The record-union., 1897-01-10


opening season, the special features
which stand out from all the details
of dress are the elegance of fabric, the
sumptuous coloring, the daring COM
tinations, exquisitely rich and beauti-
Ful trimmings, and the increasing
tendency toward elaborate and fanci-
full methods of fashioning garments.
Something appears to have been bor-
rowed from almost every century and
every country and each recurring sea-
son seems TO SurpaSs the preceding one
in point of magnificence and variety in
design, and there is not the slightest
Indication that there is to be in time
TO come a lesser degree of elegance,
quality or quantity. One of the spe-
cial feature of the seasons modes is
the use of velvet for entire gowns,
wraps, waists, bolero jackets, bodice
trimmings and countless modes Of
ccmbination which make it so popular.
Silks, moires and brocades are in high
est vogue and most active demand,
and furs of every elegant grade and
Quality have developed capabilities of
elegance and style in shape, cut and
adjustment which have never prevailed
before. Garnitures were never SO novel
and magnificent, and superb winter
garments are beaded, jeweled and fur
trimmed elaborately enough for the
wear of queens and princesses; and
laoes have reached a point of elab-
oIateness and exquisite artistic beauty
hitherto unknown i'm the manufacture
of these lovely woven dreams.
The dress skirt bids fair to more than
rival the bodice in excess of elabora-
tion, and the elegant simplicity which
not long ago was conspicuous in wo-
mans attire has new almost entirely
vanished. The tailors happily are re-
turing to that severity of cut charac-
feriStic of their earliest achievements
as woman's tailors. The coat and
skirt are now as they used to be, plain
and simple, the sleeves reduced to al
a'ost the dimensions of the close-fitting'
coat shapes of long ago. There is no
redundancy of basque. 1t fits close. 1t
is Ieither very long nor absurdly short;
its frilliness has quite disappeared; the
Tevers are neatly shaped. The skirts
are moderate in width, with the full
ness kept we'll to the back. Concession
ITO the prevailing craze for elaboration
is apparent only in the stylish vests
which accompany handsome tailor
gowns.
Women with an Unborn taste for beau
tiful things, but with no extensive means
of gratifying it, are this season more
than ever tempted by brilliant display
of inferior limitations of very many of
the splendid fabrics and garnitures now
the rage-spangled decorations, velvets,
furs, ribbons, fancy jewelry, jet, feath-
ers, etc. Simple articles of wear that
are genuine are always a far better
choice than elaborate limitations of the
riches. A meretricious style never COM
mends admiration, and inferior goods
quickly betray their quality. Best ma
terial with longer wear is the safest rule
for those who have not been overblessed
by fortune. But, while holding out a
warning against the purchase of second
rate material, it is not to be understood
that there are no valuable and beautiful
fabrics and trimmings that are not high
priced. Never has there been an age or
a year in history where so much that
is genuine and really desirable could be
purchased at so low a price as now. 1t
sented for choice for real valuable tex
tiles that is the secret and point of this
matter. 1t is not necessary for the
woman of modest means, who loves. for
instance, dainty laces, to select a poor
imitation of a real handmade design.
The stores everywhere provide her with
beautiful fancy laces that initiate
nothing, but appear upon their own
charming, attractive merits, laces pro-
duced by almost miraculous intricate
machine processes-delicate of pattern,
dainty as a cobweb and beautiful
enough in effect to satisfy any but a
critic lavish of means and so prodigal of
money and the rarities it can provide
that nothing in the world is quite right
or quite good enough for satiated tastes.
No, there is a very great difference be-
tween the meretricious materials which
tempt so many women and those which
are inexpensive yet desirable and beau
fiful, and one has only to make holi-
day tour of our stores, now so brilliantly
and temptingly arrayed, to perceive
with her own eyes this particular differ
ence and distinction.
Red In every tone and semi-tone is in
high fashion this winter. not only as a
ororninena accessory, but forming en-
tire gowns. wraps, and head-coverings.
Formerly American women employed
this color with greatest caution, and left
red to be lavishly and arrtistically used
bv the French All that is changed, and
the gay PaTdsienne is no more prodigal
with aggressive colors than we-only,
a French woman knows intuiuyely how
TO mix and mingle her tones. She never
adopts a color for very long time, and
she never wears the same gown long
enough to have it bear its date or tire
the eyes of her contemporaries. A
French woman keeps alert. vigilant. in
terested pace with Fashion IN all her
flights. but many of our countrywomen
and nearly all English women are apt
10 toll in the wake of that errauc deity.
Some of the new princess gowns are
rendered most picturesque by their