Morning journal and courier., 1880-07-05
One View ofthe Dress Question.

| Whatever other subjects may have their l and cease to interest the public, dress in one | form or another, is always presenting itself \ for fresh hearing. Because it is so closely | connected with comfort, health and beauty, l it can never cease to commend itself to the | thought of many classes. AS a matter of | fashion, it, of course, comes up with each | succeeding season on this aspect have | nothing to say. As a matter of health, 1t has
 for years received intent and patient thought,
 and has called forth many printed word. Especially is this true of woman's dress. Ger tain manifest abuses of health in the prevail | ing styles have caused physicians everywhere to lift up warning voices, though experience | taught that the warning might be vain and would be thankless. Of late, and to some extent, an impression seems to have been ! made. Women themselves have taken up the
 matter, and have already accomplished good results.
 Among the many forcible reasons urged in favor of healthful dress, one which would
 have weight with many woman, seems to have had less than it's due share of promi-
 hence. It is this, that most of the changes
 advocated are in the interest, not of health
 only, but equally of good taste.
 In presenting this view of the subject great
 difficulties must be met. Taste is one of the
 least hopeful tribunals of appeal, because it
 has almost no standard. Every man has his
 own ideal of taste, but his ideal is not his
 neighbours. An ignorant and cultured taste
 haue little in common. Again, taste, in most
 of us, is largely artificial it is created by
 fashion; the object of admiration last sum-
 mer may be slighted, if not secuted to-day.
 So trite are these facts that they have passed
 into proverbs ''Tastes differ,' or there's
 no disputing about tastes, " is the answerable
 argument.
 We should be surprised, think to see to
 what extent our own taste is moulded by the
 fashions of the day. If any lady doubts the
 truth of this statement, let her recall for 6
 moment her bonnets and dresses of years
 ago, and think how they would now appear.
 The barrel hoop once in the phrase of fash
 ion writers of the time, "so graceful and con-
 venient,'' how hideous 1t seems and what
 colors could have been thought less beautiful
 than the anticipated dull shades of green, Jun til their recent revival as sage green, Nile
 green and reseda? At the same time, this
 taste, artificial though it be, has tremendous power with most women. The proverb |: ''As well be out of the world as out of fash ion," voices the underlying. if not the de- clared, thoughts of hundreds. 'tI'm a dreat toward" says my frank neigbor, with sigh,
 q tan't wear my hair as mama wants me to, | 'tause the other girls laugh at me-" Poor 1 little woman! ! these early troubles are the very same that afiict her grown-up kin, when | the becomming bonnet must be laid aside for l the ugly one that fashion now prescribes or
 last year's uninjured dress must be made over | because it has become "so unstylish." SBid a I delicate girl protect herself against the rain l with rubbers and 1eggins-bid her take up \ her skirts under the waterproof, that they | may not become damp; she listens, then looks up with the serene air of one who knows l she cannot be answered, and says, But how
 my feet would look!" Urge another to re-
 move the pressure which is crowding her poor lungs and heart into inactivity; she answers, ''Oh my figure would not be good l at all without stays.'
 As sometimes happens, however, in the l very fact just illustrated lies the possibility l of remedy. Let women once become con l vinced that the unhealthiful styles of dress are not tasteful-let me say, rather, are gene rally regarded as not tasteful, and numbers
 who remain unmoved by the health argument will abandon them at once. Witness the
 marked change already wrought in general l taste as regards compression of the waist Fifteen years ago the smaller the woman's | waist the more beautiful Such was the bar l barous taste then prevalent, and many poor l deluded girl underwent the same beautifyin process as Holmes ''Maiden Aunt !''
 ''They laced her up, they starved her down To make hA light and small"
 A tall, broad shouldered woman whose ! waist tapered till two hands could clasp it, | was Ian elegant fgure,'' model for imita- l tion. Now, the was-waists are few and far l between fashion, as well as nature, demands | breathing-space about the diaphragm the elegant figure of former times begins to be | seen to be the gross deformity it really is. l say begins, for the change in taste, though
 great, is only 8 beginning. Let every true woman do her utmost to help it on. Let every admirer of the Venus of Milo's noble
 grace, study those outlines, at once grand and
 exquisite note carefully the proportions, ,and candidly compare them with her own and those of her friends; let her convince her self, as she easily by asking, that her husband, her brother, her father, have no vestige of admiration for the latter as against l the former; and it will not be long before | she will cast of compression and grow again into the shape her Maker planned.
 We have pitying contempt for the bound l feet of Chinese women, and the hattened heads of certain Indian tribes. Why cannot every woman see that both taste and sense are no less violated by her own hobbling up I on French hells, or her own bound and move
 less ribs. So far as theory goes, there is no difficulty. We all know that it is the correct | thing to admire the human form as seen in ancient statues. We all do admire such | figure in-in statues. We would all stand | aghast were we to see reproduced in marble l the fashionable figure of the day. I think l that from all women there would be but one voice of condemnation of such work of art. It remains to realize the practical bearing of the theory upon taste in dress. When the time comes-and it is coming-that women see for themselves the absurdity of praising in marble what they would by no means imi- tate in flesh, of admiring in life what they would scorn in statue, then true taste will crowd out false, and hold, even in dress, its rightful sway.