order that the designs might be given in all the beauty of
their original colors. For months designers and artists worked; he had
the designs passed upon by a board of judges composed of New York women
who knew good clothes, and then he began their publication.

The editor of The New York Times asked Bok to conduct for that newspaper
a prize contest for the best American-designed dresses and hats, and
edit a special supplement presenting them in full colors, the prizes to
be awarded by a jury of six of the leading New York women best versed in
matters of dress. Hundreds of designs were submitted, the best were
selected, and the supplement issued under the most successful auspices.

In his own magazine, Bok published pages of American-designed fashions:
their presence in the magazine was advertised far and wide; conventions
of dressmakers were called to consider the salability of
domestic-designed fashions; and a campaign with the slogan "American
Fashions for American Women" was soon in full swing.

But there it ended. The women looked the designs over with interest, as
they did all designs of new clothes, and paid no further attention to
them. The very fact that they were of American design prejudiced the
women against them. America never had designed good clothes, they
argued: she never would. Argument availed naught. The Paris germ was
deep-rooted in the feminine mind of America: the women acknowledged that
they were, perhaps, being hoodwinked by spurious French dresses and
hats; that the case presented by Bok seemed convincing enough, but the
temptation to throw a coat over a sofa or a chair to expose a Parisian
label to the eyes of some other woman was too great; there was always a
gambling chance that her particular gown, coat, or hat was an actual
Paris creation.

Bok called upon the American woman to come out from under the yoke of
the French couturiers, show her patriotism, and encourage American
design. But it was of no use. He talked with women on every hand; his
mail was full of letters commending him for his stand; but as for actual
results, there were none. One of his most intelligent woman-friends
finally summed up the situation for him:

"You can rail against the Paris domination all you like; you can expose
it for the fraud that it is, and we know that it is; but it is all to no
purpose, take my word. When it comes to the question of her personal
adornment, a woman employs no reason; she knows no lo