The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-04-25
THE BEST DRESSED WOMAN.
HELEN CAMPBELL ANALYzE6 HER.
IL the Average Woman Overdressed?-The
American Woman the Best Dressed In
the World-Common Sense in Femi-
nine AppareI-Proposed Reforms.
copyrighted 1881

7
HE woman of society demonstrates
with fury that, as a rule, she
has nothing to wear, and that if,
) at the moment OF speaking, a few
rags not quite unworthy of consider
alton may be found in her wardrobe,
it is a mere accident, life as a whole re-
solving itself into a hand-jo-hand conflict
with dressmakers, who always provide
| the wrong thing. The reformer, armed
with her divided skirt and its accompany
ing necessities, waves them wildly in the
face Of society, affirming that till woman
has accepted these garments as the only
solution of the dress problem, the only
road to the higher moralities, there can be
no salvation. Between these two ex-
! tremes marches the great army of the
middle classes, an army made up OF the
average woman" whose title has become
! the synonym for the worst-abused class in
! America. The fashionable woman finds
aDsolution because she has money and
! forms part of the spectacular life. The
ardent reformer is forgiven a little over
impetuosity, because it is at least amusing
/ and we must make the most OF such
amusement as is left for weary gener-
/ alton.
The average woman comes under nei-
ther head. She is simply the embodiment
! OF original sin, responsible directly or in
| directly for all evils OF church or state
preached at and to and for, till if she fol-
| lowed one hundredth part OF the precepts
laid down for her guidance not one short
| life, nor ten, would suffice for the under
| taking. Yet even now she cannot be
spared, and it is in the house OF her own
familiar friend that the new blow is struck,
| and her defender and advocate asks and
/ must answer, is the average woman over
dressed?" 1t is to this form that the ques-
! ton comes at last. For it is impossible to
! deny that the fashionable woman sins be-
yond redemption on this score; as impOs-
sible as it is to affirm that the energetic
| relormer can ever be counted as one OF
| the offenders, and thus once more the bur
| den rests on shoulders well accustomed to
| such load, and it is the patient, long-suh-
ering, most teachable, most enduring,
/ average woman who must serve as an IL
lustration and afford such reply as can be
drawn from the facts before ones eyes.
What are the essentials OF dress? The
question began with time, yet the answer,
from the Greeks down, remains the same
| beauty, comfort, suitability. No dress
that fails to unite these three can be
counted as fulfilling the mission OF dress,
and no woman who has not studied
in minutest detail each one, her mis-
sion as a woman. Beauty leads by divine
right and will lead, no matter what bat
teries are brought against it; but one
| must first learn what constitutes beauty.
In these borderlands one restricted to
reply in fixed lines cannot wander. But
| when one seeks to understand what over
dressing may mean, certain necessity
arises for palpable measurements, and
| these are given when the three requisites
| of any dress are laid down. 1t
is because the love of beauty is inherent
! in all humanity that instant protest is
made when angles are offered us in place
of curves, and all flowing lines and grace
of drapery denied. The fashion plates
NAV seem TO hold denial of this statement.
but the fashion plates are happily not the
sum of growth in this knowledge OF beauty.
We are learning it in spite of fashion
plates, and gradually evolving the cos
| tune that, with slight notifications, is
! likely to hold its ground, this being no
fixed and unchanging form, but 4 cOmbin-
ton best adapted to the wearer's sense
Of what is most fitting. Women have
learned TO study their own figures and
their own coloring; 10 settle definitely on
| what harmonizeS and best emphasizes
both and thus it has come to pass that the
American woman is nOw if bigh author
| ity NAV be trusted, the best-dresSed
woman in the world. Her skirts may
still be too heavy, her waist too
small, her sleeves too tight, but this is
! the tyranny of u fashion from which she
more and more emancipates herself as
time goes on. The day will come when
| every child will be taught the laws of
form and color in their dress, and any vio-
lation be held as an Otiense against society
to be instantly frowned down. When
that day comes, the three essentials we
have specified will enter into every dress.
! 1t is equally certain that for many that
day is already here. Common sense is one
portion of the average American wOman's
| inheritance. 1t may be seriously overlaid
| with prejudices, it may be hampered in
its action by fear of Mrs. Grundy, yet
every community has to-day its represen-
| tative women, leading more and more in
their train, and calmly ignoring the merely
| conventional. These women are not over
dressed, whatever glory of color and richness
of material may enter in into the compo-
sition of their costumes, for with them it
is no question OF something to be worn
| IWlCe OF lnTlC6 anu lil6l buIlltU OVER W
the dealer in secondhand garments. 1t
is only for evening festivity or gay lunch
or afternoon, tea that any deviation from
an almost fixed uniform is allowed, and
here the very woman pronounced over
dressed may have worn the same cos
tune, with slightest variations, two, three
nay, even half dozen years.
Tailor-made gowns have brought about
the revolution sighed for many years ago
by sensible women, and it is only here
and there that one sees silks and velvets
on the street, their appearance there in
dicating that the wearer is either under
bred and ignorant, or is wearing out her
old dresses preparatory TO coming into her
real kingdom and tasting the delights of
simple, compact, well-made suit The
shop-girl, who follows always close behind,
is learning this, and chooses now a suit OF
cheap material, because nothing but
cheapness is possible for her, but modelled
on the severe simplicity she sees in the
dress of her best customers. English fash
ions may have led us astray at times but
we owe to them certain emancipations
that could hardly have come in any other
way. Sensible women had long ago
adopted many. of them, but fashionable
women, some of whom are not sensible,
could never have been brought to low