Evening journal., 1893-02-06
HOW FAsAIoNs AaE LAuNcAep.
Popular Actresses Arc the Bcst Agents for
Starting New Style.

Popular Actresses Arc the Best Agents for
Starting New style.
On the whole 1t might be found that the
most profitable ''blockn which could be sub
sidized by dressmakers and milliners Is the
actress in vogue who shines pre-eminently
IN modern comedy or modern vaudeville.
In such pieces as la Famille Benoiton,"
"Le Monde on pon s'Amuse" and Lies
femmes Fortes" some Of the lady members
Of the company, who wore as many as three
or four costumes in the course Of the even
ing-dresses made from the costliest mate
rials and coniected with the most exquisite
taste-served, perhaps, as better advertise
ments than If they had been only beheld
for a few hours and at irregular intervals
in the Bois, on race course or at some fash
ionable concert or bazar.
The "mannequinn Of the stage is NOV
able: the ladies in the boxes and the gen
tlemen in the stalls can criticise the dress
from every point Of view, and decide
whether the corsage and the train equaled
OF surpassed the bodice and petticoat seen
from the front. Even the plebeian element
in the audience is pleased and melted to
emulation by the spectacle of these daz-
zling and strictly up to date costumes, and
when the dresses are associated with the
names Of justly fayorite actresses a stamp
Of approval is at once given to the dress
making establishment, to which cunning
paragraphs in the newspapers never fail to
draw attention.
Nevertheless it must be well understood
that the mere putting Of a dressmaker's
business by supply tasteful costumes to la
dies and actresses, who wear them on the
understanding that they are not to pay for
them is not in Paris, at least, the sole
method by which widely spread fashiona-
BILE acceptance can be obtained by the art
lists in costume. The 'maunequinu or
"blocz" system is very old one in a modish
sense, and has been applied In bygone times
to dandies as well as bellies Beau Brum-
nell was never called upon, so the scandal
mongers of three generations since used to
whisper, to pay for a coat, or a hat or q
pair Of boots. He had but to name his tail
or, his halter or his bootmal1er in ordinary.
and the grateful tradesman, TO whose shop
crowds OF would be beaus had resorted, was
not only too glad to let his "mannequin"
have his equipments fornothing, but would
also occasionally present him with a check
for q good round sum.
As q matter of fact. however, when the
poor beau collapsed financially and had to
take refuge at Calais, it was found that
among the creditors who had hunted him
out of England were whole brigades of
tailors and other tradespeople Precisely
the same calumny, Of having acted as a
tailor's block, used to be circulated, and
probably with about the same infusion of
truth in it, concerning Count Alfred dor
say, who between 1880 and 1910 was unde-
niably the lender of London fashions for
gentlemen, as the great Stultz and the
greater Nugee were the acknowledged mon
archs Of the kingdom of tailory.
AS respects the launching of fashions for
ladies 1t is not improbable that well known
names, whether they be aristocratic, opera
tic or dramatic, render very signal service
in enabling successive types Of the good
ship" Fashionable Frivolity walk the
waters like so many things Of life, but be-
fore fashion can be launched it must be
built, and before it is constructed it must
be devised, and il not absolutely invented
it must be skillfully adapted from some
bygone mode.-London Telegraph.