. Of shooting suits for the autumn he has an immense variety, using a different style of dress for battue work to that adopted for ordinary work with the dogs. Here alone for country dress he can scarcely spend less than a hundred pounds a year. In the matter of hats it is a well known fact that the Prince has three a fortnight, also buying a large number of bowler and square black hats for country use. At Sandringham there is a hat room with a man whose chief duty it is to keep the Prince’s “tiles" in a high condition of polish. In the same palace a number of vast wardrobes contain the bulk of the uniforms and clothes which are not in regular use. Those large scarfs which are now worn with a frock coat often cost half a guinea. There are scores of up-to-date youths who have fifty pairs of gloves per autumn; three dozen shirts would be regarded as an absolute minimum. So far as the Prince is concerned he never wears a pair of gloves twice, and in this, and in the matter of boots, he is, unquestionably, the best dressed man in the kingdom.