The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1868-11-11

Dress

and perhaps 1 cannot better employ the
;APPaPer before me than by a little chat
about national peculiarities. 1t hardly
seems possible that a party of American
ladies and gentlemen, passing along
tho streets of London. would so greatly
. vary in their dress and appearance from
the same number. OF English people, as
TO attract universal attention but such
Is the case: IPhe moment an American
3HIHo sets foot In London, everything he sees
&c 2 iad the fashion of abparel carries him
iab back fully a year upon his national rec
ord.nW When we left America, the i'm
menses tcht9Ron which once d~isfgured
the heads of our ladies, had been laid
aside. When we arrived in London,
We found it the regnant monstrosityl
= saa Indeed, 1 have never seen such prepos.
e 9i5ferous tumers of this sort in America
as 1 see, even now, every day, on the
heads of English girls travelling on the |
: sesi continent. l saw two yesterday oply |
II just q ittle-just a very, ittle-smali.
8 2 Z or than the heads to which, with mar
p vicious ingenuity, they were attached. |
Again, when I left America, the short
2 street dress had become universal. The
IS DID spread of skirts and trailing cloth
.ssBs had all been reformed. Our girls, Won
~ ~ know, were so trig and trim with their
leet 30 prettily as to have gained q new
ioothold IN the masculine admiration.
ss7IgHen, the moment these pretty dresses
= 81 and pretty feet show themselves in
20 ,hLondon; they are greeted by the broad
est stare that common decency will DER
NIT. An American lady, we'll dressed.
cannot pass through a crowded London
street without being gazed at, and re-
marked upon, a. almost every step.
dne expianation of this strange DIFF
terence lies in the fact that the sympa- 1
thy between Paris and New York Is
immediate and complete, while that be
II tween London and Paris is, indirect, at
best, and imperfect always. 20 Even in
tas London Il think that Paris is acknowl-
Il edged to be alike the center and arbi- 1
Eet ter of fashion but they never adopt a |
fashion in London until it has been !
o. outliYed in Paris and New York The
short dresses, for instance, will not be
universally; adopted for the street until r.
next year IN England. 1t may be. Ct
that they never will be adopted there. &
1 heard an intelligent and wealthy vi
English lady remark, a day or two ago. eli
that the short dresses we're only 6t ia N =
? Wear at a watering place, and that thew w
were not decent to wear when one was
ut home and among ones friends.
INK It likely That so sensible a fashion M
III, hardly be quietly ignored, and that r,
III by, England will rejoice in a
cSsho show of ankles. 1 have
..-1sfssl -ican ladies talk about this -
ME] 1me of them have been
.:UIA to intimate that the
T.aisL IssSs1s H.. e private reasons for prc
Eoognsn. 49, ~ IS long. Indeed, Gil
fhey declare that tile H :pb~or nngnsa- for
woman, if not the EngA. a nI " G1t
yersal, has a large foot an Inc S.f. Ea
have no right to khow -anyeS ,9,t IL ION
Itely about this matter and 1A "a no, IN.
tsnd to but from what I coH>P'N ~ oo'
help seeing ut street crossings m ~ M
weather, Iventured to guess that WI
takes more leather to shoe The average sS :
English,,womaA than the average Amer Ten
lean woman, e,
Now let an American cross the chan d
mel and enter any street of Paris, and -
he will see nothing in the dress of eth -
er ladies or gentlemen to indicate that
he has left New York city. The cloth. D.
ing that a well-dressed American takes
TO Paris finds itself entirely at home at
once. A gentleman or lady from puu
America, who, dressed in style there, Z ELI
will have no garment that will look
outlandish in Paris. In some things
mere Will De sISIg HOulHCoCiOuS1 OlIeu ut
Tor the better, but the fundamentals
ne always the same and there is new IT,,
II variation enough to excite remark ofihe
Dr. 10 give the sh8ntest uncOuIortapIe Assoc
feeling to the stranger exhibiting them. all tn
Here, on the continent, one can never and G
an American from a French Pracu
man by anything he wears, nor can a sectio
lady be distinguished from a ments
New York lady by her apparel ; but an in
and especially an Eng Pense
lish girl, can be known as such as far great'
as she can be seen. The enormous oomnI
chignon and the general looseness and and is
of everything she has the on
her-always, by the way, of ey, oh
the best material-decides the question any,
Of nationality for the most careless OBJ ton '
sezFe-. Ny impression is, that the The
kaiIors or Tnglaad live a little nearer eficie
to Paris than the milliners or mantau- they
maHAHS S-~ ~ their
OF Lonuon nave good yea. VI tue lives
Parisian about their makeup put the servic
GREATER majority of plodding Londoners the eff
S-.a.;r their own wav. and find them tors, I
Tl~1:c-SrL p.ya-o,Tu-b mr.. study
conscious degrees. Even here in prese,
Switzerland, where only the trench among
lanouape- is spoken, and mainly the the c.
F1encb money is circulated, at a point SPEI
only fifteen hours from Paris, n in @Es
communication with it, the
fashions follow America at a long dis Has.
lance. I have sesn the old fashioned
peg top trousers In numbers sufficient UNI
to furnish scare Crows for the whole Thu
Connecticut valley. since my arrival raiah,
here. / viii only add, for the benefit and
OF. the satisacftion of my countrymen, Pen i
that according to my belief and my Of the
best knowledge, the Americans follow BUSH
Paris more promptly and more closely wri,;,
in the fashion of their clothing than ali it,
any other people. So look at each else t
other and into your mirrors with entire in ms
eomplaeency. tseIO.
finest
reput