Women's Dresses and Slips: A Buying Guide

1940

National Agricultural Library

Farmers' Bulletin Number 1851

Every woman wants to buy the best dresses her means permit. Whether she has much or little to spend, the ability to make a wise choice means a great deal from the standpoint both of money outlay and of satisfaction. For the cost of dresses is a very important item in the clothing budget.

Good dresses last longer, look better, and are more comfortable to wear; but the industry, which turns out annually over 172 million dresses, produces all kinds and all qualities. The retail stores in turn show a wide range of prices and a wide choice of values within each price range. So a woman has to pick carefully to get the ones best suited to her needs and her pocketbook. Few of us however are expert judges of fabrics or of the construction of garments. Though the labels attached to ready-made dresses and slips are giving some help, more printed facts would benefit the manufacturer as well as the consumer. A woman then would know what service she could reasonably expect from her purchase, and there would be fewer complaints and returns to the retail stores.

In modern stores and shops, dresses are fairly well classified as street, afternoon, and formal, and trained clerks know the kind to show when it is explained for what occasion the dress is wanted. Within a type, however, the purchaser has to pick her own best buy. She has to choose which is most becoming, best fits her social requirements, will give the desired service, can be cleaned satisfactorily without undue expense, and is reasonably priced in relation to the desired qualities. The salesperson cannot know all the personal circumstances which should influence a customer's selection. So when buying a dress, be sure you are not unduly swayed but are using your own good judgment.

Whether a dress is for house wear or for the street, it is well to get the best of its kind that can be afforded. Sometimes women buy several inexpensive dresses rather than a few good ones, believing that to be the secret of good dressing. But dresses of poor material and workmanship are short-lived. Many women find that fewer but better dresses are more economical in the long run.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Home Economics