Word: featherers
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...ostrich feather business has one thing in common with the buggy-whip industry and the horse. All three were ruined by Henry Ford. When women began riding in open automobiles before World War I, they had to discard their majestic hats, crowned with glossy ostrich plumes. That spelled disaster for South Africa's ostrich farmers, who fed and plucked 1,000,000 ostriches every year. On the sun-baked Little Karoo plateau around Oudtshoorn, ostrich capital of the world, farmers killed their birds by the thousands, stripped the rich dark meat from the carcasses for stew. Flocks dwindled...
Last week Oudtshoorn's feather business was in the midst of a new boom. Fashion had brought the ostrich plume back to style. In Paris, Christian Dior and other high fashion designers were trimming hats with ostrich feathers. So was Manhattan's Lily Daché, who explained quite simply: "It was time for the ostrich feather to return." Oudtshoorn's farmers did not question the verdict; they crowded into the feather auction hall, offered their pluckings to dealers so sharp-eyed that they could identify at a glance the feathers from any one of 200 farms. Bids...
...feather trade was bringing in $5,000,000 a year, second only to Kimberley's diamond mines. Wild speculation broke out in land and feathers. Prices flew up to $500 a lb. in 1913, before the inevitable crash. Many an ostrich tycoon went to bed a millionaire and woke up bankrupt. Some of them trekked southward to raise oranges; the gaudy Victorian mansions they had built slowly fell to pieces in a weird jumble of white gables and green cupolas. Max Rose, who came to South Africa from Lithuania in 1890, was one of the few ex-millionaires...
Queenly Plucking. Patiently, Ostrichman Rose learned all the habits and hazards of his birds.* He managed to keep his flock together, cashed in on each tiny feather boomlet as it appeared. In 1931, the Empress Eugenie hat style started a flurry in feathers. In 1947, Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth helped start the present revival by visiting Oudtshoorn, praising feathers and publicly plucking an ostrich. This year, Manhattan's Walter Florell ("the mood at the moment is to look bold") is trimming hats with Lillian Russell-sized plumes (see cut). But he has tuned them to the 20th...
Like most allergists, Dr. Feinberg delights in the detective work of tracking down the cat dander, hair oil, dye, tanning material, feather dust and metals which have been convicted of causing some of his patients' allergies. Although ACTH has proved a big help in cases of asthma and related allergies, Dr. Feinberg reports that ACTH itself has caused some allergic reactions...