The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-16
OUR MODES FROM JAPAN.
4 CRAZE FOR EASTERN ART IN
 THE FASHION WORLD.
Rich stuns From the OrIent-Cherry and Hawthorn Blossoms and Dragons in the Decoration of Frocks.

faicn StuHs From me Orlent-Ouerhy
 and Hawthorn Blossoms and Dragons
 in the Decoration of Frocks. It has taken a war between the great est nations Of the East to make New York girls see the tremendous import ance of Japanese art to American fashions.
 If dress is more than a general culti- vated modest attitude toward the word land personal discovery that possibly
 blue. possibly red. isn't becoming; if line and color are going to count-in
 other words, if art is going to enter in,
 then why up to now has Japan been
 forgotten?
 Women who dress Interestingly usu- Ially express some quality of themselves lin their clothes. Now it is utterly ira- possible to do and understand the rela- i ton of color and outline to expression.
 And what art has so expressed the elusive, the intangible in nature as the | Japanese? It is the realism of subtle ties and the idealism of realities.
 The epigram is not the New York girls. In fact, when she heard it she grew little restless and felt herself
 getting away from the vital matter, fashions. A dragon, even very nitric iatsly entwined dragon, does not seem subtle. and a shadowy lotus panel, even with. an extra leaf in one corner balanced by the signature in another, does not seem more than ordinaily il- lusive.
 i This is why the American woman has lwaited for the shock of war to realize the value of this wonderful art to her pretty summer time dresses.
 Up to now cherry blossom was to her a cherry blossom, and nothing
 more; dragon called up images of St.
 George and Siegfried. and birds disap- bearing in sunlit horizon meant some linexplicable theory of migration, which was bewilderingly like immigration and her father thinks there is too much of that.
 How could cherry blossoms in rhythmical army and dragons in curv- ing borders and birds harmoniously on
 the wing suggest lingerie frocks and
 auto gowns and outing hats of rare de- signs, without some powerful shock to
 galvanize the association of ideas into life?
 But now that there are Japanese en1- broideries and paintings everywhere, that the magazines are full of theories Iof the development and significance of Japanese art, that she has grown ac- customed to the thought that the Salon
 and the National academy and Shinne-
 cock have not copyright on the ex- pression Of nature through art, she is rather slowly finding great delight in these delicate combinations of exquisite lcolors, in permitting herself new standard of color schemes, in adjust ing the most beautiful arts, ill effect of lone country to the most practical and
 modern expression of another. And for this coming warm season there will scarcely be any detail of dress or room furnishing that will not k show in some detail the influence of Japanese art on American fashions, from the complete automobile toilet to the old lacquered hand powder box. Having once found Japanese designs lin painting and embroidery beautiful land decorative, the American fashion devotes knows no limit to her exuber- ant approval. She will have kimono ,lounging gowns and hawthorn shirt waists and habutal bathing suits and kinu hats and hamomen coats. She will encircle her waist with dragon belts clasped with jade buckles: she will wear lapis-lazuli, and she will 1 have carved ivory parasol handles and l Japanese cosmetics on her toilet table, which will be covered with toilet artic- ties of ivory, inlaid and carved and
 painted. This is the Japanese hour; and naught else is lovely for the time being.
 | Tn fact, so wide craze have Japanese effect in fashions become that one large Japanese house in New York has estab- llished dressraking department where
 gowns of every description are made up lof Japanese paintings, leather or em-
 broidery. Here you can order any sort
 of plain or fancy waist, in Japanese
 grass linen or filmy gauge, simple or
 elaborate, decorated with your mono-
 gram in Japanese characters or gor- lgeous intricate design of flowers, or
 birds, or a house and garden if you are lavaricious, in the richest color and with gold and silver thread.
 Every beautiful material to be found
 in the length and breadth of Japan is imported for this department, and
 many new fabrics have been designed lby the clever and artistic man in lcharge. New York Sun.