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By Root 1926 0

trouble, another survey reported, because young high school and college girls equate fur coats with “uselessness” and “a kept woman.” Again the advice was to get to the very young before these unfortunate connotations have formed. (“By introducing youngsters to positive fur experiences, the probabilities of easing their way into garment purchasing in their teens is enhanced.”) Point out that “the wearing of a fur garment actually establishes femininity and sexuality for a woman.” (“It’s the kind of thing a girl looks forward to. It means something. It’s feminine.” “I’m bringing my daughter up right. She always wants to put on ‘mommy’s coat.’ She’ll want them. She’s a real girl.”) But keep in mind that “mink has contributed a negative feminine symbolism to the whole fur market.” Unfortunately, two out of three women felt mink-wearers were “predatory…exploitative…dependent…socially nonproductive…”

Femininity today cannot be so explicitly predatory, exploitative, the report said; nor can it have the old high-fashion “connotations of stand-out-from-the-crowd, self-centeredness.” And so fur’s “ego-orientation” must be reduced and replaced with the new femininity of the housewife, for whom ego-orientation must be translated into togetherness, family-orientation.

Begin to create the feeling that fur is a necessity—a delightful necessity…thus providing the consumer with moral permission to purchase something she now feels is ego-oriented…. Give fur femininity a broader character, developing some of the following status and prestige symbols…an emotionally happy woman…wife and mother who wins the affection and respect of her husband and her children because of the kind of person she is, and the kind of role she performs….

Place furs in a family setting; show the pleasure and admiration of a fur garment derived by family members, husband and children; their pride in their mother’s appearance, in her ownership of a fur garment. Develop fur garments as “family” gifts—enable the whole family to enjoy that garment at Christmas, etc., thus reducing its ego-orientation for the owner and eliminating her guilt over her alleged self-indulgence.

Thus, the only way that the young housewife was supposed to express herself, and not feel guilty about it, was in buying products for the home-and-family. Any creative urges she may have should also be home-and-family oriented, as still another survey reported to the home sewing industry.

Such activities as sewing achieve a new meaning and a new status. Sewing is no longer associated with absolute need…. Moreover, with the moral elevation of home-oriented activities, sewing, along with cooking, gardening, and home decorating—is recognized as a means of expressing creativity and individuality and also as a means of achieving the “quality” which a new taste level dictates.

The women who sew, this survey discovered, are the active, energetic, intelligent modern housewives, the new home-oriented modern American women, who have a great unfulfilled need to create, and achieve, and realize their own individuality—which must be filled by some home activity. The big problem for the home-sewing industry was that the “image” of sewing was too “dull” somehow it didn’t achieve the feeling of creating something important. In selling their products, the industry must emphasize the “lasting creativeness” of sewing.

But even sewing can’t be too creative, too individual, according to the advice offered to one pattern manufacturer. His patterns required some intelligence to follow, left quite a lot of room for individual expression, and the manufacturer was in trouble for that very reason, his patterns implied that a woman “would know what she likes and would probably have definite ideas.” He was advised to widen this “far too limited fashion personality” and get one with “fashion conformity”—appeal to the “fashion-insecure woman,” “the conformist element in fashion,” who feels “it is not smart to be dressed too differently.” For, of course, the manufacturer’s problem was not to satisfy woman’s need