The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-11-22
BOOM FOR KNEE BREECHES.
Trousers and swallow-Tai1 Coats
Must Go.

New York Press: Just about this sea-
son every year the optimistic tailors
launch a little boom for knee breeches
to be worn with evening dress. Here
tofore the movement has been fostered
by custom tailors solely, but this fall
the matter has been taken up by some
of the large clothing houses, who be-
lieve they have the real thing in booms
at last.
One claim advanced for the adoption
of knickerbockerS as dress garments
has the element of being novel. The
chief objection to them heretofore has
been that we have been such an i'll
developed race that to show our legs
to the public gaze would be too severe
a shock. But now the advocates of
knee breeches declare we have grown
to be such an athletic race that our
legs may be displayed with impunity.
OF course the adoption of the style
would effectually prevent guests from
being COMPOUNDED with the servants,
since the knee breeched "Jeems" is not
cOmman article in this country as
yet. And the element of cheapness
suggested by the dealer adds consider
ably to the attractiveness of the
scheme. This is the way he put it:
"Of course you know the merchant
tailors have made desperate attempts
to induce their customers to wear
something besides the funereal waiter
suit for evening dress. There is very
| little for tailorS in dress suits, for GUS
toners wear them so long that the
average man orders them only once in
! two or three years. and the fashion in
dress suits has not changed appre-
| Gladly in ten or fifteen years. But the
cientage of the merchant tailors has
not been large enough to enable them
! to make any impression on the gen.
cral public, and men have gone on
wearing the standard dress suit. The
only innovation in this line successfully
introduced has been the dinner coat
Tennis, golf and bicycling have
however, in the last three or four years
made the wearing of knickerbockers'
so common that they no longer occa-
sion remark Men who would not for
any amount have appeared on the
street in bicycle 'knickers' a few years
! ago now wear them as a matter of
course in the most public way, and it
will require no more hardihood to wear
knee breaches in a ballroom than on
the street.
las to the old-time attire being suit
able for ball room, there can be no
question. Dancing is much more
| violent exercise than wheeling, and a
sensible man does not wish trousers
Tapping around his ankles when dane
| ing. Again, knee buckles and silk
stockings give man an air of distinc-
ton he never can have when wearing
| trousers, and render it impossible to
mistake him fo~ a waiter.
One reason why men would not take
UP the fashion of wearing knee
breeches was that Americans were
formerly thin and scrawny and had
poorly developed legs. Athletics and
wheeling have changed all that The
average man now has legs he need not
be ashamed of, and moreover the man
who wears a dress suit is usually a
man who is well fed and tolerablv
prosperous, and who has some flesh Oh
his bones.
.Of course. we have looked out for
the question of expense. Formerly
knee breaches for men were made
only to order and were expensive. Now
there are thousands of expert makers
of these garments, and the knee
breeches can be made for So. Suitable
stockings can be sold for 81, and patent
leather pumps for So. So it would cost
the average man only 50 to change
from trousers to the costume of Wash
ington.
'Oh. YOU will see the new-old fash
ion catch on, and what's more, when
swallow-tail coats wear out. you will
see long dinner coats replace them, SO
that by 1900 evening dress will consist
of dinner coat, Waistcoat, knee
breeches, silk stockings and pumps"