Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1876-12-22
FRENCH SOCIETY.
Some eIntel'igent CriiIeisms French
Taste in DTess.

Taste in Dress.
A recent Paris letter contains
this
There is one feature that seldom
fails to strike an american OBJ
server as odd in these official enter.
talnments, and that is the number
of old women who participate
therein, not as spectators, but as
actual performers. Venerable
danes of fifty or sixty, with their
poor old bones well barred to the
public gaze, and with lilies and
roses in their dyed tresses, fly pant
Ing. through the mazes of the waltz
or galop, while damsels Of seventeen
and eighteen sit around the room
and look at them. The old women
Of French society fornb to Ameri-
can eyes, an unloyely and indie
corous spectacle. They delight in
displaying their heshless or ovel
heshy arms and shoulders in the
lowest Of 6orsages, they wear pale
colored silks and bright-hued flow.
ers, and they dance away like mac
whenever they get a chance, Amer
lean society has often been criti
cised for the pFedominance of thr
Youthful element, But you'll
Should do the dancing, and let mid
die age and old age do the chaper
oning and tbe looking on. A still
blooming matroh Of forty-fye, ii
black velvet and diamonds, renew
ing the triumphs of her girlhoot
in lie person Of her daughter, may
it is true, have retired into th
background to5 soon. But she isl
pleasanter sight to ""ontemP'at
than she would be if, dressed ID
white tulle, with pink roses in he
hair, she went gambolling arount
by the side Of that daughte
through the mazes of the Ger
man." in accordance with th
French style.
Time was when French taste il
dress was not only perfect in it
way, which it undoubtedly is a
present, but when it had an innat
sense of the fitness Of things, whicl
it certainly possesses no longer
Time was, and that at a period no
far beyond the ken OF the presen
generation, when dress was studi
Ously adapted to the uses to whicI
it was to be put, and when loud
ness and extravaganza were alik
considered in bad style when mis-
placed. People probably dressed a
much then as they do nowadays
/, but on different occasions and in
different manner. Costliness an
+ + splendor we're reserved for ball
and State receptions, and clothC
on other occasions were meant lo
n use and not for display. Dresst
for street wear were Of the PLANES
+, possible materials, and were mad
in the simplest possible way. Som
!, thirty years ago, for instance, til
Parisian ladies appeared in stree
K costumes of white grounded El
). glish chintz, made as plainly as pc
NJ sible, and in cottage straw bonnet
N The spotless purity of these dress
>, was their distinguishing characte
istic. But simple good taste wei
m m out of fashion when the Secor
Empire came in, and has never +
II gained its lost vogue. Things a
bot so bad in the way of lema
lo dress qs they were during the higI
ID Of the Imperial regime, wilt
gilt and glitter, high heels, make
IS ness, toilettes tapageu;es and &c
eral extravaganza were all the rag
But they are pretty bad neverth
"A less. Look Ut the long ekirts al
the innumerable rullled pctticoa
lraiied through the liquid mud
sloppy streets, al TIE pointed ha
bristling with feathers; AZ tBe ba
: dgesses, gored, and strapped bac
sleevelass and well nigh corsagele
80 that the form of fashional
. dame is as @reh revealed to t
w world as was that Of Nile Jol
e, 70 iambe in the role of the "Queen
{. theCannibal Islands" in the I
he fairy spectacle at the Porte st. Nj