Business: Dress Peace

A decision in the U. S. District Court in Boston last week terminated a long and bitter fight between dressmakers and department stores. Trouble came into the open last February when the Fashion Originators' Guild of America, patrolling the dress trade against style piracy, cracked down on R. H. White department store, owned by Boston's famed Wm. Filene's Sons Co., for harboring stolen styles (TIME, March 23). Members of the Guild refused to fill orders from White's or Filene's. Promptly Filene's charged the Guild with conspiracy in restraint of trade, took the matter to court with the backing of other "red-carded" stores and the potent National Retail Dry Goods Association. Confirmed last week were the findings of Special Master Ripley Dana that:

1) Of 3,000 dress manufacturers in the U. S. last spring, only 144 were Guild members.

2) Guild members or affiliates made not more than 53% of dresses wholesaling for $16.75 and above, 33⅓% between $7.75 and $12.75, 2% below $6.75.

3) Guild activities "have carried with them no monopolistic menace and have not unduly restrained competition. ..."

Elated but urbane, the Guild's shrewd Chairman Maurice Rentner purred: "Surely the stores in question should be convinced by this time that our plan contains many beneficial things. . . . [It] would be most regrettable if these court proceedings were to be regarded as containing an element of defeat for anyone. . . ."