The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-06-08
A Legend of the Shirt Waist.
[From the Chicago Chronicle.

LFrom the Chicago Chronicle
legend that accounts for the in
vention of the shirt waist runs in this
wise:
once upon time there was a Very
Ugly Girl who was able to do a very
Great Favor for the Highest Priced and
Most Expensive Dressmaker in the
whole World. This Dressmaker, who
was Man, by the way, was looked
upon as the Arbiter of Fashion When
he said that Women should wear humps
on their backs, after the way of the
Camel. the women of the world straight
way either bought or made humps or
his pattern. Once he had said that they
should 1ncaSe themselves in sort or
wire Bird Cage and Immediately they
had declared that these cages were the
most raviShing things ever invented by
their benefactor. Sometimes he made
all women look as if they had been
Hquefled and poured into their clothes
and sometimes it was his caprice to
make them like f1uttering balls of lace
and ribbon. But whatsoever he wi1led
women did.
The Man Dressmaker was very
grateful to the Very Ugly Girl for the
favor which she had done him and he
said: 1 will grant you any wish with
in my power Ask for what you want
most in the world and if it is in my
power 1 faithfully promise to grant it
The Very Ugly Girl asked if she
might think this proposition over for
day and a night. She remembered that
in old fairy tales people always asked
sorry for it afterward. And the Very
Ugly Girl did not intend to be caught
that way.
When she went back to the Man
DresSmaker, the second day after, she
asked him to make her as beautiful as
the most beautiful woman in the world.
for the Very Ugly Girl argued that if
she were very lovely she could easily
get all the other things she coveted.
THE Man Dressmaker frOwned. You
must know, my dear" he began, that
L cannot give you a clear complexion in
place of that dull one, nor a good tuck
in your abundantly cut mouth. 1 can
not take the carroty shine from your
hair, nor make two hairs grow in the
place of one. 1 cannot trim away your
angles or put cushions about your
bones, nor can 1 make your figure lose
the outlines of a sleeve board and take
on the curves of a Paris fashion plate.
but L will do what 1 can for you. Let
me think
THE Man Dressmaker laid his head
in the palm of his right hand and medi-
tated as profoundly as if he had been
seam. I have it, he cried. 'Listen!'
cannot make you positively beau
tiful, but l will do something that will
serve you equally we'll. 1 will design
a garment and I will compel all women
to wear it which will bring the beauti-
full and the hofnely on the same plane.
A man passing on the street and seeing
woman will not be able to decide
whether she is pretty or ugly: she will
merely be to him a unit that represents
one of the women of the world This
garment will hide your angles and also
the curves of the most lovely form. The
collar will be so high that a woman's
neck might be covered with bark and
the world be none the wiser. 1t will be
girt so tight about the waist that the
woman who comes nearest to the cir
conference of a lead pencil will be most
admired. Nobody will look at women's
faces any more. for they will be entirely
Or. ar in, u, l.
waist is cut right and if her scarf is
tied in the correct knot. And we viii
call this garment the Ugly Woman's
Friend or the Shirt Waist
Thus the Man Dressmaker Daid his
debt of gratitude to the Very Ugly Girl
by inventing the shirt waist"