Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-05-24
Written for THE EVENING srAa
DRESS FOR STYLE AND COMFORT.
What Women Want and Ought to Know
About Dressmakinx.

What women Want and Ought to Know
About Dressmaking.
STRICTLY CORRECT STYLES FOB STREET GOWNS
THE NEW ENGLISH BLAZER. sUITs-HousK
FASHIONS - BLACK GOWNS AND HOW THEY
SHOULD BE MADE.
HERE isn't half the pleasure buying
~ sN1gowns when one has plenty OF
Wsq Nv money, says shrewd woman with .
pretty good notion OF both sides OF
~ the subject. ''The interest comes in
when you have Just enough to get what you
want by drawing literally on continuance and
taste. For myself, grow tired reading about
opulence cannot hope to have. The fashion
articles treat Of too unlimited gorgeousness
for anything below servant girls imagination,
who seldom find flights too extravagant to
please them. I wish somebody would write
for women who wish to look as well as the best
on ordinary allowances" 1t isn't impossible to
look as well-not to dress as well absolutely,
but to make as satisfactory an effect-on m UGH
less money than rich women spend, if one has
strict taste, command Of shopping sense and
is clever at her needle. Three-fourths of the
cost of dresses from frst-class houses goes for
the making, not the material. There is just
than the higher criticism or Swedish gymnas-
tics, and that is dressmaking. Every girl
should be laugh thoroughly how to plan a
dress and finish 1t in correct style, for good
dress makers are scarcer than saints, and
hone st ones far more so.
Not to tell the wearying novelties of style,
but to select the best points is a pleasing mat
ter. The gown for the street. rich or PLAIN, is
OF wool, silk being left to the dowagers out OF
doors. well-chosen wardrobe will have a Sc
-
mohair and the drap d'ete, most useful and
welcome of fine goods. Each material has its
own special mode for making and its own ac-
compartments of hat and gloves for correct
dress.
CHEvIoTs FOR MORNING.
Begin with cheviot check for mornings and
shopping. There are fifty patterns of cheviot
in small plaids, but one will restrict the choc o
to shepherds check in gray and white, dead
leaf, fawn or stone color, with creamy white,
crossed perhaps with a bar of faint yellow
old pink or indigo, or a thread ofless indefinite
blue, red or amber. Let the red checks and
blue checks and heliotrope severely alone, as
they fade, for one thing, and they never look
quite right for the other. A smart suit in
cheviot has the skirt all round in fat box pleats
or with gathered straight drapery in the back,
with jacket and plain vest of thick glossy silk,
or plain surah blouse. gathered at throat and
belt. No fancy stitching, no trimming Of any
sort, but the pleats of the skirt pressed in
sharp folds, as if laid by straight edge, and
stitched firmly to tapes all around. so that no
winds can blow them out of place. Ready
made gowns are seldom satisfactory in this
spect and second-rate dress makers have a
pleasing fiction that slackly secured folds are
more artistic, which is tolerable and not to be
endured in a cloth gown. The little linen col
lar and small soft silk tie go with this, or the
revers are thrown back to show linen or silk
shirt, or the high silk vest always advisable On
cool days.
FAvORITK WALKING DRESS.
One Of the most convenient and nattiest of
suits for the street. the English blazer costume.
is made Of blue serge or summer cloth in
black, marine or blue-black shades. It is
strictly town dress in its trim plainness and
style, but will be the favorite walking dress of
the season wherever seen. The skirt, abso-
lutely plain, is laid in the broad pleats which
give the best lines to the height and the
jacket with fitted back and loose front is ad-
Unstable to be worn open above the chest but
ton and fall together below, or loose to show
the silk blouse and sash which girdles the
waist The outlines are perfect, not an inch of
superhuous material in the whole thing, and
the jacket has as few seams as a garment can
be shaped by. These "blazer" suits as they
are called because worn with the washing silk
blouse and sash under the jacket. are the
easiest models for novice at dressmakinp
BY the way, the greatest helps for home dress
makers are the paper models, which are exact
duplicates OF full costumes in color. drapery
and trimming, in miniature about ten inches
in height. with full size patterns accompa any,
Ing. With these a woman can see just how
every fold and gather Is laid and every line of
trimming and hem. 1t is absolute pleasure to
fashion costume by the help of these clever
models, which reduce the work Of making the
intricate looking gowns Of the mode to COM
parative simplicity.
BLACK GOWNS.
The black dress, indispensable to every Iady's
outfit and more becoming than any il properly
made, is henrietta, batiste 10th, which looks
like fine firm canvas with substan ce and light
ness. the silky camel's hair twill, which repels
dust and wears better than any less expensive
fabric or the drap dete coming in favor again.
For these gowns the front width is almost in
variably draped, the sides in fat, shallow box
pleats or the wide panel pleats, taking in half
the width OF the skirt to pleat, giving the
simplicity of the plain English skirt without
show lengths OF fine silk passementerie without
beading or fine cord embroidery between the
pleats
Black cashmeres have skirts with side pleats
meeting in front and full gathered back, each
pleat having two-inch gros grain ribbon
stitched down its length, with three loops at
the front This trimming is not new this year,
but the effect is too good to be laid aside.
Other cashmeres and summer fannels have
the pleats striped with fine soutache, three
quarters OF an inch apart, and these simple
trimmings freshen gown in its second season
very we'll. ACCORDION pleatins is too pretty to
be quite given up, but is seen more in white
dresses. lace and childrens wear The fine
pleats an inch wide have really the same effect,
and wear endlessly. II they are plenty of
work to make they lengthen the wear of a
skirt three times as much as the plain fashions.
But to look well these pleats must be stitched
to the foundation invisibly, as the three rows
of machine stitching visible across the skirt
which usually holds them il place takes away
all the grace of the fine work. These black
gowns of substance are needed at the north
till late, occasionally cool days In summer and
are the first resumed in fall SO that their style
should be assured enough for long season.
THE THINNER WOODS,
batiste, veilings and delaines are made in the
straight rather full skirt, with hens and rib
bon trimmings, or tucks and hemstitchings, or
insertions of the fine passementerie which is
little less light than lace, but more substantial.
The netted fringe is we'll used with the firmer
of these fabrics sewed to the edge of the skirt,
and falling over a five-inch foot pleating-the
only way yet seen when when it looks well.
The fringe should leave two inches of the
pleating below it clear. The wool skirts are
finished with rows of gros grain ribbon gradu-
ated from three inches to three-quarter inch,
the trimming reaching almost to the knee Grad
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