Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/90

 able dressmaking establishment, though she had to hire women to set the stichesstitches [sic] according to her designs. Later she became buyer for a firm, making semi-annual trips abroad. To-day she is head of a fashion and pattern syndicate,—enjoying a large income, and she is wonderfully happy and satisfied in her work. I might still be making very neat buttonholes in her dressmaking establishment, but if I want an artistic corsage-bow or a smart summer girdle evolved from ribbon, I have to tip a girl at the ribbon counter to make it for me. So you see the girl who received the highest percentage as a mere setter of stitches might have starved, or at least become a tired drudge at dressmaking, while the girl who knew the value of lines, color combinations and effects, although she did make round and ragged buttonholes, has a thriving business, built on the same trade.

There is a small, steady income in ordinary dressmaking. You can make a trifle more than wages if you are a neat seamstress and have good health. But the big money in dressmaking is made by the women who know how to profit by the labor of others, who can catch and hold trade by their original designs, and who are sincerely interested in making their wealthy customers look their best. Make a woman better-looking, whether by massage,, millinery or dressmaking, and