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<\/a><\/p>\n She must have one or two velvet dresses which cannot cost less than $500 each; she must possess thousands of dollars’ worth of laces, in the shape of flounces, to loop up over the skirts of dresses, as occasion shall require. Walking-dresses cost from $50 to $300; ball-dresses are frequently imported from Paris at a cost of from $500 to a $1000; while wedding-dresses may cost from $1000 to $5000.\u00a0 Nice white Llama jackets can be had for $60;\u00a0 robes princesse, or overskirts of lace, are worth from $60 to $200.\u00a0 Then there are travelling-dresses in black silk, in pongee, velour, in pique, which range in price from $75 to $175.\u00a0 Then there are evening robes in Swiss muslin, robes in linen for the garden and croquet-playing, dresses for horse-races and for yacht-races, robes de nuit and robes de chambre, dresses for breakfast and for dinner, dresses for receptions and for parties, dresses for watering-places, and dresses for all possible occasions.\u00a0 A lady going to the Springs takes from twenty to sixty dresses, and fills an enormous number of Saratoga trunks.\u00a0 They are of every possible fabric–from Hindoo muslin, ‘gaze de soie,’ crape maretz, to the heavy silks of Lyons.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n“We know the wife of the editor of one of the great morning newspapers of New York, now travelling in Europe, whose dress-making bill in one year was $10,000!\u00a0 What her dry-goods bill amounted to heaven and her husband only know.\u00a0 She was once stopping at a summer hotel, and such was her anxiety to always appear in a new dress that she would frequently come down to dinner with a dress basted together just strong enough to last while she disposed of a little turtle-soup, a little Charlotte de Russe, and a little ice cream.<\/em><\/p>\n“Mrs. Judge —, of New York, is considered one of the ‘queens of fashion.’\u00a0 She is a goodly-sized lady–not quite so tall as Miss Anna Swan, of Nova Scotia–and she has the happy faculty of piling more dry-goods upon her person than any other lady in the city; and what is more, she keeps on doing it.\u00a0 To give the reader a taste of her quality, it is only necessary to describe a dress she wore at the Dramatic Fund Ball, not many years ago.\u00a0 There was a rich blue satin skirt, en train. Over this there was looped up a magnificent brocade silk, white, with bouquets of flowers woven in all the natural colors.\u00a0 This overskirt was deeply flounced with costly white lace, caught up with bunches of feathers of bright colors.\u00a0 About her shoulders was thrown a fifteen-hundred dollar shawl.\u00a0 She had a head-dress of white ostrich feathers, white lace, gold pendants, and purple velvet.\u00a0 Add to all this a fan, a bouquet of rare flowers, a lace handkerchief, and jewelry almost beyond estimate, and you see Mrs. Judge — as she appears when full blown.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n“Mrs. General — is a lady who goes into society a great deal.\u00a0 She has a new dress for every occasion.\u00a0 The following costume appeared at the Charity Ball, which is the great ball of the year in New York.\u00a0 It was imported from Paris for the occasion, and was made of white satin, point lace, and a profusion of flowers.\u00a0 The skirt had heavy flutings of satin around the bottom, and the lace flounces were looped up at the sides with bands of the most beautiful pinks, roses, lilies, forget-me-nots, and other flowers.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n“It is nothing uncommon to meet in New York society ladies who have on dry-goods and jewelry to the value of from thirty to fifty thousand dollars.\u00a0 Dress patterns of twilled satin, the ground pale green, pearl, melon color, or white, scattered with sprays of flowers in raised velvet, sell for $300 dollars each; violet poult de soie will sell for $12 dollars a yard; a figured moire will sell for $200 the pattern; a pearl-colored silk, trimmed with point applique lace, sells for $1000; and so we might go on to an almost indefinite length<\/b>.”<\/em><\/p>\nThose who think this an exaggerated picture have only to apply to the proprietor of any first-class city dry-goods store, and he will confirm its truthfulness.\u00a0 These gentlemen will tell you that while their sales of staple goods are heavy, they are proportionately lighter than the sales of articles of pure luxury.\u00a0 At Stewart’s the average sales of silks, laces, velvets, shawls, gloves, furs, and embroideries is about $24,500 per diem.\u00a0 The sales of silks alone average about $15,000 per\u00a0<\/em>diem.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Blog_Gold_Gown\"](\"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Blog_Gold_Gown.jpg\")
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