The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1896-07-09
THE GRECIAN WAIST.

Fashion DEGREES That the Greek
Women Are to BE Taken as Elk
amples. 55s isi 58.t3i
All that writer's of different shades
and abilities, and of both sexes, have
written on the evils of tight lacing by
unthinking women, has had but little
effect during these years. Girls, with
more regard to looks than health, have
gone right on and compressed their
into a twenty or twenty-five inch
measurement regardless Of the conse-
quences. 1t mattered little whether
parents or friends warned them of
stomach, lung, liver or arterial troubles
A small waist was the thing, and 1.-THE
thing" however ridiculous it might be,
they must have. Nor have women be-
You'd the first blush of youth shown
better Judgment. The waist measure
Of woman of fair height is adjudged
to be twenty-eight inches, and physi-
clans and specialists have repeatedly
said that this measurement Of the
waist was actually necessary for the
proper working of the internal organs
But was this statement needed? Not
bit of it. Twenty-Five and twenty
tWo-inch waists continued to be just as
numerous, and so were anatomical
troubles, as some women soon learned
to their misery and realize to their
greater sorrow to-day The warning
of red noses and fiat chests had just
a trifie more effect, but only because
1T appealed to the vanity Of these WON
en-. The measurement was let out an
inch or so, but there the reform stop
ped. The full waist, the comfortable
breathing waist, was a thing yet to be
achieved.
Now, however, fashion herself comes
along, and from her recognized seat of
authority, Paris, has been issued the
edict that she was mistaken when she
counseled wasp's waist for women,
and that, in reality, it is a hideous
thing, and no longer to be counte-
nanced by women who follow her laws.
Hence, all the French dressmakers are
!discountenancing the slender waist.
Fragility in that respect is to be rigidly
avoided, they say and the really lovely
lines of fashions waist are those Of
the Venus de Milo, and Of the Pallas,
and Of the Diana. The Greek women,
these arbiters of fashion claim, must
now be taken as examples and follow
ed. Those women had waists Of per-
feet beauty, these modern clothiers of
women have suddenly discovered, and
the cast of the future waist must be
upon the Greek model. The beauty
and the grace of the lines of the an
Client women Of Greece are now in the
minds of all the Partisan women, and
the reform has not started in any luke
warm fashion, but has suddenly be-
come the watchword and the rigid
law, And so what writer's, doctors
and specialists without number have
been unable to do, Dame Fashion with
one edict has accomplished. Without
stopping to dissect the folly or wis
dom Of the source from which spring
the surest reforms in such a matter as
this, women and men may well con-
graduate themselves that the reform
has occurred, irrespective of how it
happened or whence it came. The
sane, natural waist Of woman is here,
and the hour-glass variety has ceased
to be, except for those women who
choose to be put out Of style. And
that number is not believed to be very
large. The Greek waist is now ''the
thing" and, thanks to the Grecian
women who knew thing or two about
beauty, it is a sensible one.-Edward
w. Box in Ladies Home Journal.