The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-08

PHILADELPHIA Times.

Philadelphia Times.
Now TO the observer who ~foresees a COM
ing or a growing need, and can read the
future to some slight extent the question,
What next?" has it's Interests. In the
''Watteaus' days women either drove
from place to place or stepped only upon
well-kept laws or ponshed floors, or else if
they were the workers their dress was so
scant and uncertain as to be a matter of no
import. There were satin slippers and bare
feet, with sometimes a straw-stuffed wood
en- shoe as a means.
If hats were the fashion they were worn
indoors as we'll as out; they were merely
head dresses. The world was playing with
itself and enjoying the game, but to-day
things are different.
The old-time ~courtier is our twentieth
century business man now, and the daugh-
tiers of the court bellies of the past to-day
are going into the business world as well.
We have business women and their bust
ness needs in the way of dress to be con-
sidered, and they have reeded considara-
ton for some years, but little has been
done.
There is our shirt waist girl, a per-
meets the requirements of the day.
a a"' suf a I IS in n many the ways rsS' from Ga the the
fact that she needs a costume % for her
Just think of the poor women during this
last rainy weather. Nothing IS SO horrid,
woman with untidy skirrs. How disrep-
utable to hold up a black dress and dis
play a black white skirt beneath. Still
it is only fair to say that the skirt may
have been worn but fer a short quarter
of an hour, and the excuse for wearing it
at all is that if the busy woman must walk
cooler thar any other and can most easily
be made clean after SHE gets home. Still
she looks perfectly horrid."
1t IS not all a matter of looks either.
She is wet; she has six yards of dress skirt
and some three yards of underskirt to hold
up out of the rain, and it is simply impos-
sible for her to accomplish it. AS the rain
comes down and then splasheS up again
surely she is more to be pitied (and laughed
at, too) than the proverbial wet hen"
1t is simply ridiculous, the rainy-day cos
tune of woman. and it is murderous as
well, but what is she to wear in place of
an accepted c%ity-length skirt? A skirt Just
to the ankles" is the most unbecoming
thing any woman ever put on. She looks a
regular Sawed off, in it, and it does not
answer the purpose either. 1t must be
lifted up and down the car steps and over
curbs and cutters. She has lost her grace
and gained nothing by it In return.
Even in good weather the business wom-
an is q. victim of her clothes. She has no
pockets, yet she needs pencils and papers.
She must walk for miles and always under
an q n extra pressure res IRE . If f. the T t;1med tb blows 5
sailboat to make head against the breeze,
for in our streets She cannot tack. over
dust and dirt she must either carry her
skirts or let them drag. She, the person
who should be the synonym of dainty neat
ness, but perforce is-Well, much more I'M
tidy than a man ever need be. L know
women who rush home every night miser-
able until they get their bath. and others
who are so placed that the bath must wait
until they play housekeeper
What is the remedy? When will the need
break through the custom and add to our
list of special costumes a business costume
for women tina shall add to her power,
health and so to her looks? She won't hob
BILE on and off cars ana spill everything in
her hands for men to pick up again when
she has feedOm to move, ana pockets leave
her hands free to assist her.
We all know the need and lots has been
talked of to help us. but no one yet knows
what will supplant the present long skirt in
the city street. In the house we love it.
Our 'house dress' will never change, we
hope, for art delights in its possibility in
folds and lines; but in the street, lodging
carts, jumping over mud, going in and out
OF offices the long house dress is not salts
factory to the cultivated taste of this utili-
tartan age. There is a demand for a pretty
appropriate dress for our business women.
The a demand has been made and met
ia regard to every other department of life
so far as. her dress is &C accrued. with some
odd results, and so it is that with a sort of
whimsical interest in the question we ask
What next?