Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1919 — MAN-MADE SUITS [ARTICLE]

MAN-MADE SUITS

Garments Modeled by Male Tail* ors in Greater Demand. Work Regarded Superior to That of Women, Due to Certain Knack for the Work. “This costume is the style you want, madame, but it is considerably more expensive than the- one at which you have been looking, 11 said an assistant at a big shop. “Oh, yes,\the material Is the same, but the cut of it is much better, and it ft man-tailored throughout.” It sounded as if tile last part of the sentence ought to be sufficient to exjdain everything and there is no getting away from the fact that garments which are “man-tailored” have a greatsUpeHorityTn appearance over women’s tailoring—work—and, of course, are much more expensive. — It is not amatter of sex prejudice or imagination, for there are few trades which are so fully open to women as various branches of tailorings Rather is the superiority due to the greater physlcaUstrength of men and a certain knack for the work which is natural to some men.

“Tailoring is not exactly a trade which' anybody con learn,” was the opinion of a leading tailor. “Highclass tailoring is a real art, and some men are born for it in, the same way that others are born to paint great pictures. Very often the tailor’s gift is hereditary from father to son. “There are three main reasons' why women tailors are inferior to men in the work which they turn out. Women have not sufficient physical strength to do the heavy pressing which makes or mars a garment; they cannot approach men where ‘cutting’ is concerned, and the general finish- of.womwork~is not so good as that of -men —in total effect rather than detail. r “Until comparatively recent years tailoring was purely a man’s trade, but now there are scores of women engaged upon it. The bulk of wholesale work, consisting of average price men’s suits and women’s costumes, is done by women, so far as the actual making is concerned. The cutting of such garments is usually done by machine. “Certainly the superiority of the ‘man tailored’ suit or costume is not a fallacy. Women can do excellent work, but they are not such good tailors as men in the results, they achieve. Their work is less definite. Moreover, it is a certainty that if you took a tailoring expert into a mixed crowd of men and women he would unerringly select which garments had been ‘man tailored’ and which were women’s work.”