The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-04-11
THE ARTISTIC ELEMENT
IN WoMAN's DRESS.
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The reason so many women dress in
artistically is because they do not eX
press their individuality in their
clothes. They allow dressmakers to
deck them out in stiff, heavy mate
rials, to cut up the lines of their fig
ures with trimmings running the
wrong way, and, following the fashion,
spoil the most beautiful curves with
puffs and bags.
The dress of the present day is by
no means to be sweepingly condemned.
We are far ahead of all our grand
mothers back to the Greeks. whose
garments, though perfect aTtiStically,
were i'll adapted except to their own
unique civilization. Indeed one could
hardly contemplate with sober face
the idea of a Greek matron swinging
vigorously on the street cars from our
thawing streets or making her way
around the Masonic temple on a windy
day.
The Elizabethan dress was perhaps
the most artificial ever known. The
directoire and the empire gowns were
suitable and becoming to a few figures.
but hopeless for the majority. Our
colonial dress was attractive but not
graceful, and few will raise a murmur
in favor of the 1880 styles or the erin
oline.
The we'll dressed American woman of
today is the best dressed woman in
the world. Her only rival. the Paris
ian. is inferior in carriage and figure.
Naturally the model on which clothes
are hung is as important as the clothes
themselves. 1T is not so much the
clothes you wear as the proper way to
wear them"
When a woman can possibly get
along without corsets she would bet
ter do it. Exercise and training will
soon give her a corset of her own
which is infinitely more suited to her
figure than the finest French model
she could purchase.
a woman who laces can never be
beautiful. The natural lines of the fig
ure are as absolutely fixed as those
Of the face. To distort is to deform
them. Aside from the considerations
of health. women ought to have
enough feeling for the lovers of beauty
not to indulge in lacing. Nor is it pos
sible for her to deceive anyone save
herself into thinking she does not if
she does.
A beautiful figure IS a great ad-
vantage but good carriage nearly
takes its place. No matter what the
figure may be, if its beauties or pc
gown the result will be better than if
one blindly follows the fashion.
The most important thing in a dress
are the lines. They should always run
up and down the figure, and ought
never to be cut or crossed. As the body
moves the dress falls in diagonal or
straight folds, and the general plan of
the garment, as we'll as the trimming,
should follow these natural indications.
Flowing ruffies and flounces about the
bottom are more universally becoming
than a severe line. The unbecoming-
ness of the Empire gown is proof of
this. Except for the hardest street
wear women ought never to use heavy
materials; nothing is so fatal to grace.
Within the last few years dressmakers
and their customers are beginning to
realize it.
The need of individuality is nowhere
better shown than in the gowning of
the modern wedding party. The bride
herself, having spent much time and
thought upon her dress, usually looks
pretty especially as the excitement
leaves her cheeks flushed, but the poor
maids who follow her. wearing the
gowns which she has designed, not to
suit them but herself, or perhaps one
of the girls, in the majority of cases
looks pale and homely, no matter how
pretty collection of girls they may
ordinarily be.
] am by no means an advocate of
dress reform. so-called. Most of the
attempts of that kind fail from utter
lack of the artistic element in the gar
ments advocated. In her dress and her
home the American woman finds the
best outlet for her artistic instincts,
and her expression should be in no way
checked. From these attempts, which
are often failures, she has and will
further work out benefit to the art of
our nation. Already we hear less of
foreign dressmakers. 1t is no longer
necessary to breathe the immortal
names of Worth or Redfern in order
to give a dress good reputation. The
stage. which is coming more and more
to be an arbiter of fashion, as it used
to be in France, is as a general thing
a patron of home talent. Most of the
gowns used in the New York produc-
| ton of plays where the costuming is
one of the important factors are made
in that city.
ACTRESSES STUDY ART OF
DRESSING.
Actresses, above al women, have
learned the art of artistic dress. While
ruled to a certain degree by the pre-
vailing fashion, their gowns never fail