The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-29

persistently exposing them to the sun
and the wind.
1t was to have been expected. as a
matter of course, that the recoil would
reach the opposite extreme and hence
The fashionable maidens of Newport
are now so pleutifully yelled as to re-
semble lot of Egyptian priestesses or
Persian women. Very little of the face
is left exposed but the mouth, which is
spared in the interest of respiration
and conversation
Without dwelling on the folly of all
ultra usageS, it is. comforting to know
that the fashion of bronzed women has
been called in There is nothing
that stands woman in so great stead
as good skin. And if it is just the
same to the ladies, men like a pink
and white complexion in woman bet
ter than any other kind. 1t is for the
face in which the lily and the rosa
olend that men will make the biggest
fools of themselves. There is always
enough difference. though, in tastes to
give the brunettes a chance, especially
where pains are taken to keep the skin
soft and smooth.
But what men are better suited with
in women than anything else is some
thing as unlike themselves as possible,
and that is why they never cared 50
very much for girls that employed as
great care to make themselves look
brown and mannish as is resorted to in
Alls we'll that ends well. and if the
smart set has taken up the notion that
women are at their best when they look
and appear dainty and feminine it is
certain to spread and there is not much
use to fuss about what is past and
gone. There have been times. though,
when the men have seen the girls going
about with bare heads and arms and
getting themselves in shape to make
their skin look like leather. that the
,aI RI
the memory and pictures of gentle
maidens with fair faces and with long,
slender threats and with soft eyes re-
fleeing what the romantic noVelists
used to call "sensibility.' and with
smooth, glossy hair. and wonder If
such charming visions of femininity
would ever again walk on the earth
Thank heaven for the disappearance
of the sun-burned maiden and for the
hope that the unwomanly woman will
soon be hard to find outside of suffrage
societies and the magazines and pic
ture papers that print Charles Dana
Gibson's square shouldered, square
featured portraitures.
It will make the amateur gown build
ers who have been cutting everything
from their own reception toilets to their
nightgOwns from their favorite shirt
waist patterns howl with rage but in
dications are that the blouse is to be
the tightly fitted bodice. 1t has been
some time since this fashion found ia
vor except with the occasional woman
who never wears anything but tailor
made but it is limited from Paris and
other fashion centers that the fitted
waist is to return. There are evidences
of this in the popularity of the corset
coat and the disappearance of the blouse
from many of the new fall wraps. 1t
really seems a shame for the blouse is
so graceful, so girlish, so simple and so
universally becoming. For time stout
women fought against it from the fool
ish superstition that it made them look
larger but finally they learned what
the artists have been saying for years,
that loose lines concealed the figure,
either in excessive thinneSs or Its dis
tressing embonpoint, and that only the
woman of perfect lines and proportions
should wear a tightly fitted garment.
So little by little the blouse idea spread
and grew and for some years now we
have had nothing else.
Well probably the women are getting
tired of it. After all only so many var
iations in the way of trimming, new
sleeves, new collars and new materials
are possible to any single model and I'M
6oubtedly all of those have been tried.
The plain blouse, the tucked or plated
or emboudered blouse the blouse with
lace inserts and jewelled sequins, the
blouse with bolero or Monte Carlo or
stole effective have had them all Now
there is a demand for something else.
The something else will be the fitted
bodice But take cheer. heart of
grief! Plain lines revealing the figure,
which one has not or has too much of,
and darts and all that sort OF thing
sound awful, but you must remember
that STYLES in corsets have changed
since the tight bodice was with us the
last time and fitted waist over the
new French straight-fronts will be quite
a different thing from the old curving
front ''basques' which we remember as
a hideous nightmare