Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1868-12-12
MISCELLANEOUS.
SyOasAN'S DRESS.


! Some German ladies of wealth and high |
social position have met in Stuttgard, it |
seems, and determined to attempt modi- |
hcatlon in the dress of women. They have,
| IL is SAID, called a commission of painters |
| doctors, tailors and dress makers, whose
ou,y IL is made to- invent "a new toilet"
lhey VIII confer great boon upon wo
| men II tney can contrive a dress, or a system
| or Cress, winch shall he sensible, appropriate |
to the important duties of life economical,
and not ugly: But this will not be half so
difficult for them. nor half go important for
thescomtort of women. as to put stop to the
constant and violent Changes in the fashions
| of womens dresses.
| The fashions have, for number Of veors
come to US from Paris. They have been
! adopted by women with as little question or
! hesitation as new article of faith rromu,
| gated ny the Pope is adopted by the Catho.
! lie world. But new article of faith is an
! Inexpensive luxury new fashion i'll dress
costs almost every family in the land labor
anG worry and temper enough 20 set mp q
! small household. A new fashion brings to
a woman of average means many hours OF
| eager study and consultation, many days and
evenings of tiresome and unhealthful labor
with the needle, and waste of as many
dollars as her conscience permits, and more,
mere purpose of conforming to a new and
probably senseless custom.
1t the Stuttgart ladies succeed in their
! proposed reform, they will make easier the
! lives of millions of women they will make
| possible a sensible economy in living, which
| will bring comfort and ease to mary hun.
dred thousand households /; they will remove
from society one of the most serious of its
minor evils. viii they succeed 1t is very
doubtful, Society now a.dsys is so strongly
democratic, or, rather, the democratic spirit
SO strongly asserts itself, that men and wo.
men in every station of life aim to dress as
nearly like the wealthiest as they can.
The fashions are made and changed for
people of wealth and leisure for people
whose lives are idle, and who have few in
terests except those connected with social
| pleasures But, unluckily, custom, not in
this country alone, but here more than in
| any other, leads every woman, no matter
what her life may be, what cares she has or
| what means to dress as though she too we're
an idler to adopt every new fashion of dress,
no matter how appropriate, often at the ex-
pense of comfort, and sometimes at the cx
pensc of decency. woman's dress is
| thought beautiful not because its colors are
harmonious, not because its style is graceful,
but because it is fashionable. 1t is in the
sweeps the sidewalk; a huddo of folds
which distorts the apparent shape of the
! wearer a bonnet scarcely the size of an oak
leaf stutiing out Of the hair with filthy
remnants of the wig shops, or any other
absurdity or abomination which happens to
be worn by few idle women in Paris,
whose chief business in life it is to worry
their dress makers for new sensation"
American women have, as a general thing,
N,,l, 4
part Of their lives is now spent in attempts
to make the newest fashion as little ridicu-
lous as possible. They follow it; {; but most
of them follow at modest distance. They
ought to rebel But that they have not
courage to do. Ask Amelia to wear, next
week, in modest evening company, the
dress which you thought so becoming to her
last winter, and to the manufacture of which
she gave so many hours which you would
like to have seen spent with a pleasant book
or in the open air tell her it IS harmonious
in color, excellent in lit, of the most suitable
material; that it is in every way becoming
to her. erd what will be her answer9 She
} will tell you--with sigh if she is a scnsi-
BILE woman-that it is out of fashion, that
the style has changed, that to wear it would
make her ridiculous; aud if she is idle and
wealthy she will order new dress from the
dress maker if she is poor and has quick
, eye, she viii sit for the rest of the week in
, q close room, busly ripping, cutting, adding,
deducting, altering, and, at the expense of
: more dollars ana much more time than she
can well spare making the new dress of last
winter into a new dress for this winter, no
) prettier, most probably uglier, certainly not
improved in any quality which should make
a dress liked or its wearer admired. And so
, Amelia goes at last to the evening company
! Il.
with labor and worry-and conner home
= cross, and with dyspepsia.
Men sometimes complain of women's lack
| of intelligence-Gu it is hard to attain uni
/, yersal excellence at twenty five; and wo-
' man who has to manage her household, give
10 her children the care which a conscientious
q mother gfves them, and then, over and above
, all this, must run after the ever. changing
G fashions in dress, has no time, no strength
/ and presently no inclination for good books,
s and no capacity for rational conversation
: If men had to pay as much attention 10 dress
5 as women, they would all, probably, be as
l unnteresting as dandes are; and male
!, dandy is much less interesting or intelli
c gent creature than female one.
1 What is needed for women is not an ugly
+ habit or DRESS but emancipation from theil
y slavery to the DEGREES of fashion. The dress
6 reformers have made serious mistake in the
attempt to introduce q costume which hat
e no charms to the eye, and admits of no usC
/, of bright colors, and whose sole merit is tina
!. it is convenient. That is not enough. Mos
:. women very properly desire to look pretty
q and they rightly, as we think, reject cos
e tune which forbids them this qualification
It wonld be q serious loss to society if they
should ever change their minds on this
= matter.
But we do not gee why sensible womer
I, should not combine 20 settle upon some
! fashion of walking dress, like the very pretty
modest and yet convenient short dress whicl
1 was generally worn last year, and adhere t.
: that as street costume, toerating no arbi
a trary change of cut prescribed by the fashion
. tyraBts. Then, if they would agree upor
n some equally sensible and tasteful style o.
!. evening dress, and absolutely refuse to change
= this style, no matter what Paris or Londor
: says, their emancipation would be as nearly
complete as seems practicable. With such
a set system of dress there would still remain
l. room for the exercise of individual taste il
J. the choice and harmonious arrangement o
II colors, and in the selection of material. Ii
would be possible to dress as richly, q.
brightly or as soberly as inclination dictated
., and yet women's lives would be made much