Chapter 261 Everyone Has Clothes to Wear

Starting from October 1840, a large amount of cotton from West Africa flooded into the Austrian market. The sufficient supply of raw materials enabled Franz's factory to fully operate and produce finished products.

The ready-made clothes that were subsequently shipped out of the factory were not only spread throughout the empire through railway transportation channels, but also flowed into the markets in Germany and the Apennines through the convenience of the customs union.

The majority of the target users of these ready-made clothes belonged to the workers and the lower-middle class groups, who happened to live in cities distributed around transportation hubs.

A large number of cheap clothes soon beat those self-righteous tailor shops to the ground.

Except for a few shops that sell high-end goods, they directly suffered a Waterloo-style dimensionality reduction attack in the low-end clothing market.

With the advantages of later generations and the aesthetics that were nearly two hundred years ahead of this era, and with the help of a group of royal tailors, Franz's factory successfully designed a large number of ready-made clothing styles that led the trend.

However, he clearly realized that if he wanted to maintain his leading position in the clothing industry, his own strength alone was far from enough. So he sent someone to contact the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and asked them to send a professional team to help him train fashion designers.

The Vienna Academy of Fine Arts is a public academy built in 1692. It is one of the oldest art academies in Europe, but it is no longer as glorious as it was in the past.

Historically, with the decline of the Austrian Empire and the decline in government funding and the scarcity of social donations, in order to maintain daily expenses and livelihoods, its top leaders had to reduce the admission rate of public students, making it one of the most difficult art academies in Europe.

To make matters worse, nobles and wealthy businessmen prefer to go to a "real top university" such as the University of Vienna rather than attending art academies.

However, thanks to the butterfly effect, the Austrian economy was thriving at this time, and the empire's fiscal revenue soared, which allowed many public schools to benefit from public funding again.

Thanks to the German Customs Union, Austria has become a gathering place for a large number of highly educated and high-quality northern German talents, among which Vienna, as the heart of the empire, is even more outstanding.

For nobles and businessmen, how to use "wisdom" or "education" to show their uniqueness is a problem that has always troubled them, so artistic appreciation has become their weapon to stand out.

In order to integrate into local life, high-quality talents from other regions have also joined this mighty army of art appreciation.

And those wandering artists who should have stayed in parks and cemeteries and slept in relief houses were all pulled out to perform for everyone in public places.

In the past, only large-scale events or infrastructure led by the royal family could benefit them and get a job with a relatively stable income, such as celebrations for the emperor's birthday, completion ceremonies for public works, and "Against the Waves" publicly created by Franz and a group of well-known music masters. . .

Due to the growing prosperity of the art appreciation market and the fierce competition that followed, the prices of almost all handicrafts have been pulled to a very low level. Of course, the income of the kings who can still win in this situation is also incomparable to before.

Theoretically, in this era of booming art and economy, there should be no reason for a long-established institution like the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts to decline.

However, the competition in Vienna's art world has even reached the point of life and death, resulting in many students earning less than street painters after graduation.

This has caused people to seriously question the teaching quality and level of this ancient academy.

At the same time, potential female students, who should have been an important source of funding for the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, have all chosen the Vienna Imperial Academy for Women.

In the past, some nobles who doted on their daughters would send them to the Academy of Arts in the capital of the empire, which would not only free the girls but also not violate the morality of the nobles.

However, with the emergence of the Vienna Imperial Academy for Women, many nobles have changed their original intentions.

Although Vienna can be said to be relatively relaxed in terms of women's education, the mainstream of the entire society still believes that this move is a waste of money and cultivating "witches".

This time, the royal family took the initiative to lead the way. If the monarch at this time was a normal person without mental or physical illness, perhaps someone would raise objections.

However, after the debate held in Vienna Central Park, no one had this feeling anymore.

After all, Ferdinand I and his brother Archduke Franz Karl were not normal people, so no one would care about their wins or losses. But if it happened to them, the consequences would be completely different. If they lost, their reputation would be ruined at best, and their bodies would be shattered at worst.

The Habsburg royal family was originally known for its kindness, but with the revival of the church's power, their instinctive vigilance made them more willing to act as the black gloves of the royal family than before.

The reason is very simple. No one except the royal family can rule the church in the empire. The principle of "If you can't beat them, then join them" has always been the way of survival for the nobles.

But this made the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts lose an important source of income.

At this time, they can only choose to strictly enter and exit to improve their reputation again.

And Franz's proposal, like a sweet rain, gave it new vitality.

In addition to the fashion design major, under Franz's suggestion, the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts also opened advertising, journalism, architecture and other majors.

However, at this time, Austria's cotton production in the African colonies was still too small. After a brief frenzy, the problem of insufficient raw materials once again troubled the entire Austrian clothing industry.

Just when the Central European countries thought they had finally gotten a chance to breathe, the newly elected president of the United States announced the first presidential order.

"Give the Austrian Empire most-favored-nation treatment and dump a large amount of cotton to it."

In theory, this order is well-behaved. In order to seize the cotton market, it is understandable that the Americans made such a move.

However, at this critical time point, it dealt a heavy blow to Germany and the countries of the Apennine Peninsula.

This order is equivalent to cutting off the possibility of the Austrian Empire turning over other Central European countries at the source.

A large amount of American cotton flowed into Austria, processed into cotton cloth and clothes by factories in the empire, and then poured into the Central European market.

Their streets and alleys are almost full of finished clothing from Austria, making other countries unable to compete with them. Whether in terms of quality, price or style, Austrian products have an absolute advantage, which is beyond the reach of others.

Many economists are worried that after the Austrians monopolize the clothing market, they will take the initiative to raise prices in order to seek higher profits.

Especially Prussia, which has thrown out a lot of conspiracy theories to discredit Austria and the Habsburg royal family.

However, what is surprising is that Austria not only did not make a fuss about price increases, but also took the initiative to inform the public through the form of announcements that its clothing products will be sold at a reduced price, saying that this will allow more middle and lower-class people to enjoy the convenience they deserve.

Of course, different places have different propaganda models. For example, the public slogan in the German Confederation is "Let every German have clothes to wear."

In Austria, of course, it is "Let every Austrian have clothes to wear." In the Apennines, it is another rhetoric.

In short, this time, Franz not only made a lot of money, but also took the opportunity to brush up a good reputation.

In fact, selling at a lower price is a more long-term strategy, because it raises the industry threshold, making it difficult for competitors from other countries to compete with it.

As for the unemployed, this is a great opportunity to encourage them to choose to work in Austria.

After all, the railway transportation in Inner Leitania is so convenient now, and even if you can't be a worker, you can choose to farm in Outer Leitania.

If the above methods don't work, there is still a good way to go to overseas colonies.