DRESS
Clothes are to us what fur and feathers are to beasts and birds; they not
only add to our appearance, but they are our appearance. How we look to
others entirely depends upon what we wear and how we wear it; manners and
speech are noted afterward, and character last of all.
In the community where we live, admirableness of character is the
fundamental essential, and in order to achieve a position of importance,
personality is also essential; but for the transient impression that we
make at home, abroad, everywhere in public, two superficial attributes are
alone indispensable: good manners and a pleasing appearance.
It is not merely a question of vanity and inclination. In New York, for
instance, a woman must dress well, to pay her way. In Europe, where the
title of Duchess serves in lieu of a court train of gold brocade; or in
Bohemian circles where talent alone may count; or in small communities
where people are known for what they really are, appearance is of esthetic
rather than essential importance.
In the world of smart society--in America at any rate--clothes not only
represent our ticket of admission, but our contribution to the effect of a
party. What makes a brilliant party? Clothes. Good clothes. A frumpy party
is nothing more nor less than a collection of badly dressed persons.
People with all the brains, even all the beauty imaginable, make an
assemblage of dowds, unless they are well dressed.
Not even the most beautiful ballroom in the world, decorated like the
Garden of Eden, could in itself suggest a brilliant entertainment, if the
majority of those who filled it were frumps--or worse yet, vulgarians!
Rather be frumpy than vulgar! Much. Frumps are often celebrities in
disguise--but a person of vulgar appearance is vulgar all through.
=THE SHEEP=
Frumps are not very typical of America, vulgarians are somewhat more
numerous, but the greatest number of all are the quietly dressed,
unnoticeable men and women who make up the representative backbone in
every city; who buy good clothes but not more than they need, and whose
ambition is merely to be well enough dressed to fit in with their
background, whatever their background may be.
Less numerous, but far more conspicuous, are the dressed-to-the-minute
women who, like sheep exactly, follow every turn of latest fashion blindly
and without the slightest sense of distance or direction. As each new
season's fashion is defined, all the sheep run and dress themselves each
in a replica of the other, their own types and personalities have nothing
to do with the case. Fashion says: "Wear bolster cases tied at the neck
and ankle," or "A few wisps of gauze held in place with court plaster,"
and daughter, mother, grandmother, and all the neighbors wear the same. If
emerald green is the fashionable color, all of the yellowest skins will be
framed in it. When hobble skirts are the thing, the fattest wabble along,
looking for all the world like chandeliers tied up in mosquito netting. If
ball dresses are cut to the last limit of daring, the ample billows of the
fat will vie blandly with the marvels of anatomy exhibited by the thin.
Comfort, convenience, becomingness, adaptability, beauty are of no
importance. Fashion is followed to the letter--therefore they fancy, poor
sheep, they are the last word in smartness. Those whom the fashion suits
_are_ "smart," but they are seldom, if ever, distinguished, because--they
are all precisely alike.
=THE WOMAN WHO IS REALLY CHIC=
The woman who is chic is always a little different. Not different in being
behind fashion, but always slightly apart from it. "Chic" is a borrowed
adjective, but there is no English word to take the place of "elegant"
which was destroyed utterly by the reporter or practical joker who said
"elegant dresses," and yet there is no synonym that will express the
individuality of beautiful taste combined with personal dignity and grace
which gives to a perfect costume an inimitable air of distinction. _Une
dame élégante_ is all of that! And Mrs. Oldname is just such a person. She
follows fashion merely so far as is absolutely necessary. She gets the
latest model perhaps, but has it adapted to her own type, so that she has
just that distinction of appearance that the sheep lack. She has even
clung with slight modifications to the "Worth" ball dress, and her
"wrapped" or fitted bodice has continued to look the smartest in every
ballroom in spite of the Greek drapery and one-piece meal bag and all the
other kaleidoscopic changes of fashion the rest of us have been through.
But the average would-be independent who determines to stand her ground,
saying, "These new models are preposterous! I shall wear nothing of the
sort!" and keeps her word, soon finds herself not at all an example of
dignity but an object of derision.
=FASHION HAS LITTLE IN COMMON WITH BEAUTY=
Fashion ought to be likened to a tide or epidemic; sometimes one might
define it as a sort of hypnotism, seemingly exerted by the gods as a joke.
Fashion has the power to appear temporarily in the guise of beauty, though
it is the antithesis of beauty nearly always. If you doubt it, look at old
fashion plates. Even the woman of beautiful taste succumbs occasionally to
the epidemics of fashion, but she is more immune than most. All women who
have any clothes sense whatever know more or less the type of things that
are their style--unless they have such an attack of fashionitis as to be
irresponsibly delirious.
To describe any details of dress, that will not be as "queer" to-morrow as
to-day's fashions are bound to be, would seem at the outset pretty much
like writing about next year's weather. And yet, there is one unchanging
principle which must be followed by every woman, man and child that is
well dressed--suitability. Nor does suitability mean merely that you must
choose clothes suitable to your age and appearance, and that you must get
a ball dress for a ball, and a street dress to walk in; it means equally
that you must not buy clothes out of proportion to your income, or out of
keeping with your surroundings.
=DISPROPORTIONATE EXPENDITURE IN BAD TASTE=
About fifteen years ago the extravagance in women's dress reached such a
high-water mark that it was not unheard of for a New York woman to spend a
third of her husband's income on clothes. All women of fashion bought
clothes when it would not have occurred to them to buy furniture--when it
would have seemed preposterous to buy a piece of jewelry--but clothes,
clothes, and more clothes, each more hand-embroidered than the last, until
just as it seemed that no dress was fit to be seen if it hadn't a month or
two of some one's time embroidered on it, the work on clothes subsided,
until now we are at the other extreme; no work is put on them at all. At
least, clothes to-day are much more sensible, and let us hope the sense
will be lasting.
The war did at least make people realize that luxuries and trimmings could
go too far. Ten years ago the American woman who lived in a little
cottage, who walked when she went out or took the street car, wore the
same clothes exactly that Mrs. Gilding wore in her victoria, or trailed
over a Ming rug. The French woman has always been (and the American woman
of taste is now) too great an artist to sit in a little room with its
cotton-print slip covers, muslin curtains, and geranium pots on the window
ledge, in anything strikingly elaborate and expensive. Charming as her
dress may be in line and cut and color, she keeps it (no matter how
intrinsically good it may be) in harmony with her geranium pots and her
chintz.
On the other hand, clothes that are too plain can be equally out of
proportion. Last winter, for instance, a committee of ladies met in what
might safely be called the handsomest house in New York, in a room that
would fit perfectly in the Palace of Versailles, filled with treasures
such as those of the Wallace collection. The hostess presided in a black
serge golf skirt, a business woman's white shirt-waist, and stout walking
boots, her hair brushed flat and tidily back and fastened as though for
riding, her face and hands redolent of soap. No powder, not a nail
manicured. Had she been a girl earning her living, she could not have been
more suitably dressed, but her millions and her palace background demand
that her clothes be at least moderately in keeping.
One does not have to be dowdy as an alternative to being too richly
dressed, and to define differences between clothes that are notable
because of their distinction and smartness, and clothes that are merely
conspicuous and therefore vulgar, is a very elusive point. However, there
are certain rules that seem pretty well established.
=VULGAR CLOTHES=
Vulgar clothes are those which, no matter what the fashion of the moment
may be, are always too elaborate for the occasion; too exaggerated in
style, or have accessories out of proportion. People of uncultivated taste
are apt to fancy distortions; to exaggerate rather than modify the
prevailing fashions.
For example: A conspicuous evidence of bad style that has persisted
through numberless changes in fashion, is the over-dressed and
over-trimmed head. The woman of uncultivated taste has no more sense of
moderation than the Queen of the Cannibals. She will elaborate her
hair-dressing to start with (this is all right, if elaboration really
suits her type) and then she will "decorate" it with everything in the way
of millinery and jewelry that she can lay her hands on. Or, in the
daytime, she fancies equally over-weighted hats, and rich-looking fur
coats and the latest edition in the most conspicuous possible footwear.
And she much prefers wearing rings to gloves. Maybe she thinks they do
not go together? She despises sensible clothing; she also despises plain
fabrics and untrimmed models. She also cares little (apparently) for
staying at home, since she is perpetually seen at restaurants and at every
public entertainment. The food she orders is rich, the appearance she
makes is rich; in fact, to see her often is like nothing so much as being
forced to eat a large amount of butter-plain.
Beau Brummel's remark that when one attracted too much notice, one could
be sure of being not well-dressed but over-dressed, has for a hundred
years been the comfort of the dowdy. It is, of course, very often true,
but not invariably. A person may be stared at for any one of many reasons.
It depends very much on the stare. A woman may be stared at because she is
indiscreet, or because she looks like a left-over member of the circus, or
because she is enchanting to look at.
If you are much stared at, what _sort_ of a stare do you usually meet? Is
it bold, or mocking, or is it merely that people look at you wistfully? If
the first, change your manner; if the second, wear more conventional
clothes; if the third, you may be left as you are. But be sure of your
diagnosis of this last.
=EXTRAVAGANCE NOT VULGARITY=
Ostentation is always vulgar but extravagance is not necessarily
vulgar--not by any means. Extravagance can become dishonest if carried
beyond one's income.
Nearly everything that is beautiful or valuable is an extravagance--for
most of us. Always to wear new gloves is an extravagant item for one with
a small allowance--but scarcely vulgar! A laundry bill can be extravagant,
flowers in one's city house, a piece of beautiful furniture, a good
tapestry, each is an extravagance to an income that can not easily afford
the expenditure. To one sufficient to buy the tapestry, the flowers are
not an extravagance at all.
To buy quantities of things that are not even used after they are bought
is sheer wastefulness, and to buy everything that tempts you, whether you
can afford to pay for it or not, is, if you can not afford it, verging on
the actually dishonest.
=DRESSES FOR DINNERS AND BALLS=
Supposing, since clothes suitable to the occasion are the first requisite
of good taste, we take up a few details that are apart from fashion.
A dinner dress really means every sort of low, or half low evening dress.
A formal dinner dress, like a ball dress, is always low-necked and without
sleeves, and is the handsomest type of evening dress that there is. A ball
dress may be exquisite in detail but it is often merely effective. The
perfect ball dress is one purposely designed with a skirt that is becoming
when dancing. A long wrapped type of dress would make Diana herself look
like a toy monkey-on-a-stick, but might be dignified and beautiful at a
dinner. A dinner dress differs from a ball dress in little except that it
is not necessarily designed for freedom of movement.
Hair ornaments always look well at a ball but are not especially
appropriate (unless universally in fashion) on other occasions. A lady in
a ball dress with nothing added to the head, looks a little like being
hatless in the street. This sounds like a contradiction of the criticism
of the vulgarian. But because a tiara is beautiful at a ball, or a spray
of feathers, or a high comb, or another ornament, does not mean that all
of these should be put on together and worn in a restaurant; which is just
what the vulgarian would do. Whether, to wear a head-dress, however,
depends not alone upon fashion but upon the individual. If the type of
hair ornament at the moment in fashion is becoming, wear it, especially to
balls and in a box at the opera. But if it is not becoming, don't.
Ladies of fashion, by the way, do not have their hair especially dressed
for formal occasions. Each wears her hair a certain way, and it is put up
every morning just as carefully as for a ball. The only time it is
arranged differently is for riding. Ah informal dinner dress is merely a
modified formal one. It is low in front and high in the back, with long or
elbow sleeves--or perhaps it is Dutch neck and no sleeves.
When trains are in fashion, all older women should wear them. Fashion or
no fashion, no woman who has passed forty looks really well in a cut-off
evening dress. An effect of train, however, can very adequately be
produced with any arrangement or trimming that extends upon the floor.
The informal dinner dress is worn to the theater, the restaurant (of high
class), the concert and the opera. Informal dinner dresses are worn in the
boxes at the opera on ordinary nights, such as when no especially great
star is to sing, and when one is not going on to a ball afterward, but a
ball dress is never inappropriate, especially without head-dress. On gala
nights, ball dresses are worn in the boxes and head-dresses and as many
jewels as one chooses--or has.
=THE TEA-GOWN=
Every one knows that a tea-gown is a hybrid between a wrapper and a ball
dress. It has always a train and usually long flowing sleeves; is made of
rather gorgeous materials and goes on easily, and its chief use is not for
wear at the tea-table so much as for dinner alone with one's family.
It can, however, very properly be put on for tea, and if one is dining at
home, kept on for dinner. Otherwise a lady is apt to take tea in whatever
dress she had on for luncheon, and dress after tea for dinner.
One does not go out to dine in a tea-gown except in the house of a member
of one's family or a most intimate friend. One would wear a tea-gown in
one's own house in receiving a guest to whose house one would wear a
dinner dress.
=WHEN IN DOUBT=
There is one rule that is fairly safe to follow: When in doubt, wear the
plainer dress. It is always better far to be under-dressed than
over-dressed. If you don't know whether to put on a ball dress or a dinner
dress, wear the dinner dress. Or, whether to wear cloth or brocade to a
luncheon, wear the cloth.
=ON THE STREET=
Your tea-gowns, since they are never worn in public, can literally be as
bizarre as you please, and if you are driving in a closed motor, you can
also wear an "original" type of dress. But in walking on the street,--if
you care to be taken for a well-bred person--never wear anything that is
exaggerated. If skirts are short, don't wear them two inches shorter than
any one else's; if they are long, don't go down the street dragging a
train and sweeping the dirt up on the under-flouncings. (Let us hope
_that_ fashion never comes back!) Don't wear too much jewelry; it is in
bad taste in the first place, and in the second, is a temptation to a
thief. And don't under any circumstances, distort your figure into a
grotesque shape.
=COUNTRY CLOTHES=
Nothing so marks the "person who doesn't know" as inappropriate choice of
clothes. To wear elaborate clothes out of doors in the country, is quite
as out of place as to parade "sports" clothes on the streets in town.
It is safe to say that "sport" clothes are appropriate country
clothes--especially for all young people. Elderly ladies, needless to say,
should not don "sporting eccentricities" nor wear sweaters to lunch
parties; but sensible country clothes, such as have for many decades been
worn in England, of homespun or serge or jersey cloth or whatever has
replaced these materials, are certainly more appropriate to walk in than a
town costume--even for a lady of seventy! Young people going to the
country for the day wear sports clothes; which if seen early in the
morning in town and again late in the afternoon, merely show you have been
to the country. But town clothes in the country proclaim your ignorance of
fitness. Even for a lunch party at Golden Hall or Great Estates, every one
who is young wears smart country clothes.
=SHOES AND SLIPPERS=
Sport shoes are naturally adapted to the sport for which they are
intended. High-heeled slippers do not go with any country clothes, except
organdie or muslins or other distinctly feminine "summer" dresses.
Elaborate afternoon dresses of "painted" chiffons, embroidered mulls,
etc., are seen only at weddings, lawn parties, or at watering-places
abroad.
=A SUGGESTION TO THOSE WHO MIND SUNBURN=
No advice is intended for those who have a skin that either does not burn
at all, or turns a beautiful smooth Hawaiian brown; but a woman whose
creamy complexion bursts into freckles, as violent as they are hideous, at
the first touch of the sun need no longer stay perpetually indoors in
daytime, or venture out only when swathed like a Turk, if she knows the
virtue in orange as a color that defies the sun's rays. A thin veil of
red-orange is more effective than a thick one of blue or black.
Orange shirt-waists do not sound very conservative, but they are
mercifully conserving to arms sensitive to sunburn. Young Mrs. Gilding,
whose skin is as perishable as it is lovely, always wears orange on the
golf course. A skirt of burnt-orange serge of homespun or linen, and
shirt-waists of orange linen or crepe de chine. A hat with a brim and a
harem-veil (pinned across her nose under her eyes) of orange
marquisette,--which is easier to breathe through than chiffon--allows her
to play golf or tennis or to motor or even go out in a sailboat and keep
her skin without a blemish.
Constance Style, who also has a skin that the sun destroys, wears orange
playing tennis, but for bathing wears a high-neck and long-sleeved bathing
suit and "makes her face up" (also the backs of her hands) with theatrical
grease paint that has a good deal of yellow in it, and flesh color
ordinary powder on top. The grease paint withstands hot sun and water, but
it is messy. The alternative, however, is a choice between complexion or
bathing, as it is otherwise prohibitive for the "sun afflicted" to have
both.
=RIDING CLOTHES=
The distorted circus-mirror clothes seen on men who know no better, are
not a bit worse than the riding clothes seen on actresses in our best
theaters and moving pictures--who ought to know better. Nothing looks
worse than riding clothes made and worn badly, and nothing looks smarter
than they when well made and well put on.
A riding habit, no matter what the fashion happens to be, is like a
uniform, in that it must be made and worn according to regulations. It
must above all be meticulously trig and compact. Nothing must be sticking
out a thousandth part of an inch that can be flattened in.
A riding habit is the counterpart of an officer's uniform; it is not worn
so as to make the wearer look pretty! A woman to look well in a habit must
be smart or she is a sight! And nothing contributes so much to the
"sights" we see at present as the attempt to look pretty instead of
looking correct. The criticism is not intended for the woman who lives far
off in the open country and jumps on a horse in whatever she happens to
have on, but for those who dress "for looks" and ride in the parks of our
cities, or walk on the stage and before the camera, in scenes meant to
represent smart society!
To repeat, therefore, the young woman who wants to look pretty should
confine her exercise to dancing. She can also hold a parasol over her head
and sit in a canoe--or she can be pretty how and where she will, so long
as it is not on a horse in the park or hunting-field. (To mention
hunting-field is superfluous; the woman who can ride well enough to
follow the hounds is too good a sportswoman, too great a lover of good
form to be ignorant of the proper outline necessary to smartness of
appearance in the saddle.)
In smartest English society it is not considered best form for a young
girl to ride astride in the hunting-field or in the park after she is
grown. A high-born English girl rides astride as a child, but as soon as
she is old enough to be presented at Court, she appears at a Meet or in
the "Row" in a lady's habit, trigly perfect in fit, and on a side-saddle.
In America this is an extreme opinion, and it is only among the most
fashionable that a young girl having all her life ridden in a man's
saddle, finds the world a joyless place and parents cruel when she is no
longer allowed to ride like a boy. But she becomes, in spite of her
protests, "another who looks divine on a horse." And you can look divine
too, if you choose! On second thoughts the adjective must be qualified. No
one looks divine on a horse who is not thin as a shingle. But since diet
produces a shingle shape and every one strong-minded (or vain) enough, can
diet, you need only care enough to "count your calories" and be as slim as
you please.
Next, the best habit possible. And best habits are expensive, and there
are no "second best." A habit is good or it is bad. Whatever the present
fashion may be, have your habit utterly conventional. Don't wear checks or
have slant pockets, or eccentric cuffs or lapels; don't have the waist
pinched in. Choose a plain dark or "dust" color. A night blue that has a
few white hairs in the mixture does not show dust as much as a solid dark
color, and a medium weight close material holds its shape better than a
light loose weave.
You may wear a single white carnation or a few violets in your
buttonhole--but no other trimming. Keep the idea of perfect clothes for
men in mind, get nothing that the smartest man would not wear, and you
can't go wrong. Get boots like those of a man, low-heeled and with a
straight line from heel to back of top. Don't have the tops wider than
absolutely necessary not to bind, and don't have them curved or fancy in
shape. Be sure that there is no elbow sticking out like a horse's hock at
the back of the boot, and don't have a corner on the inside edge of the
sole. And don't try to wear a small size!
=WHEN YOU PUT YOUR HABIT ON=
First, hair: Never mind if you look like Mme. Recamier with your hair
fluffed and like a skinned rabbit with it tight back, tight, flat back it
must go. Brush it smooth as you can, braid it or coil it about level with
the top of your ears and wind it in a door mat, not a knob in the back.
If you have a great quantity of hair, you should take all the inner part
of it, coil it on top of your head so it will go under your hat out of the
way. Then take the outer edge of it and braid or wind it as flat as
possible. A large bun at the back of the head is almost as bad as hair
drawn over the ears at the side. If you have short hairs likely to blow,
you must wear a hunting hair net. And if it is bobbed, it must be drawn
back into a silk riding net and made to look trim.
Correct riding clothes are not fashion but form! Whether coat skirts are
long or short, full or plain, and waists wasp-like or square, the above
admonitions have held for many decades, and are likely to hold for many
more.
Gloves must be of heavy leather and at least two sizes bigger than those
ordinarily worn.
A hat must fit the head and its shape must be conventional. Never wear a
hat that would be incorrect on a man, and don't wear it on the back of
your head or over your nose.
Wear your stock as tight as you comfortably can, not _too_ tight! Tie it
smartly so as to make it flat and neat, and anchor whatever you wear so
securely that nothing can possibly come loose.
And if you want to see a living example of perfection in riding clothes,
go to the next horse-show where Miss Belle Beach is riding and look at
her!
=WHAT CLOTHES TO TAKE FOR A WEEK-END=
Unless fashion turns itself upside down (which it is, of course, perfectly
capable of doing), elaborate clothes, except evening ones, are entirely
useless, even in Newport. We have all of us abandoned Paris fashions for
country wear in favor of those of England. The Valenciennes insertions and
trailing chiffons of some years ago, still seen at watering-places in
France, have been entirely superseded by country clothes.
In going to any fashionable house in the country, you should take a dinner
dress for each evening, with stockings and slippers to match. You need a
country dress for each day, or if the weather is uncertain, a thick one
and two thin ones, with a long coat, and a dress suitable for church. This
one can perfectly well be a country dress, but not a "sports" one.
If you are not too young and are going to stay in an informal house where
you will probably be the only guest, and where it is likely no one will be
asked in, a tea-gown or two should be taken.
If you are going especially for a ball, but not given by your hostess,
needless to say, you take a ball dress and an evening wrap. In the autumn
or winter, a fur coat will do double service for coat and wrap.
Do not take a big trunk full of all the things you don't need. Don't take
sports clothes for all occasions if you are not a sportswoman. But if you
do ride, or play tennis or golf, or skate or swim, be sure to take your
own clothes and _don't_ borrow other people's. There are plenty of
ingeniously arranged week-end trunks, very compact in size, that have a
hat compartment, holding from two to six hats, and plenty of room for a
half a dozen dresses and their accessories.
=WHEN THE INCOME IS LIMITED=
No one can dress well on nothing a year; that must be granted at the
outset. But a woman who has talent, taste, and ingenuity can be suitably
and charmingly dressed on little a year, especially at present.
First of all, to mind wearing a dress many times because it indicates a
small bank account, is to exhibit a false notion of the values in life.
Any one who thinks well or ill of her, in accordance with her income, can
not be too quickly got rid of! But worthwhile people _are_ influenced in
her disfavor when she has clothes in number and quality out of proportion
to her known financial situation.
It is tiresome everlastingly to wear black, but nothing is so serviceable,
nothing so unrecognizable, nothing looks so well on every occasion. A very
striking dress can not be worn many times without making others as well as
its owner feel bored at the sight of it. "Here comes the Zebra" or "the
Cockatoo!" is inevitable if a dress of stripes or flamboyant color is worn
often. She who must wear one dress through a season and have it perhaps
made over the next, would better choose black or cream color. Or perhaps a
certain color suits her, and this fact makes it possible for her
habitually to wear it without impressing others with her lack of clothes.
But whether her background be black or cerise it should invariably blend
with her whole wardrobe, so that all accessories can be made to do double
or quadruple service.
Supposing you are a young woman with more beauty than wealth! Let us also
suppose you have three evening dresses, a blue, a pink and a green. At the
moment you can wear flesh-colored slippers and stockings with everything,
which rather weakens the argument--however, a blue fan does not look well
with a pink or a green dress, nor do the other combinations. Supposing,
however, you had instead a cream-colored dress, a flesh-colored, and an
orchid one. Flesh-colored slippers look much better with cream and orchid
than with either green or blue, at any rate! A watermelon pink fan is
lovely in night-light with all three; so is a cream one. Or perhaps by
changing both fan and slippers, a different effect is produced, since the
colors of your clothes are background colors.
But nothing really can compare with the utility and smartness of black.
Take a black tulle dress, made in the simplest possible way; worn plain,
it is a simple dinner dress. It can have a lace slip to go over it, and
make another dress. With a jet harness--meaning merely trimming that can
be added at will--it is still another dress. Or it can have a tunic of
silver or of gold trimming; and fans, flowers and slippers in various
colors, such as watermelon or emerald, change it again. In fact, a black
tulle can be changed almost as easily as though done with a magician's
wand.
To choose daytime clothes that go with the same hats, shoes, parasols,
wrist-bags, and gloves, is equally important. A snuff-colored dress and a
gray one need entirely different accessories. Russet shoes, chamois
gloves, and sand-colored hat go also with henna, raspberry, reds, etc.;
but gray must have gray or white shoes, gloves, and hat, which also go
with blues, greens and violets.
=DON'T GET TOO MANY CLOTHES=
Choose the clothes which you must have, carefully, and if you must cut
down, cut down on elaborate ones. There is scarcely anywhere that you can
not, fittingly go in plain clothes. Very few, if any, people _need_ fancy
things; all people need plain ones.
A very beautiful Chicago woman who is always perfectly dressed for every
occasion, worked out the cost of her own clothes this way: On a sheet of
paper, thumb-tacked on the inside of her closet door, she put a complete
typewritten list of her dresses and hats, and the cost of each. Every time
she put on a dress she made a pencil mark. By and by when a dress was
discarded, she divided the cost of it by the number of times it had been
worn. In this way she found out accurately which were her cheapest and
which her most expensive clothes. When getting new ones she has the
advantage of very valuable information, since she avoids the dress that is
never put on, which is a bigger handicap for the medium-sized allowance
than many women realize.
=WHAT TO WEAR IN A RESTAURANT=
Restaurant dress depends upon the restaurant and the city. Because women
in New York wear low-necked dresses and no hats, does not mean that those
who live in New Town should do the same, if it is not New Town's custom.
But you must _never_ wear an evening dress and a hat! And _never_ wear a
day dress without one. If in the city where you live, people wear day
clothes in the evening, you can only very slightly differ from them.
It is never good form to be elaborately dressed in a public place, except
in a box at the opera or at a charity ball.
=AT A WEDDING, A GARDEN PARTY OR AFTERNOON TEA=
These are the occasions when elaborate day dresses are appropriate. But if
you have very few clothes, you can perfectly well wear any sort of day
dress that may be in fashion. A coat and skirt is not appropriate, since a
skirt and shirt-waist is and always has been a utility combination.
Unless, of course, the waist is of a color to match the skirt so that it
has the appearance of a dress.
You need, however, seldom worry about your appearance because you are not
as "dressed" as the others; the time to worry is when you are more dressed
than any one else.
For a garden-party a country dress is quite all right; though if you have
a very elaborate summer dress, this is the only time you can wear it!
No one has to be told what to wear to church. In small country churches,
at the seashore, people go to church in country clothes; otherwise, as
every one knows, one puts on "town" clothes, and gloves.
At a formal luncheon in town, one sees every sort of dress from velvet to
tailor-made. Certain ladies, older ones usually, who like elaborate
clothes, wear them. But younger people are usually dressed in worsted
materials or silks that are dull in finish, and that, although they may be
embroidered and very expensive, give an effect of simplicity. One should
always wear a simpler dress in one's own house than one wears in going to
the house of another.
=A FEW GENERAL REMARKS=
The fault of bad taste is usually in over-dressing. Quality not effect, is
the standard to seek for. Machine-made passementerie on top of conspicuous
but sleazy material is always shoddy. Cut and fit are the two items of
greatest importance in women's clothes, as well as in men's. But fashion
changes too rapidly to make value of material always wise expenditure for
one of slender purse. Better usually have two dresses, each cut and made
in the whim of the moment, than one which must be worn after the whim has
become a freak. In men's clothes the opposite rule should be followed
since good style in men's clothes is unchanging.
To buy things at sales is very much like buying things at an auction; if
you really know what you want and something about values, you can often do
marvellously well; but if you are easily bewildered and know little of
values, you are apt to spend your good money on trash. A woman of small
means must either be (or learn to be) discriminatingly careful, or she
would better have her clothes made at home, or if she is of "model" type,
buy them ready-made. The ready-to-wear clothes in the Misses' Department
are growing every year better looking; unfortunately and for some
inexplicable reason, the usual Women's Department does not compare in good
taste in selection of models with the former, and it is unusual to find a
dress that a lady of fashion would choose except among the imported
models, for which store prices are as a rule higher than those asked by
the greatest dressmakers. Evening clothes are still usually unbuyable by
the over-fastidious, except for a certain flapper type (and an
undistinguished one at that!), and the ultra-smart woman is still obliged
to go to the private importers for her débutante daughter's ball-dresses
as well as her own--or else into her own sewing-room.
=FASHION AND FAT=
For years the thin, even the scrawny, have had everything their own way.
The woman who is fat, or even plump, has a rather hopeless problem unless
fashion goes to Turkey for its next inspiration, which is so unlikely it
is almost possible! Two things the fat woman should avoid: big patterns
and the stiff tailor-made. Fat women look better in feminine clothes that
follow in the wake, never in the advance, of modified fashion. Fat women
should never wear elaborate clothes or clothes in light colors or heavily
feathered hats.
The tendency of fat is to take away from one's gracility; therefore, any
one inclined to be fat must be ultra conservative--in order to counteract
the effect. Very tight clothes make fat people look fatter and thin people
thinner. Satin is a bad material, since high lights are too shimmeringly
accentuated.
Heavy ankles, needless to say, should never be clothed in light stockings
and dark shoes; long, pointed slippers accentuate a thick ankle, and so
does a short skirt that has a straight hem. A "ragged" edge is most
flattering. Dress, stockings and slippers to match are unavoidable in
evening dress, but when possible a thick ankle should have a dark
stocking--or at least a slipper to match the stocking.
People should select colors that go with their skin. And elderly women
should not wear grass green, or Royal blue, or purple, or any hard color
that needs a faultless complexion. Swarthy skin always looks better in
colors that have red or yellow in them. A very sallow person in pale blue
or apple green looks like a well-developed case of jaundice.
Pink and orchid are often very becoming to older women; and pale blue or
yellow to those with fair skin. Because a woman is no longer young is no
reason why she should wear perpetual black--unless she is fat.
=CLOTHES FOR TRAVELING IN EUROPE=
Ideal traveling clothes are those which do not wrinkle or show rain spots;
and to find which these are it is necessary to take a sample of each
material, sprinkle it with water, and twist it to see how much abuse it
will stand. Every woman knows what she likes best, and what she considers
suitable. Two alternating traveling dresses at least will be necessary,
and two or three semi-evening dresses to put on for dinner. One very
simple half-dinner dress of black, that has a combination of trimmings
such as described earlier in this chapter, is ideally useful. Tourists do
not put on evening clothes except in very fashionable centers, such as
London, Paris, Monte Carlo or Deauville, and then only if staying at an
ultra fashionable hotel. To be over-dressed is always in bad taste. So
that unless you are going to visit or make several-day stops the one black
evening dress suggested would answer every possible purpose.
If you intend staying for a long time in one place, you take all of your
season's clothes; and if you are going to visit in England, or to stay
anywhere in the country, you will need country clothes, but not on
ordinary touring. For motoring, space is precious, and clothes should be
chosen with the object of packing into small dimensions. Motoring in
Europe is cold. A very warm, long wrap is necessary. An old fur one is
much the best, and a small, close hat that does not blow.
=CLOTHES AND PARIS=
It is something like this: You have been hypnotized before, and you vow
you won't be again! You make up your mind that you are going to get a
black dress and a dark blue--and nothing else.
You enter the lower reception hall and mount the bronze balustraded stairs
half way when already Mlle. Marie is aware of your approach. She greets
you not only as though you are the only customer she has ever had, but as
though your coming has saved--just saved in time--the prestige of the
house.
She tells you breathlessly that you are just in time to see the parade of
models; she puts you where you may have an uninterrupted view. She then
begins her greetings all over again by asking not alone after all the
members of your family and an extraordinarily long list of friends, but
makes a solicitous inquiry after each dress that she has ever sold you.
"Did Madame like her white velvet?" she coos. "Was it not most useful? Was
not her black lace charming? And the bisque cloth--surely Madame had found
great satisfaction in wearing the bisque cloth?" But your ears are as
stone to her blandishments! As a traveling suit, bisque-colored cloth had
not been serviceable! Black lace with a cerise velvet under petticoat
might be effective at Armenonville, but it had seemed queer, to say the
least, at the tennis match in August. No, you are at last immune from any
of those sudden attacks of new fashion fever that result in loss of
judgment. You open your little book and consult your list.
"I should like," you say, "a navy blue serge trimmed with black braid or
satin or something like that; a black crêpe de chine absolutely plain; I
really need nothing else."
You do not look at Mile. Marie's crestfallen face, you watch the
procession of models. But the old spell works. Besides zebra stripes and
gold shot with cerise and purple, you think an emerald green charmeuse is
really a perfect substitute for the plain black crêpe de chine you had in
mind. You show that you are hypnotized by remarking absently, "It is the
color of the grass."
Instantly, Mlle. Marie, the most skillful _vendeuse_ in Paris, becomes
radiant. "Listen, Madame," she says to you in that insinuating,
confidential, yet humbly ingratiating manner of hers. "Let me explain,
Madame,--the idea of dress this year is altogether idyllic! Never has
there been such charming return to nature. The great originator of our
house has taken his suggestion--but yes! from the little animals of the
fields and woods--from Nature herself! Our dresses this year are intended
to follow the example of all the little animals dressed to match their
backgrounds. Is not that thought exquisite? Is not that delicious? Is an
emerald lizard conspicuous in the tropics? Is a zebra even seen in patches
of sun and shade? And in the snow, think of all the little animals who put
on white coats in winter! Obviously white is the color intended for winter
wear. And for the spring, green. Emerald green assuredly. It is as Madame
herself said, the color of the grass. The emerald charmeuse on a lawn in
summer would be a poem of harmony. The cerise for afternoons at sunset;
this orange shading into coral embroidery to wear beside the fire. The
dark blue chiffon embroidered in silver is for night. All the colors that
Madame at first found so bright--they are but the colors of a summer
flower garden. What would Madame wear in a flower garden? Black crêpe de
chine? Assuredly not! See this shell pink chiffon, how lovely it would
look under trees of apple blossoms. Blue serge! Oh, what an escape. And
now if Madame will permit me to suggest?--the green, but assuredly! and
the orange and coral, and the pink chiffon garden dress, and the zebra,
for travelling, and the blue and silver...."
However, to be serious, people do go to Paris and buy their
clothes--beautiful clothes! Of course they do; especially those who go
every year. But the woman who goes abroad perhaps every four or five years
is apt to be deficient in a trans-Atlantic sense. "Match backgrounds, like
charming little animals?" Never! Oh, a very big Never Again! And yet the
next time shall you not find it a temptation to go just out of curiosity
to find out what the newest artfully enticing little tune of the Pied
Pipers of Paris will be!