Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1885-08-06
FASHIONS DOMAIN.
styles That Do Not Differ Materially fro
Those of Former Years.


styles That Do Not Diner Materially from
Those of Former Years.
Now that the summer fashions have
become not a prophecy. but a fulfill
ment, it is rather difficult to see how
they differ very saliently from those of
last year. True. in the latest dresses
from Paris there are strange innova-
tons, or, rather, revivals, of long past
models -padded paniers, stuffing out
the hips q la Louis XIV, and skirts
tightly tied round the knees after the
manner affected eight years ago.
Neither of these are particularly
graceful or becoming. and the fault of
most of the new French gowns is their
absence of elegant drapery-a crying
sin in modern dress. 1t is this stiffness
of fold and plat in skirt-this unre-
deemed tightness of bodice, fitting
close, not to the human form divine, but
to the dressmaker's travesty thereof
which render the more untrammeled
grace of tea gowns. and the loose hang
ing fronts of some few other dresses, so
welcome to the eye.
The tea gown now is being trans
muted in,e dinner gown in some
cases, and on the stage, actresses have
gladly welcomed it for its picturesque
ness, the freedom it allows of move
ment, and the relief it affords from the
stiffness of the conventional frocks at
present in vogue, and which, with their
absence of train, amplitude of tournure,
and total want of ''paintableness,"
hopelessly mar the effect of the stage
picture and of the wearer movements
and acting. In truth some actresses
carry their appreciation of the tea gown
too tar, and the oSerdressing, which is
the fault of the day both on and off the
stage, reaches an excess when a lady
appears in modern comedy in her
own house at eleven a. M, in gray
velvet and satin embroidered with sill
yer, and with tulle steel spangled front
and transparent sleeves.
BonnetS have grown ever higher and
higher, like the weeds in the sIuggard's
garden; so, following the law which
rules fashion as we'll as other human
matters, we may suddenly expect to see
them lowered as by one stroke of an
executioner's sword. As it is, all
strings have nearly disappeared, the
height of the bonnet above the brow be-
ing found singularly unbecoming when
combined with a bow under the chin.
Whether the present mania for trans
parent head-gear will last is matter of
question. Nervous and old-fashioned
mothers take alarm at it, and predict
either sun-stroke or neuralgia to the
wearers thereof, providing as the wind
blows hot or cold. That the shapes of
this years hats are almost universally
unbecoming is generally allowed. and
wise virgins, who care more for
the charm of their appearance than for
mere novelty, cling to the pretty coquet-
tlsh little Spanish turbans, which are
never old-fashioned, and eschew the
high-crowned aigretted monstrosities,
which nearly always call attention to
their own nodding splendors, and not
gear should be but the frame.
AS frame, few hats are more be-
coming to young faces than the sailor,
which, after being unseen among us for
nearly ten years, four years ago sud-
denly sprang into life, as the most
sensible, plainest and prettiest hat for
girls devoted to tennis. The attempt
to turn its simplicity into suitable
head-gear for fetes or town wear, by
adjoining it with ribbons or flowers,
proved, as it deserved to be, an igno-
minious failure. The sailors hat shows
its origin too plainly to be disguised
offor c1,oh 70 oy,1 ohct fn1
fused to look '.good form" out of its
proper sphere. But in that sphere it
has no rival, and its renaissance has
acted largely on the whole style of ten
mis- frocks, which have grown steadily
prettier and more sensible.
Not only ribbons, furbelows and
laces, let alone those muslin gowns so
dear to the heart of painters of river
side scenes some few years since; not
only these are now tabooed as insult
able to boating or its kindred delights,
but women have discovered that cot
tons, frOckS, ETC., on the water lose
their freshness directly, get creased and
limp and detected, and that for us, as
for men, flannel and its kindred
stuffs are the only fit river and tennis
wear. The discovery has been fol-
lowed by bold raid on masculine
possessions in the form of the quantity
and brightly striped cricketing fan-
nels, and by certain approximation to
masculine gear in the fashioning of
skirt, jacket and loosely tied silk scarf.
The skirts of such frocks may be
made as plainly as the wearer will,
though women would do we'll to re-
member that the perfectly unadorned
house-maid skirt is becoming to very
few, and that laveuse or fishwife
tunic and open jacket OF plain flannel
over a striped skirt and shirt are pref
tier than complete zebra costume, es-
pecially when the stripes of the stuff
are rather voyant in color or size. The
red and blue is more popular than ever,
but to our mind it is too hot for sum-
mer; sea green's and dull blues are
softer combination-a harmony instead
of contrast, and quite as serviceable.
Cotton crepe is more used this year
than ever before, aud is now made in
many dull shades, that, together with
its wrinkled surface. give it the soft
charm of an Eastern fabric. 1t has
the advantage. not always possessed by
cotton stuhs, of looking well made up
with silk or even damask or velvet;
but lace, except coarse Greek point, or
any trimming distinctively Western in
appearance, destroys its beauty at once.
No material is so useful for everyday
white dresses, ETC., as it need only be
washed through and wrung out, then
left to dry and shaken out into crinkles
at its own sweet will, without being
ironed or got up in any way.-M T.
Herald.
Classical Learning.
Prof. John Stuart Blackie, in the