Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1903-11-12
DRESS REFORM
II Gains Ground Slowly

annual beauty show Of women
Prizes are bestowed not only
for comeliness Of face and
grace Of figure, but likewise for taste.
fulness in dress. The illustration here
given shows the two young ladies' who
won first and second prizes. The one
with the dark face and the high crown
ed black hat was No in the award
She is a Spanish girl named Carmen
cita Alvarez. The girl with the fiat,
light hat won the second prize She is
q French woman, Lydia de Roston.
The costumes of the two ladies were
especially commended for their artistic
beauty. They are, Of course, indoor or
carriage gowns. not to be worn for
walking.
IF you notice the two women you will
see that neither is pinched in extraor-
dinarily at the waist; neither is the
kangaroo back, straight front corset
figure emphasized rather the reverse.
1t does begin to look as If the dress
reform idea, so long hammered at BY
artists, hygienists, preachers and sensi-
Bile women, were at last making its
way. The horrible high peg heels and
unclean. trailing skirts are now never
seen upon the street on well dressed
women. The comfortable walking shoe
and the walking length skirt are the
thing 1t took quite twenty years of
agitation ere women awakened to the
harm done to farm and garden by the
destruction of birds for the adornment
Of their hats. Then parrots, crows,
pheasants and young roosters or what
ever they were seemed to disappear
suddenly as ornaments for head cover
ings. Long, beautiful ostrich plumes
that may be taken from the bird with
out destroying its life are the thing.
They say that English sparrows' stuff
ed bodies, dyed any color wanted, will
be worn also because sparrows are a
nuisance anyhow.
1t is curious that in Germany women,
in France men, are attacking in wom-
ans costume those twin relics of a
semibarbarous age, the yiselike corset
and the long, filth and poison collecting
trailing skirt in the street a famous
French writer, M. Marcel Provost,
takes hand in the affair by writing in
a leading Paris paper a long article de-
handing for women in the name of the
human race corset that does not con-
fine lungs, heart, stomach or diaphragm
and skirt that does not sweep the
streets. NJ MARCEL revost's paper in
tensified discussion already lively in
Paris.
If leading French dressmakers, mas
culine and feminine, really set them
selves to the deyising of something
that will take the place Of the corset
and at the same time not injure wom-
ans body the battle will be won for
healthful dress. Whatever anybody
continues earnestly to try to do will
finally be DONE
For our hustling, practical age some
thing midway between the ancient
Greek draperies that suggest only re-
pose and the long, ugly tight waist of
the middle ages, suggesting the days of
woman's utter repression, is needed.
So far as we have attained in seeking
for a perfect feminine costume nothing
seems better for foundation than the
American combination undergarment,
all in one piece from shoulder to knees
for warm weather, from wrist to ankles
for cold.
For hose supporters some ladies wear
braces or suspenders of wide braid
I. over the shoulders, confined by loose
band or belt that passes around the
body just below the bust and arms.
To this are attached the stocking sup
porters. For the lower limbs in cold
weather either equestrian tights or fan
mel boomers are drawn over the com
bination underwear. These tights or
boomers may be held around the waist
by an elastic band run into case at