The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-07-16

We hear a good deal about the
woman who knows how to wear her
clothes and tribute is also due to the
woman who knows when to wear
them. If you have mastered these
important points the chances are you
are well dressed woman though you
manage it on an allowance of fifteen
dollars a month. But if you are a
daughter of plutocrats and go sumptu-
ously clad every day, just because you
are a daughter of plutocrats and with
out regard to the fitness of things,
you can not lay claim to this distinc-
ton which in spite of the universal
feminine interest in clothes. is still a
distinction which few women possess.
After all you can almost tell a wom-
an by her clothes, or at any rate by
her clothes, the way she wears them
and the places she wears them. There
are SO many kinds of smartnesS.
There is the cheap, near-silk lined,
imitation SmartneSS: the SnartneSS of
the chorus girl with her high heels
and pompadour. her tiny. drawn-in
waist, her skirts either very long or
very short very tight or very full.
her exaggerated walk and her made
up face So many girls. city girls
especially, affect the chorus girl style
OF dress and imagine that they are
smartly gotten up! They are the sort
who wear their best clothes downtown,
or to their boarding houses or hotels.
probably because they have no other
place to wear them. You see them
in open work, lacy stockings and high
heeled sandal-strapped shoes in rain
storms
Then there are the really smart who
wear beautiful things appropriately
and fittingly and at no other time.
They are never overdressed on the
street or for simple informal occasions.
They have their elaborate clothes,
or course, to wear when occasion de-
mands. but for all other times and
III he = =
quiet things which the chorus girl
style of smartneSS passes up with
snin or overlOokS altogether. II you
suggested to the chorus girl style that
the really smart girl were a we'll
dressed woman she would probably
say, What She2 Why she's per-
fectly dowdy, 1 think
And there are many kinds of dowdi-
ness There is dowdiness that is
positively aristocratic, being affected
by the right people, the people who
can afford it, We all know middle
aged women of wealth and position
who wear the same hat season after
season and not because they are stingv
either, but because they prefer it and
can do so without criticism. And
somehow even if you don't know who
they and never saw them before. they
wear their out of date clothes with
such an air of self possession and nm
consciousness of any shortcomings
that YOU recognize them at once AZ
the sort who have the right to ignore
fashions and dress plainly. You are
not at all surprised to hear that they
have money and blue blood and swag-
ger daughters or sisters or nieceS
Some way they look like somebodies
although their faces may be red and
their figures fat as well as their clothes
shabby and old-fashioned.
But there is another kind of dowdi-
ness; the dOwdipess of the poor in
purse and spirit ~vho wear their old
things deprecatingly, apologetically
l. 81
nize them at once as the trampled
upon, the neglected and ignored Per-
haps they once wore better clothes
I'm the days when it seemed worth the
effort but now they have given it up,
not like their more successful sisters
because they are more comforta Bile in
old things and don't want to bother
with gownbuilders. and are sure of
their welcome and their position any
way, but because they have been
obliged to give up the struggle And
they carry about with them continual
" the air of defeat and bitterness
The younger dowds of the pIebeian
class are different. They are the girls
and young women who want to dress
and are convinced that their efforts
are in the right direction but who are
usually frights. Often they get nm
their gowns and hats at home-and
they look IL. They are much given
to spangles and tassels and fringes
and geW-gaws of various kinds They
d
carry fearful and wonderful shop
ping bags and similar conceits Their
hats are commonly something which
they imagine to be picturesque but
which are really best described as
"jakey-" Their coiffures are befriz-
zled and be-curled. Now and then
You see them with rows of little bows
up their backs where other people
fasten their gowns with hooks or
buttons.
There are a good many of this kind
of dowdy women in the world and not
all of them are poor and home made
either. Occasionally you meet the girl
who IS i'll dressed because she is over
dressed, too richly dressed, the vic
tim of her fathers generosity and
her own lack of taste She tells you
that she leaves everything to her
dressmaker-and you take one look
al her and believe it. You know there
are some dressmakers who delight in
gingerbread" effects and this kind of
dowd usually patronizes that kind. If
she had a really good dressmaker
and left everything to her she would
be all right But the kind of dress
maker who meets with her approval
is the dressmaker who has a passion