Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-08
THE CURTAILED SKIRT.
Correct Length in London for the Holt
day Season.
From the London Mall.


From the London Mall.
The curtailed skirt. with no train to
attract the microbes of the pavement nor
to weary it's wearer's little hands over its
uplifting was promised an uninterrupted
success this season by some OF the tailors.
Its hygienic qualities and its comfortable
properties it was felt would secure 1t
welcome from women. But July Is here,
and the short skirt is only. SO far as Lon
don goes. a rarely vouchsafed vision. Wo-
men evidently have some grievance against
It. What is 1t?
A West End dressmaker declares his sur
prise, not that the short skirt has failed to
arrive, but that any one was foolish enough
to imagine it would until every opportuni-
ty of wearing muslnS Is over. No fimSy
fabric like muslin. which requires flow
ing lines for its perfect naturalization,
can be made short and at the same time
graceful. Moreover. with no short skirt
can a picture hat or a diaphanous blouse
be worn. The two modes are absolutely
antagonistic, for one spells elegance and
the other utility, and both must be eqipped
with ct ceteraS to match.
Trains, then, are as necessary to all tot
lets made for women to wear at cere-
monious affairs as silk hats and frock
coats are the essential items of a mans
Iuli-UTeSS Gay time gaia AZURE. AScol would
have frowned had a short-skirted woman
appeared on the scenes and at Goodwood
there Will not be one. But 1t must be ad-
mitted that the long, wasplike. rat-tail train
has not been made this season.
Rotund effects coming in, and the
correct length for the skirt of woman
whose height is five feet seven inches, and
who is fashionably slim and long-waisted
is in front forty-two inches and at the back
forty-nine inches. There is grace in this
length and grace the sex will have.
Modern Englishwomen approve no violent
changes, but rather feel their way toward
alterations by gradual degrees Therefore
the same women when the travelling season
begins and the opportunity for skirts that
clear the ground arrives will put on a
skirt that measures forty inches in front
and forty-two at the back. 1t will not be
nearly SO curtailed as the skirt donned by
the American globe trotter who boldly cut
hers short as girl of fourteen. and
wore 1t from three to four inches off the
ground all round, but it will nicely clear
the ground and demand no irksome wrist
work to keep 1t from the blemish Of the
roads
The shoemakers are quite ready for the
invasion of the short holiday skirt with
| smart and becoming models. and the hosiers
are likewise on the alert White shoes
have gone out of ia ShiOn, and there is in
deed, not a great demand for colored shoe
leather at present. Even the nut-brown
and the clay-leather summer shoe is in less
request than well-cut laced-up service
able looking black Cromwell shoe or one
with three straps over the ankle to button
There Is always steady demand among
the smart set for biscuit tinted shoes to be
worn with trained muslins and linen frocks
at the German watering places, but the
short skirt, regarded as 1t is as a strictly
unitarian product, is to be borne company
by the black shoe Boots, therefore, are
being far less sold than they were, save for
mountaineering, moor, and like hard work.