Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-01-24
AMERICAN GIRLS WAISTS.

An Artistic Dressmaker Says They Are
Too Long to Be Ideal.
81 particularly want you to cut the dress
80 that it will make my waist look as long as
possible said the plump young damsel, as
she threw over her head and dimpled shout
ders the skirt of her walking costume SIT
hes always been my greatest grief that
nearly all the girls / know have longer waists
than In
by always" interposed her mother, smy
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
exquisite, is defective in that respect"
''Oh, mammal exclaimed the maiden, and
was going on with speech of protest, when
the dressrnalzer interrupted her.
why, madame" said the latter as she
folded up the airy fabric of silk and lace just
tried on, there is not necessarily any rela-
ton 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
fattening it out, swelling it up like balloon,
der it moro symmetrical; but it is not to be
supposed on that account that the ideal is
subject TO alteration"
And one is 80 find the ideal, 1 suppose, in
what the artists, who are such awful bores
rs a rule, call the antique"
Better there than anywhere else, madame
The Frenchman who instructed NE in my art
used to say that the function of fashion was
10 sba
her-to pursue fancy rather than reality. A
woman with nothing OF or draped after the
manner of classical Venuses was not any
thing like so attractive as the same creature
in Nineteenth century frock. And, there
fore, he argued, fashion is an improvement
upon nature But even he admitted that the
type 70 build upon was not found attifed in
modern ball dress, but in the marble of the
old Greek sculptors There is the beauty that
is absolute, he would confess; the rest is but
a passing seduction to the eye, to please
which incessant change is necessary"
But if ones figure is not the fashion,"
pouted the young girl, tbs none the less dis
tressing"
Il don't know about that rejoined the
dressrnaker. Il will venture the liberty of
saying that agree with your mother and
ldIueI IL LuluhlIlG Ludt tOu uEuIe ID aOi1llI d
bic. You have the length of limb which SO
many women lack, although you are not very
tall; perhaps for the reason that you are
81 vt you are well developed, as few tall
women in this country are; your arms are
long and straight, and the line from the back
of your neck to your heels is perpendicular,
SO that you carry yourself gracefully. But
best of all you do not exhibit the great and
al 5afa oft
In America-your waist is not too long"
$50 you actually regard a long waist as
defect!7 exclaimed the elder lady in sur
prise.
From the point of view of art, yes,
madame. The American woman is nearly al
ways too long wasted, and for that reason,
chiefly, her figure is the worst in the world
today, while her face is the prettiest Amer
lean girls are the most beautiful on earth, so
far as features and complexion so, and yet
how few of them are well developed. AS an
evidence of their structural deficiency you
may observe their surprising want of health.
A waist that is overlong like neck of the
swan ike variety, is symptom OF consti-
tutionai weakness"
And the GTeekn-
Greek women, madame, used to make the
waist appear as high as possible by passing
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 flowing as practicable. No costume was
ever more becoming-its seductiveneSs used
to be referred TO in those times by advocates
of moral purity SIS its chief drawback-and it
has remained for $500 years the ideal female
dress. w ashingeon Star.