Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 125

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“Knock-down” furniture and picture frames are an old story, but “knock-down,” or ready-to-make wearing apparel is “a new one” to most people.

A Chicago woman who was an expert cutter, and who knew that most women and girls would like to make their own clothes if they could only be assured of a perfect fit, saw an opportunity here to not only save these women at least half on the cost of their apparel, but to make money as well, out of the business of supplying their needs.

She arranged with a popular pattern house for the loan of current illustrations with which to publish a monthly fashion bulletin, featuring those particular patterns, and with a wholesale dry goods house for the regular discounts on dress materials, trimmings, etc., securing a line of small samples of each piece of goods in most demand.

Then she began advertising that for $6.50 she would furnish all the material for a certain dress, ready cut, ready to sew together, that would cost, made up, at the stores, $15, and other goods in the same proportion.

To women answering these ads. and asking for particulars, she would send a small sample of the goods desired, together with a copy of her bulletin, illustrating each pattern, and showing the difference in the price when cut to fit by her, as compared with the same dress bought at a store, and usually requiring extensive alterations. She was soon obliged to employ a number of skilled assistants, in order to turn out the work that came to her.

The pattern selected by the customer was used for cutting the garment, then sent to her with the material and it was an easy matter to complete a perfect fitting dress, at a great saving in cost.