The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1889-12-28

| iish for a decade, Russian for a year,
and now we're to be Oriental at least for
few weeks.
I've forgotten who set the fashion.
It's most likely that half a dozen
women who brought the robes home
| from the Exposition began to be on dis
play at smalland- earlies, afternoon
| teas and informal Sunday evenings in
| the grotesque but strangely graceful
designs Of dragons, leaves, tendrils and
winged creatures disporting themselves
on satin petticoats and on wide soft
scarfs or "kiminos" of crepe de Chine
at about one and the same point OF
time
The japanese dinner robe Is still in dis
pute. Some say it is too unconventional.
! The Japanese reception dress has estab-
lished its position. About the japan
csc tea gown there has never been any
question. 1t has come to stay-until
there shall arise more novel novelty.
| All these Eastern garments on the
simon pure Japanese model differ very
little. To all intents and purposes
| they are one and the same gown. The
only question is to how many uses can
the New World put the marvellous
beauty OF texture and the matchless
Orientals. AS made up for New York
fashionables, however, the japanese
STYLE is often mixed more or less har-
moniously with Greek and Roman
ideals, the result being hybrid style,
sometimes piquant, sometimes merely
eccentric, which begins to meet the
eve on almost all occasions.
The Japanese dress pure and simple
may be illustrated by an example
which | saw worn yesterday by young
married woman. the sister Of we'll
known and popular hostess, at an after
noon tea The lady is of slight figure
and below the medium height, with
clear brown complexion, warmed with
a glow in the cheeks and spark in the
long brown eyes which, somehow, with
out any marked popularity of shape,
suggest, like Jane Hading's, an Eastern
origin. She held her little court in
what people are pleased to call this
winter Japanese corner, reclining
! among cushions covered with beasts
and strange fowl, fan with flight OF
sketchy cranes winging across 1T In one
hand, Japanese tea cup in the owner,
screen from Toxic on one side and cabi-
net Of bric-a- brac from Yokohama a
little behind.
AS she Leaned DdCk Oh ltT COuCH JOu
would have said at first glance she was
wrapped in shawl, so completely en-.
veloping was the soft delicate scarf OF
that thin, handwoven, Japanese red
crepe, the tint and texture of which
are rapidly becoming familiar to every
one This scarf, or kimino, as she
would mu ch prefer you to call it, was
laid about the shoulders and folded
across the bosom, leaving a narrow V.
| Long folds of it hung over tho arms Civ
| ing it the effect of mantle that might
slip off at any time. In real truth, as
you saw when she rose to set her cup on
! a table, the loose draperies were fast
! ened to the shoulders and shirred closely
| in the back at the waist line, the am
| Pile folds depending from the arms only,
! giving Vatican effect when looked at
| from behind and then falling in slight
train over the under gown, the entire
effect being produced from one wide
| straight strip of crepe. scarcely cut OF
shaped at all, but cieverly arranged as
draperies to the real gown below.