A serious merchandising mistake was made in that early period, sale, that is, of these new and unperfected rayon fabrics as "artificial silk," so that consumers found themselves buying merchandise which acted in very strange and unsatisfactory ways when treated like the material to which it was related by name. Consequently the public acquired a thorough distrust of the synthetic textiles, believing them to be cheap and fragile imitations of honest cloths.
Through advances made by chem-sts, however, in methods of production, rayon fabrics of excellent quality and suggesting silk were soon introduced; and others which in appearance resemble wool. We all know" that to-day rayon is one of our most important, lovely and controllable fibers, possessing high style value and also serviceability. Nevertheless, it requires individualized care. And because, although it can be so woven, as we have said, as to look like wool, it has not the warmth of wool, customers are entitled to know that in buying it they may secure the style value they seek but not protection against winter blasts.
These facts seem obvious and not dificult to publicize, but, unfortunately, manufacturers, confronted by the antagonism of the pablic towa! synthetic fibres, instead of overcome ing it by laying their cards on the lo and explaining the constitution of those textiles and the care they need, embarked on a policy of set tiveness, and when they did not sell rayon under the name of one of the natural fibers they sold it under trade names, signifying nothing as to fibre content, and, of course, without any instructions as to how it should be cleaned, Then began a raid on the adjustment departments of the stores by disgruntled women who brought with them garments which had collapsed under household processes or cleaning establishment processes suitable to the natural fibres, but destructive of synthetics. The stores were alarmed, for they found themselves involved in heavy expenses for returned goods; and, worse still, they saw themselves losing customer confidence.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.