Setting a Fashion

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 6, 1879

Setting a Fashion.

"Whence come the fashions?" is a question often asked. Several years ago a leading New York house imported through a blunder, a certain very ugly material which would not sell, and lay dead upon their hands. Something had to be done. The proprietors of one or two fashion papers were interviewed. The next week their columns told thousands of eager readers that there had recently been shown a new and stylish fabric which promised to be very fashionable, and the statement was widely copied by the daily press. Retail dealers found their customers inquiring for it, and sought it of the jobbers. The jobbers in turn sought it of the importers, who quickly unloaded their whole stock at a handsome profit. The goods were voted "beautiful" and "stylish," and the fabric was "the rage" for a time. Just how much the fashion papers were paid was never divulged. All of which shows how one fashion was "set," and "what fools these mortals be."—Boston Transcript.