Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-09-07
OUR BOSTON LETTER.
Gossip on the Latest Lady's Fashions
From an Occasional Corr espondent.

Boston, Aug. 30th, 1879.
People are focking into the city
to-day in crowds, for it is the last
weekday of summer, and next
Monday work begins in many places
where vacation has ruled in solitary
grandeur for weeks past. All the
primary and grammar public schools
open on Monday, and the high
scools a couple of days later. The
Boston University opens the doors
of its many schools and colleges the
first of October. The Conservatory
of Music at Music Hall wall COM
mence its fall term about the mid
die of September, Immediately upsn
the arrival from Europe of its d.
rector. The churches will all begin
regular services tomorrow, and
most OF the theaters have
already inaugurated their
regular or preliminary seasons.
And in a very little, the concert
and lecture courses will open, and
the great wheels of progress will
"go wound" the Hub with the usual
clockwork regularity, dear alike to
Bulge and every true Bostonian.
With every new season in its
turn, however, comes up the old,
but ever new question, "Where-
withal shall we be clothed?' and
with view to help my lady read
ers to solve the problem this fall, I
have carefully sought out and ju-
diciously weighed what information
can be gained at this early date /;
and, firstly, those styles of cut
and trimming which are SO .ex>
cessively plain and severe, as
to to be actually masculine. and
which have been gradually growing
in for a year and half past, have
by no means reached their climax. In
fact, to be really in the height of
style one should do away with a
dressmaker altogether, and have her
dresses all cut and fitted by tailor
who has been educated to the
making of ~women's riding~habits.
An ordinary tailor would hardly do
for this dainty business, unless he
be genius at adaptation. I spoke
a little hastily though when I said
that the unfortunate dressmaker
should have been given the go>by
entirely, for she is still needed to
arrange the skirts which shall ac-
company the coat bas4ues of the
tailor. Even these skirts, however,
should be made very simply, and
with the neatness and precision
which constitutes the chief charm of
the tailor's work.
| We have all admired and envied
the beautifully perfect handiwork
upon the clothes of our fortunate
masculine friends who employ a
faultless tailor, the utter absence of
wrinkles or folds, the fine, even
stitches set by hand, the dainty
Innings, the many pockets put in SO
neatly, and most mysterious of all,
the wonderful way in which every
curve and line of the wearer's form
is followed by the garments, which
yet do not cling tight to the body,
choking the very life out of one, as
do many of the dresses into which
women have been tortured by
imperious modistes. And now
is it not charming that we
are absolutely disenthralled, and
many have all the quies elegance
and easy comfort in our clothes
which the sterner sex have so long
monopolized, retaining at the same
time the charming variety of fabrics
and eolors which makes a femanine
toilette thing of beauty, while
mans is like Tennyson's t'Maud,"
ga faultless nullity."
For although, as yet, the cnt-away
jackets, dress coats and oyercoats
which ladies' have worn, have been
made, in q majority of cases, of
light weight cloths, other materials
are now equally stylish for them,
and these garments will be made,
the coming season, of all fabrics
worn, though the frmer kinds retain
the shape best, and are there
fore most desirable. But
all should be alike char
acterized by the utter absence of
trimming and the beautiful cut
which the is perfection of this style.
The cut-away jacket is still the ia
vorite, though it has been terribly
abused during the past year by
!, dress-makers and home-workers,
who have made mongrel some
thing with a tight-ftting back, a
mock vest starting from the side
seams, from which also Topped
loose jacket>fronts. Every part of
such a garment "draws'' fearfully,
the so-called vest is an apparent
sham, and is usually, to make it
more ugly, rounded down deep in
front, and the seams filled in with