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REGARDING CLOTHES
KUTOCK vs
KENNEDY: The Lengths to Which Women Will
Go
On
March 21, 1922, actress Frances Kennedy raised her right hand to God, promised
to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and took the
stand in an Illinois courtroom. Facing her from the right of the room’s center
aisle was the plaintiff, tailor Morris Kutock, and his attorney. On the other side of the aisle were her
defense attorney, Harry N. Pritzker, her husband, Thomas Johnson, and her
witnesses. The witnesses included costumer Mme. Maebelle, model Doris Faulkner,
Robert D. Boniel, a newspaper critic for the Dramatic Mirror, and designer,
Lester Essig. At the turn of the 20th century, Essig
owned Lester, Ltd. and, under the name Mr. Essig, was a famous Chicago costume
and theatrical designer, dressing some of the most celebrated names in the
country, including Ginger Rogers, Joan Crawford and other stars of that
caliber. Presiding over the case was Justice of the Peace Max Witkower,
who had impaneled an all-woman jury ranging in ages from eighteen to
twenty-two.
The
issue was $175 owed for a dress ordered by Miss Kennedy, delivered after the
agreed-upon date, and for which she refused to pay. And under consideration was
how long women’s fashions remain in style.
On
the stand, Miss Kennedy crossed an elegantly, silk-stocking-clad leg, stated
her name, and batted her eyelashes.
“How
old are you, Miss Kennedy?” asked Attorney Pritzker.
The
defendant lowered her lashes, fingered the folds of her mink, and glanced in
panic at her for husband for help.
“I
just never can remember,” she answered at last. “Whenever I want to know my age
I have to phone my sister, but the last time I phoned her she said she had
forgotten, too.”
By mutual
agreement, it was decided she was over twenty-one.
“And how
long have you been an actress?”
Again, she
looked helplessly at her husband, then at the judge. The issue was dropped.
Testimony
began.
“I ordered
this green, sequined gown for an Irish number I had to sing at my opening (on
St. Patrick’s Day) in
New York,” she testified. “It was to be ready on February 5th. I
left the city
on February 6th without the gown
because it wasn’t done. I had to hurriedly order another one somewhere else. I
had to wear a green gown, you see?”
“You couldn’t possible have sung an Irish song in another
colored gown, orange, for example?” Asked the judge.
“Not without running into danger. Besides, dresses go out
of style about every three weeks. An actress can’t appear in old models. The
public looks to her for the (current) styles.”
Kennedy went to say that Kutock wanted to deliver the
gown when she got back to town and, of course, expected payment. However, she
refused to take delivery or pay him.
At this point, her husband brought into evidence a black
suitcase that he proceeded to unpack. Three gowns were held up for both the
judge and the jury to inspect. The most recently-purchased gown was distinctly
longer than the other two.
Kennedy turned to the female jury. “See what you’re coming
to, girls?” She indicated the change in lengths.
Rather quickly, the judge intervened.
Model Doris Faulkner then took the stand and wowed the
courtroom with lipstick, earrings, hat, shoe heels, and buckles all of a
matching shade of carmine, made, in part, from powdered insect bodies.
“Styles change weekly, sometimes,” she testified. “Of
course an actress couldn’t be expected to wear a dress that is four whole weeks
behind the style.”
One by one, Mm. Maebelle, Robert Boniel, and Mr. Lester
all testified, saying essentially the same thing.
Following this “expert testimony,” Attorney Pritzker made
an impassioned closing argument on behalf of his client, Miss Kennedy.
“Remember that this is a momentous occasion,” he said.
“You are here to determine whether styles do change every few weeks and, that
when a woman’s dress is new in April, it has no value in May.”
He then did a bit of an about face, sounding more like
the prosecution than the defense.
“Remember, too,” he said, “the economic crisis were
emerging from. (Did he mean World War I?). Consider what effect it would have
on all the women in the country if they had to have a new gown every thirty
days or be guilty of the heinous offense of being out of style. Think of the
misery of the countless husbands who would be unable to provide these numerous
gowns for their beloved wives. In short, it is a most important matter.
Consider carefully your answer, young women.”
And deliberate they did—for four whole minutes. After
all, as the women well knew, “It might be possible to get away with a tweed
suit that was a year old, but wives were expected to reflect their husband’s
wealth and position. All the dressing up—the new clothes and jewelry—was a
marital duty, a silent advertisement of status. Furthermore, actresses had
replaced royalty as the pinnacle of fashion. They were the vehicle for showing
clothes to a wider audience than ever before.”
The jury found on behalf of Miss Kennedy whereupon she
hugged and kissed the ladies, gave them autographed photographs of herself, and
invited them to her show. That brought on such a cacophony of female voices
that a complaint, forwarded to the Chief of Police, resulted in Judge
Witkower’s court being evicted from its City Hall premises.
As unimportant as the case may seem today, the actions of
the all-woman jury fired up the doubts of those who already questioned women’s
competence to “Handle the rights of full citizenship, unconvinced that women
could be trusted with weighty matters of state when they so blithely and
indecorously handled their own affairs.”
As it turned out, though, seventeen years later the
verdict was vindicated. In 1939 members of the Paris couture refused to
participate in the New York World’s Fair. The reason given was that the
clothing on display would be out of date within one month of arrival.
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