Life — March 20, 1913 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Women of Courage Needed At Once “EaPaes To Wear Some of Our New Spring Styles in Advance—Re- member that Life’s Fashion Reform League is the Originator of the Great Movement ‘‘America for the Americans’ —If You are Reckless and Extravagant, and Havea Good Fi ure, Drop in to See Us ONSIDERING the great furore raised by our contemporaries over the new régime in styles, by which women in this country are selecting their own frocks without regard to Paris, it is intensely amusing to us to see everybody claiming that they first originated the idea. Our regular patrons—consisting of countless women all over the country —do not have to be informed that we were the originators of the cry “America for the Americans.” There is, however, glory enough for all; the main point now is to reduce the whole affair to a system by which American women can get the best re- sults for the most money they can spend, We have made a study of this, and we advise every woman who has not yet become a regular customer to enroll her name at once. If you want to be six months be- hind the styles, consult some one else. Secret emissaries from Paris are now “ Although much criticised, we doing their best to wring the secrets of the new spring styles from us; needless to say going to give America the benefit first before France and other coun- tries can copy us. We originated the barefoot movement, the velvet slip- per movement, the ankle corset movement and, in fact, every movement that has startled and interested the men for the past four years. We are now en- gaged in making arrange- ments to buy up all the department stores, having them hereafter under one manage- ment. Later on, when we have made all the money we care to make out of the transaction, we shall escape going to jail by turning them over to the Government we are Our aintain that our ‘Mon Repos’ bustles will be a boon to mankind.” “While wearing one Fifth Avenue, an employée of ours was nearly mobbed, illustration rudeness.” of our advance depicts her brave repulse of the We have contemplated this move- ment for some time. The department stores, as at constituted, are y; there is so much competition among them a which one shall own the newsp; through their advertising that no one of them has complete control. By buy- ing them all up, however, we shall at least get the press just where we want it, as there will be no one to compete with us for the advertising. Please bear in mind that this is not a trust. Any new department store can start up at any time, If they are successful we shall simply buy them out. Our motives in doing this are purely patriotic. American styles must prevail. Easter is now on its joyous way. We announce only a few leaders mere- ly to stimulate curiosity. American women are proverbially timid about buying their clothes. We have known several of them whose husbands were not getting more than fifteen thousand a year, to hesitate about spending that amount on their wardrobes. This tendency, of course, is fatal to our patriotism; we can only combat it by wholesome methods of That is one of our main Present wasting a lot of ene: education. comicbooks.com