Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-10-12
Written for The EVENING STAB.
THE FIGURES OF OUR GIRLS.
Here IL Wicked Dressmaker Who
Says They Are Not Good at All.

Here Il q Wicked Dressmaker Who
Says They Are Not Good at All.
IT particularly want you to cut the dress 50
that 1t will make my waist look as long as pos
sible," said the plump young damsel, as she
threw over her head and dimpIed shoulders
the skirt Of her walking costume. 1T has
always been my greatest grief that nearly all
the girls know have longer waists than L"
by always" interposed her mother, my
daughter means the two years since she has
been out in society. OF course long waists
have been very much in fashion of late and she
has come to have a notion that her figure,
which both her father and myself consider ex-
quisite, is defective in that respect"
"Oh, mammal exclaimed the maiden, and
was going on with q speech of protest, when
the dress maker interrupted her.
why, madam" said the latter as she folded
up the airy fabric of silk and lace Just tried on
there Is not necessarily, any relation between
the ideal IN female development and the fashion
that clothes it. The former can never alter,
while the latter is the very type of change.
What we call the mode is perpetually trying
to modify the figure by hattening it out, SWELL
ing 1t up like a balloon, or throwing in hump
here and there to render it more symmetrical;
but 1t Is not to be supposed on that account
that the ideal is subject to alteration"
And one is to find the ideal. suppose, in
what the artists, who are such awful bores as
q rule, call the antique"
THE FUNCTION OF FASHION.
Better there than anywhere else, madam.
The Frenchman who instructed me in my art
used to say that the function of fashion was
rather to improve upon nature than to follow
her-to pursue fancy rather than reality. A
woman with nothing on draped after the
manner Of classical Venuses was not anything
like so attractive as the same creature in q
nineteenth century frock. And therefore, he
argued, fashion is an improvement upon ma
ture. But even he admitted that the type to
build upon was not found attired in a modern
ball dress, but in the marble of the old Greek
sculptors. There is the beauty that is abso-
lutte, he would confess; the rest is but pass
ing seduction to the eye, to please which inces-
SAINT change is necessary"
But if ones figure is not the fashion,"
pouted the young girl, lit is none the less dis
tressing."
II don't know about that" rejoined the
dressmaker. Il will venture the liberty of say
ing that agree with your mother and father in
thinking that your figure is admirable. You
have the length Of limb which so many women
lack. although you are not very tall; perhaps
for the reason that you are short you are well
developed, as few tall women in this country
are; your arms are long and straight, aud the
line from the back of your neck to your heels
Is perpendicular, so that you carry yourself
gracefully. Best of all you do not exhibit the
great and almost universal defect of the female
hgure in America-your waist is not too long"
80 you actually regard long waist as a de-
fect'" exclaimed the elder lady in surprise.
TOO LONG WASTED.
From the point of view of art, yes, madam.
The American woman is nearly always too
long wasted, and for that reason chiefly, her
figure is the worst in the world today, while
ia pir are
the most beautiful on EARTH so far features
and complexion go, and yet how few of them
are we'll developed As an evidence of their
structural deficiency you may observe their
surprising want OF health. waist that is over
long, like neck of the 'swan-like' variety, il
a symptom of constitutional weakness"
'And the Greek"
"Greek women. madam, used to make the
waist appear as high as possible by passing a
girdle around just beneath the bust. This gave
the utmost appearance of length to the limbs,
and the lines of the chiffon were made as iow-
ing as practicable. No costume was ever more
becoming-its seductiveness used to be referred
to in those times by advocates of moral purity
as its chief drawback-and it has remained for
$500 years the ideal female dress.'
Il must confess. I'm sorry that it should be
no longer the mode"
"As a dressmaker, madam, I can hardly re-
greet it. The Greek style of garment was too
simple to afford much possibility for big bills
days the making of dress did not cost $40 for
every one dollars worth of material And you
must remember that the costume of today has
this great advantage. that every woman can
look well in it if her dressmaker is good one,
whereas it was not so with the classical attire.
Yonr daughter here would appear admirably a
Ia Grecque, while very many of her friends
would not look 80 we'll. The figures of the
ancient Greek women were somewhat better
than those of American girls in the year 1885,"
Al .1k T.
come back?"
UNDER THE DIRECTORY.
Scarcely. The question Of climate would
have some influence. The nearest approach to
a revival Of it in modern times was seen in
France under the directory. The most in
tensely Greek young woman of the later
centuries was the Understandable 'Merveil-
leuse, or female dude Of that epoch, who wore
a modified Athenian costume, very low in the
neck and diaphanous as to the skirts. Her
male contemporary prototype, termed the
Incroyable,' corresponded to the 'Gommeux'
of Paris today. you know"
II presume SO. And so fashion is hopeless,
you think, esthetically speaking?"
Altogether so. She cannot be driven, you
know. and the fancies she adopts are the purest
freaks. 1t Is not more than a couple of hun
dred years. you will remember, since ladies of
fashion in France wore metal apparatus to pre-
vent the development of the bust from girlhood.
The enormous hoopskirts OF fifty years ago,
which made the wearers look like perambulat-
ing balloons, were not more absurd than the
bustles so recently in style, that seemed to
aim at the ideal Of beauty popular in
Abyssinia, where female, who is SO
over developed in that direction as
not to be able to get up without
assistance after having sat down is regarded as
the highest type of physical perfection. Nor
are any of these insanities more unreasonable
than the notion Of unnaturally elongating the
waist. And there is one thing worth saying
namely, that the men are, a rule. very far
from admiring these ingenious deformities
adopted by the other sex; women may
dress to please the male Of her
species, perhaps, but the creature in pantaloons
is far from approaching her sacrifices to the
mode. II this fact were realized women might
adopt fewer humps and hoopskirts to enhance
her beauty than is now the case"