The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-10-05

if all the beautiful women in the United
States have rendezvo@ed in this gay
mile and half. Their gowns and mil
linery are poems. For man suppose
I have always taken extraordinary in.
terest in fashion magazines. Every
week 1 buy one Or two, being particular
~ fond of the London and Paris publ
cations.
Until I visited New York had never
believed the sort of gowns one sees
pictured in the Paris fashion plates had
any real existence. I had supposed
they were fancy pictures, like artists
studies of pretty heads. Yet here they
are, along Broadway, not in specimen,
not in occasional happy imitation, but
in fact and by the thousand, as artistic
and pretty and chic as if they had been
cut out of the fashion plates, enlarged
by some legerdemain to woman's size
and fitted TO women who Rnow how to
wear them. Fittingly to characterize
the gowns and the millinery of Broad
way I shall have to employ the express
sion which I heard woman use, s'They
are dreams"
Broadway gowns and millinery are
worth going miles to see. Broadway
women are worth travelling the world
round to behold. Who are they, what
are they, why are they here2 These are
the queries that come intuitively to ones
mind. But know not. One-half Of
them at least appear to be honest. Many
are actresses. Many more are unclassi-
fed-not living by their wits, as a large
proportion of the men of Broadway do,
but living somehow. No matter what
or who they are, they form a passing
show of beauty. They make up a van
ity fair which one never tires of study
ing.
The more you study Broadway beauty,
however, the greater is your admira-
ton for modern art, for this beauty,
much of it, is the product of art. That
the gowns and the millinery are artistic
I have already noted, but this is only
half the story. The corset maker, work
ing by measurement like an architect
solving problem, has made the form.
The bootmaker has contrived to make
pretty an ugly foot. 1t is in the face
that art has lavished her greatest
genius. Noses have been Strengthened,
their pug ends elongated, their humps
reduced. Moles and wrinkles have been
eradicated or smoothed. The complex
ions, through long courses of treatment,
have been beautifed almost incredibly.
Powder and tints are used, but with
such delicate art that nature is success
fully simulated.
All these things were pointed out to
me by woman who described the proc
esses, who told me that hundreds of
women are earning small fortunes in
New York identifying other women.
The rooms of the cosmetic artists are
crowded. ''Any woman with fairly
decent features and hundred dollars
can become beautiful in New York" So
said my guide.
A case in point. Along Broadway
walked marvelously stylish, fascinat-
ingly beautiful woman. 81 know that
girl said friend of mine; 'sshe is the
wife of theatrical manager. Five
years ago she was country girl in Penn
sylvania. She drove the cows for her
mother, and ] have seen her out bare
footed on frosty morning, stepping in
the place where COW had just been ly
ing to warm her feet. She had red hair,
freckles, a pug nose. Now look at her!"
Such are the triunlphs of art along
Broadway. WALTER WELLMAN.