Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1917 — SILKS DEMANDED BY WOMEN [ARTICLE]

SILKS DEMANDED BY WOMEN

Are Widely Worn This Season in Spite of High Prices Due to a Variety of Causes. There are many reasons why silks are high priced this year, but there is just one reason why silks are in demand this year more than ever before—simply because women want to wear silks. The war has had something to do with the shortage of silk, as It has had with most everything else of late. In the first place, expert labor is short. Then, something happened to the cocoons in Turkey, and for some reason there was a_ shortage of raw* silk in Italy," which, coupled with the increased demand, made things rather difficult and, of course, sent prices up. Our little brown-skinned neighbors of the Pacific came to our rescue by seeing in this situation a chance for their own profit, and now we are getting more silk from Japan than anywhere else. Obviously, nothing happened to the cocoons in the land of chrysanthemums. And since Japanese silk possesses very great artistic merits, even in the cheaper grades, women have something to be thankful for. Japanese silks especially commend themselves to this season’s fashions. They are soft and supple without being slinky, a characteristic which makes them especially suitable to a season when skirts are neither extremely full nor extremely narrow.