The Honorable Tilton

Said one Tokyo silk exporter last week: "Among silk exporters the Honorable Tilton is on a level equal to the mulberry leaf and the silkworm." The Honorable Tilton is Marion Elizabeth Tilton, 35, the tall (5 ft. 9 in.), pretty Far East boss of Cohn-Hall-Marx (Cohama Fabrics). In the last ten years, almost singlehanded she has rewoven Japan's quality silk industry, putting it in shape to compete in the U.S. with the flood of postwar synthetics. Under the tutelage of the onetime New York model and wartime Red Cross girl, Japan's silk output rose from 50.2 million yards in 1947 to 183.5 million yards in 1955, while industry employment went from 25,000 workers in 1945 to 254,900 last year. '

Marion Tilton went to work in Japan for SCAP in 1946 to encourage the growth of Japan's silk industry, once the nation's biggest dollar earner. It seemed a hopeless job. A wartime government order scrapping silk looms as nonessential wrecked the industry in Japan, while U.S. scientists wrecked it abroad by giving women a new set of materials which no hard-working silkworm could hope to match.

Silk to War. Marion Tilton's first job was to convince the textile men that silk stockings were finished. She did this by appearing in nylon stockings at factories, at geisha parties, town banquets, whereever there was an audience. She talked about the new U.S. synthetics, then dramatically rolled down her nylons, pulled, stretched, even washed them. She persuaded textile men to compete in the U.S. in fabrics.

To do so, Japanese silkmen had to change their ways drastically. Their prewar silk fabric was imperfectly woven, poorly dyed, usable only for cheap kimonos, etc. U.S. dressmakers rarely used Japan's silks, preferring the higher quality fabrics of European weavers.

Marion Tilton preached the gospel of quality, and a few Japanese mills began turning out a trickle of high-grade materials which were sent to New York for display, with the proclamation: "Japan is back in the silk business." It was not. Few orders were taken.

The silk evangelist decided that Government sponsorship was not the answer, but private enterprise might be. She signed up Abbot J. Copeland, a merchandising head of Cohama, biggest U.S. silk importer, got the title of Japan manager of Cohama, and resigned from SCAP.

Turning Tide. From an office in an unheated, half-bombed-out, two-story building in Tokyo she began a campaign to persuade Japanese silkmakers to advance raw silk to Japanese manufacturers who agreed to fabricate wider, better fabrics.

The tide turned in 1950 as the world's economy recovered and demand increased for more luxurious, better-feeling fabrics. Orders for silk organdy--lightweight yet stiff enough for full-skirted cocktail dresses--poured into Cohama's Tokyo office. Exports of organdy rose from 35,000 yds. in 1949 to 1,600,000 yds. in 1951. When the organdy phase faded, others replaced it: silk faille shipments went from 30,000 yds. in 1950 to 500,000 yds. in 1955; silk print shipments soared to 700,000 yds. v. 20,000 yds. in 1950.

Last week, with confidence born of success, the Honorable Tilton, who has 135 silk dresses to put on her comely frame, was placing orders for loom capacity several months ahead--a rare move in Japan. Cohama orders were keeping five weaving mills, two silk-printing factories and two finishing mills, employing 4,240, operating at near peak. Demand was so great that except for bolts of rejects and a trickle to Army PXs, Cohama's Japanese silk could not be bought in Japan.

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