The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-11-04
WOODEN FABRICS.


There is a widespread idea that fash
ionable women and those who can afford
silks, never were anything else. Never
was greater mistake. Really fashion
able women, especially young women,
only wear silk on occasions; their out
door dress, and especially walking dress,
is wool, lined with perhaps touched up
with velvet, but more frequently pure
wool with lining of silk which does not
skew.
A silk dress worn ordinarily and at
country house would look so out of place
that the wearer would be set down as ig-
norant and inexperienced. Age is privi-
legged, but even its uniform of gray or
black is more frequently fine cashmere
with silk, than all silk or satin, as for
merly. Wool is not for a season, it has
come to stay. 1t is put to serviceable
uses to which it is adapted. For outdoor
wear it is infinitely superior to silk, for
the atmospheric currents have free play in
it and through it. 1t puts US in relation
with them, instead of shutting us out
from them like silk. The reaction in
favor of wool and its restoration to high
place in the general economy of women's
dress is a sanitary blessing.
A question which needs solving, and
which ought to be taken up by physicians,
is that of underwear next the skin. There
| is no climate in which some sort of wool
garments cannot be advantageously worn;
but young women and society women
avoid it as much as possible, often alto
gether, because it interferes with the
wearing of the fashionable low necks and
short sleeves-or no sleeves. There are
vigorous young girls who declare they can
stand it; that the cold does not make
particle of difference to them; that they
do not need flannel or merino or gauze or
wool of any kind, and that in fact they
possess a skin so sensitive they cannot
bear the touch of wool. This, of course
involves a contradiction, which they dc
not perceive. skin so sensitive ought
to be protected, and in time they suffer
from the absence of proper and uniform
clothing.
Until recently there was the excuse OF
average coarseness, want of adaptabllity
and want of variety in the underwear
woven or made for women. There is still
room for improvement, but there is not
lack of variety. The difficulty is want
of graceful form and finish in the heavier
and complete woven garments, and the
inadequacy of the pretty little vests
without drawers-of woven or knitted
silk, or silk and wool, to meet the require,
ments. A skin like garment OF SOFT wool
covering the body is luxury which can
only be appreciated by experimental
knowledge of its virtues. 1t is at once a
medium and an absorbent. 1t should be
changed frequently, and it preserves all
other clothing from contact with the SKIN
1t preserves an equality of temperature
and maintains equable relations between
the body and the outside world. IL Is
clearly and exercises gentle influence
which is better felt than described; but Is
tranuuilizlng and beneficial. Now thai
nervous diseases are so common all the
causes of disturbance ought to be care
fully weighed; all remedial agents glyer
due consideration, and every one who as
sists to give wooden underwear for wome1
the softness, lightness and grace OF form
demanded, in accordance with other por
tions of their attire, will do his race ser
vice.
An essential feature must be those diff
ferent degrees of round and square neck
the low the medium and the high. Nov
we have only the high and low, unless il
silk. hand knit, and in average styles, M
snnare neck forms at all. The "Jalger
woolen undergarments, which full.
described more than year ago, be
fore they had been introduced into tn,
country, are becoming a rage with men
but so many women object to them a
they were originally made-in the pretty
natural tint of the wool-that the manu-
facturers are spelling them and destroy
ing their individuality by making then
white. ..
Much travel and the sort of intercours