Why silk dresser that used to cost $35, or any way shoes that formerly could be bought in any store for $5 should now be $10 and in beyond his comprehension. Yet there is just as much reason behind the advance of prices in wearing apparel as there is in the higher cost of foods. Sheets are high, because hides and skins are scarce, one to the tremendous demand of the European armies for war shoes. So far as silk is concerned, the war has also put a crimp in that industry. The silk worms are still doing their duly nobly in supplying the raw silk, but the men who formerly gathered the product now in the trenches or in the hospitals. The same thing is true of other fabrics. The fabrics of Europe, which formerly supplied us with taffeta, have in some instances, as in Belgium, been completely wiped out, and in others are not being worked to anything like their former capacity. Hence, linen is ten times as much for it. So far, cotton is not expensive, but even it has added a few cents to its cost. The price of wool shows every indication of increasing; indefinitely. Under these circumstances, the market for silk is steady.  American woman is up against a unit proposition when she attempts to accomplish in elothes. There are several ways of retrenchment open to her, one about on unattractive as the other, but the most essential requirement is that she give more time and attention to the planning of her lot. 