Morning journal and courier., 1889-03-04
BARE SHOULDERS.
 1 Excuses for Rigorous Court Dress

The "decollettee'' style of dress which has so long prevailed at the English court prob ably originated from the fact that the court of George ". was destitute of a Queen, and that his majesty was too much occupied by the minutie of his own wardrobe to pay at tention to the toilets of the ladies who rend- cred their obeisance to him on drawing room days, says the London Telegraph. The reign of William ". was too brief to allow Queen Adelaide to do much toward the modification of court dress; while when our present gracious sovereign ascended the throne she was toe young and too ine1peri- encea to formulate new code of ceremonial costume. She did not devise a court dress, but she found one. It was essentially of the bare-shouldered sort, but the ''nudite des l gorges" which prevailed in 1888, and forl several years afterward, had a perfectly in- nocent motive. Few ladies who Hollow the fashion," or who consult the hundred and oae fashion periodicals poured out from the press. every month and every.week, have any idea of the extreme simplicity of the patterns of female attire which were in vogue 50 and even 40 years ago. It is sufficient to say l that the bodice and the skirt of dress were generally in one piece; that the gown fast ened by hooks and eyes behind; that the skirts were never ''draped," and that their sole ornamentation was hounces. The only practical way in which a lady could show | that she was in full dress was to wear a | low necked dress and to bare her arms. | Moreover, bodices were when made low, un. | iversally cut horizontally instead of on bi- | as, and the female novelists of the last gen. eration found unfailing material of fun in | depicting the torments undergone by grow | ing girls at evening parties in their endeav- I ors to prevent their low necked frocks from | slipping off their shoulders. When lady
 went to court she glori6ed herself gith a 1 train, tall 'panche" of plumes, and as | many diamonds as fortune had favored her ! tIvith oil UiS ha Of her materially differ from that of the school- | girls low-necked muslin froek. Nowadays
 I every thing in this direction is altered The ! bodice of fashionable bail CT dinner dress | has as many angles and curves as the dia- | gram of an advanced problem in Euclid l;
 while the skirt, with or without train, is an
 elaborate and delightful puzzle of puffs,
 panels, fold and furbellows: The charm Of
 modern female dress lies chiefly in the fact
 ! that, if lady so chooses, she can go as bare l necked ss Nell Gwynne at Hampton court,
 | or as discreetly yelled, up to the throat as ! Mary Tudor, and be still in evening dress; l that she can exhibit her shoulder blades to | the utmost by wearing bodice cut behind l in V-shape, and that, in front, she may | open or close her corsage, depress it, or
 make it ascend, just as she likes. At court, ] hitherto, no such latitude has been allowed l Low necked dresses have been adhered to l year after year, to the generations of innu- merable colds and coughs among the ladies 1 who have had to sit shivering in their car- l risges in the Mall, and in the bleakest early spring weather, before they could reach Buckingham Palace on drawing room days. To these sufferers from the grim exigencies of etiquette the new "high court dress" re- script will come as @ most gracious and graceful boon. Health, common sense and good taste will alike benefit by this timely concession, which is modified only by the harmless requirement. that the ''6chu." of the bodice shall pass "under stomacher such as was worn in the 18th century. The
 "19th century" is an elastic term, and the
 court dressmakers may be depended upon to
 "high court dress"