The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1894-10-04
AVOLUMINOUS SKIRT.
A GOWN WHICH CONTAINS A HIN
pRED YARDS OF FINEST SILK.

DRIED YARDS OF FINEST SILK.
How the Girl Who Does a Serpentine Dance
ON the Stage Has Her Performing Dress
Constructed-HowS She Manipulates the
Wonderful Garment.
Scene-A large bare room containing
piano. it's stool and two chairs. On the
stool sat the pianist. In one chair sat an
elderly. ladylike woman. In the middle OF
the bare floor stood handsome girl, pant
ing. She seemed to be in the condition OF
a person who has run half a mile as tight
as she could 60 She was bareheaded and
wore the simplest looking sort of dress OF
china silk. Never was dress waist more
plainly made or skirt with less ornament.
Few who could have seen that dress would
believe what was true about it, for it was
one of the most remarkable garments that
ever woman put on.
If that girl. dressed as she was, had been
standing In front of The Sun Office and two
men had taken hold of her skirt, on oppo-
site sides, to pull one way or the other, one
man could have gone to the Brooklyn bridge
and the other to The Times building before
girl feel that she was being pulled. II she
had stood in front of the city hall and two
persons had tried to stretch her skirt as far
as it would go, they would have made it
form a wall of silk in front of that noble
building And yet when the girl reached
home she could take off the dress and crowd
it into high silk hat.
The girl was what is known as ''serpen-
4laA f,,o
skirt 1t was made of the lightest silk that
the Asiatic looms can produce. The dress
maker who fashioned it had to make it as
the cover of an umbrella is patterned Many
lengths of silk of the full width were cut at
the right length to fall from the girls waist
to the ground. Then each of these pieces
was cut into the shape of wedge, the bot
tom being of the full width and the top of
each wedge being only 2 inches wide where
it was to be sewed to the waistband. All
these 2-inch ends were then gathered, )"
or puckered as man would say, upon the
waistband, so that they took up as little
space as possible and left room for a very
great many pieces.
The result was that the dressmaker hung
upon the waist of that girl of ordinary
size no less than 100 yards of silk, and the
bottom of the dress was SO big that if a
gust of wind came and blew it up into what
the little girls call cheese it would
make circle of 30 yards circumference.
Some of these dresses have measured IS
yards and consequently could be pulled
S21s feet away from the wearer on either
side of her before there would be any strain
on the silk.
These dresses worn by the few women
who are doing the serpentine dance just
now vary greatly in the quantity of silk
they use up. Some are 25, some are 35 and
some are SO yards in length around the
hem. The serpentine dance scarcely needs
describing. 1t should not be called as it is,
for there is more of smoke action or cloud
piling than of serpent motion about it.
The dress figures more than the dancer in
this pretty movement. The dancers
action, if she were in tights without skirts,
would be awkward and even grotesque,
for it is her business to run and stand and
rise and sink without much heed to the
music.
1t is with her hands and arms that she
keeps concert with the time" of the dance
music The dance is a dance of the arms.
But over her arms and with her hands she
keeps throwing the voluminous looseness
of her skirt this way and that until its full
ness piles up in soft cloudlike masses that
rise and fall, reappear and disappear as
smoke rolls up from a green wood fire. The
limelight man in the gallery bathes the
dancer in constantly changing colored
lights, and the people see her as if she was
dancing among clouds. The great, soft
bosomlike puffs of silk follow and chase
one another necessarily. They flee from
her as if she were a goddess of the sky from
whose body the fleecy riders of the air were
issuing. At times she churns the clouds
above her head and is lost to view among
them. Again she beats them down about
her feet Suddenly the strong light is ex-
tinguished, and she disappears as if she
had turned herself into vapor and blown
away.
Some tutors teach this dance of the arms
without the use of the dress. They call
that into play only when the student has
mastered the graceful art of swaying her
arms in true rhythm. Others-and this is
true of the best theatrical dancing teacher
in town-allow girl to do nothing until
she dons her queer dress, so Ikea collapsed
balloon that is to be blown up into the
semblance of a thousand f1eeting bubbles
of silk. The dance was an instantaneous
success in New York, and at once several
talented girls and women began to learn it
in order to introduce it in the country.
They went upon the road in fear and trem
bling. They thought it was sure to go be
cause there is nothing immodest in it, and
it is pretty, but they were not certain.
The worst of it was that country audiences
applauded very little or not at ALL How
ever, the new dance was success, and the
demand for china silk by the bale now
gladdens the hearts of the importers.
York Sun.
''She's Agoin Better Tonight
The fair Decima Moore was singing her
principal solo in 1.-THE Wedding Eve" the
footlights being down to give play to the
lime And one limelight man in the flies
was heard to remark to another:
''She's agoin bit better tonight, Bill"
1T was just time, too," growled the
other. Monday night she was something
awful"
''She's all the better since l stuck a hair
pin into her last night" rejoined the first.
Burning with Indignation, gentleman
who had overheard these remarks sought
the manager.
"Oh, it is all right" said he after hear
ing the charge. "They were talking of the
imelight apparatus, which has been rather
troublesome lately. "-Exchange
Lavender.
Our fashions are French. but the new