The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1868-07-28
OF FEMALE FASHION.
CHANGEABrr.1rY OF COSTUME.

The one great problem in wOmen's
dress, how L unite artificial elegance
with natural laws, is still u~nSolyed,
= and seems likely to remain so Tor
some time longer. As soon as fashion
looks like coming neal 1T, aud we are
close upon getting the right klnd OF
thing, we are all at once whisked off
sgain into some absolute monstrosity
or absurd e~xaggeration, and landed
as far as aver from the solution.
Working from no definite centre of
principle, and therefore aiming at
nothing certain. women and the
dress makers cannot let their chance
we'll alone. Even when these last
have struck out a useful and becom-
Ing costume, and we are ~agreeaSiy
surprised at the sudden cessation of
some horrible annoyance, and the no
less sudden influx Of pretty girls in
u parks and streets, they have not
the smallest idea of letting the mas
culine world enjoy its good fortune in
peace.
For six months at the longest the
shape holds its ground. and then IS
shelved to make way for something
perhaps just as ugly and ridiculous as
EiA1 A4Q bCUA 6CuGAUAC auA OCCOAAANS.
But women do not see the ugliness OF
any fashion; or, if they see it, they do
not care for it, and certainly they do
not care for any inconvenience to
which the mode condemns themselves
or others. Not what the fashion is,
but what Is the fashion, is the only
question that affects them; and wheth-
er il is a spoon bonnet towering like
an architectural structure above the
brow, or one of the present vanishing
trihes, all but lost among the masses
of fuzzy hair that stick out here and
tumble about everywhere, it is all the
same to them, provided it is the thing
OF the day. flo
Ii the ruling dressmakers of the
hour say that such and such a thing
shall be worn for the season, straight
way II ia worn, though it may be the
ugliest bit of disbursement that ever
lessened the beauty of a pretty wo-
man or increased the LONELINESS of a
plain one. For it is the milliners and
manufacturers who make the fash
ions; and when ladies' think they are
setting the fashions they are only fol-
lowing In the course which the Man
chester people, and the Glasgow peo-
pie, and the Wholesale houses in the
city, aud the head milliners at the
West End, have already marked out
for them. 1.-THE dress piece weavers"
decide that self-colors shall go on
and stripes come In, not q woman
thinks life worth having without a
gown to make her life one of Grand
ville's zebras. One year she breaks
out into an eruption of spots; an
other, she covers herself with decapi-
tated dogs heads; a third, she wears
a stuff with a Brobdingnagian pat
tern, allowing about two flowers and a
halt in the gown a fourth, she scores
herself with crossbars; bat every year
it is simply the taste of the weaver in
the beginning, with the fine ladies
following like sheep as they are led,
and, between weaver aud dressmaker,
without an idea TO call their own.
All the fashions of a given period
have a certain seal or stamp special to
themselves. Sometimes it Is in gor-
EeOusness of decoration, as ia the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
when the eostum1r's highest efforts
OF art we're lavished on cloth of gold
and jeweled broidery, as il the case
all through the East at the present
day. Sometimes it is in sweeping
length of line. as in the days when
sleeves and skirts were knOtted up to
keep them from the wearer's feet,
and when monks preached to their
fair hearers Of the sin of luxury, and
Mortified them by saying how they
saw the devil, In his own person,
squatting on their trains at mass, or
perched upon the horns which were
held to represent the seven deadly
sins, without one redeeming virtue.
Sometimes it is in the extreme sim
plicity, as In the time of the French
Jaeobins, and of the early Greeks,
whom they copied. And sometimes,
as at the present moment. it is
in oddity, in the widest extremes,
and the most startling changes. En-
phsu3ally we do not know what a day
mqy bring forth IN the way of toilet.
When We go to bed we leave our wives
and daughters In huge, bell-shaped
erinolines, breaking jugs, upsetting
chairs, damaging their male neigh
bors' shins, and showing their own
legs with q iberality of which the
funniest thing is that every woman
sees aud deprecates the same display
IN others, but ignores it stoutly for
herself; when we wake up the next
AAOAuA4A NhUI AAO III n0AAO0 OAOGG'
fitting garments, like spill boxes in,
stead OF bells. One day they have
trains eddying around their feet like
ghosts garments, and the next they
are in scanty costume dresses more
like pillow eases than conventional
gowns. Que day they have huge flap
ping hats that overshadow thu
shoulders, the next little "por
ridge plates" that do not com
beyond the line of hair. Now the,
let their tresses meander in ring
lets of corkscrew shape, or hang in
heavy, smooth, and shining roll hal
way down their necks, and moelinI
and macassar make a mans forum,
out OF hand and now they puff it on
In big cushions on the top of thei
heads, and resort to artificial mean
TO make it crinkly, dry, and absolute
~ without gloss. The whole fun o
the thing seems to be in the sudden
ness OF transition from one extrem
to another, effected before the ey
has had time to grow accustomed I
the change; so that the bell and tn
spill box, the Japanese looking lad.
with yards of material entangliu
her feet or sweeping in the dust be
hind her, and the lady IN shol
clothes, like a great school girl VIII
has outgrown her frocks, meet in tn
same oom and jostle n another /
the streets, to the utter confusion {
anything like harmony of national al
pearanee.
Lady DrunkaPds In New York.
NEHrnn~ - NJ -