Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-12-24
WOMEN AND CLOTHES
RELATION WITCH FINE RA1MENr
BEARS ToFRIvoLITY.
JIs
Our Sisters Dress Well to Give Pleas
ure to othefESome Go in
for Conquest.

From the London Glob3sqs
We listened the other day to discussion
as to whether women who loved dress were
more frivolous by3 nature than those who
troubled very little about what they WORE
The disputants we're iaFman and a woman.
Is 1t necessary to say that the man was on
the side of the woman who loved dress?
He said that 1t was rather proof OF depth
of nature and keen wish to please by CIV
ing pleasure that made her make a study of
clothes. His own idea was that such a
woman would be charming companion
not because of her pretty things-althougn
they. he affirmed. had a value even from
that point of view-but because of the de-
sire to please that they denoted.
infatuated With Self.
For the woman who views dress from the
issuing forth-to-conquer~ aspect he had no
sympathy. and said that in her case she
usually defeated her own object with sensi-
BILE members of his sex by depending on her
appearance, and being herself so infatuated
with it that she made no, effort to be pleas
ant in accordance with. 1t, but sat up and
demanded admiration. which she received
only from ooys who were cailow or from
men who love to be seen with well-turned-
out woman. The woman's arguments were
well refuted, for she argued about this very
type of her sex-the woman who lives for
clothes Finally the friendly belligerents
met on the ground of nice woman's love
of pretty things and a small-minded wo-
Ing the first and condemning the second.
Both. were also cordially agreed in con-
demning entirely the members of our sex
who affect to despise Dress or even do SO
really. and go about the world describable
only as perfect objects! 1t was quite a
brilliantly conducted little fence of words,
for the man was a weii-known novelist and
the woman playwright and journalist.
Dress May Be an Art.
For our part, we thoroughly agreed with
both OF them. Dress can be degraded into
pure foolishness; and it can be raised into
an art as pleasing ana delightful as-if less
permanently satisfactory than-other arts
Fashion is not art in dress, but it is art to
keep in the sway of fashion and yet never
be inartistic. A few there be who accom-
plish this, but. oh, how many who fail! Fash
ion dictates that skirts are to be full and
short Off go the women whose whole idea
about dress is fashion, and order skirts very
full and short. The results may be all
right, but the chances are ten to one they
will be all wrong. Again, the mandate goes
out that sleeves are to be voluminous from
elbow to wrist, and caught in there in 2
cuff. The foolish fashion follower concen-
trates all her energy on the sleeves being
like this with the result that they are prob
ably grotesquely exaggerated and extreme
ly inconvenient. 1t always seems to me-
too, that the women who draw attention to
what they are enduring fer the sake Of
fashion-a fruitful wayo9 Of attracting atten-
ton to clothes-fefget Jfhat they are also
drawing attention'tto' their own lack of in
tellgence and character. Keep us in the
fashion. should be their; direction to their
modiste, and let us have% to bear as little as
possible. To thenselYss they should say
We have to do t. but let US look right and
say nothing.