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All elements of the sewing industry have combined to launch a huge sew-more campaign. Manhattan's R. H. Macy, boasting probably the biggest piece-goods department in the world, runs home-sewn fashion shows every day for about 14 weeks a year. Singer Manufacturing Co. spends $3,000,000 a year on national advertising, gives free machine lessons at 1,700 Singer Centers to 363,000 women a year, sponsors annual sewing contests with contestants winning $210,000 in prizes. One return prize for the industry is more and more younger sewers: the average home sewer's age has dropped from 45 in 1928 to 27 now, and by 1960 millions of teen-agers will be sewing. A common but fashionable wedding present for suburban brides: a sewing machine.
No Dry Cleaning. What makes sewing more interesting than ever is that it is vastly easier. Even the clumsiest bachelor girl can sew professional-looking draperies with the aid of pre-pleating devices. Such accessories abound. John Dritz & Sons carries 100 items, introduced 18 new ones this year alone, including a "foolproof" buttonhole maker, electric scissors, upholstery-repair kit.
Sales of home sewing machines have more than doubled since 1948, to about 1,500,000 a year, because the new machines embroider, darn, quilt, overcast, link two edges without overlapping, sew on buttons, make buttonholes—do virtually everything except dry cleaning. These wonders are mainly attributable to the invasion of foreign machines (about 1,000,000 a year), such as Italy's Necchi, which ten years ago caught staid old Singer with its slip showing. The new gadgets on Necchi and other machines shrank Singer's sales in the U.S. from its two-thirds grip of the U.S. market to one-third. Now Singer is bouncing back. It says that its Slant-O-Matic, $399.50 in Early American cabinet, can match-sew any foreign make. Soon sister Susie should sew a shirt in seconds.