Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-07
MEMS GARMENTS.
Present Rafment Best Adapted to Mas
culine Requirement.

From the New York Times
IL should need no argument In the pres
ence Of an Easter day parade on "the Ave-
nue., TO show that If the present style of
oress Tor men were not in the main better
adapted to the requirements of the aver
age man than anything else yet suggested.
II would have changed by gradual evolution
IN an EFFORT to approximate the better form.
AS II ls' the present generation of men can
not remember style of dress essentially
o1nerent from that they now wear. Coat
collars are a little wider or narrower.
M,alstcoats are cut little higher or a little
iowel' trousers are fuller or less full in mid
reg OF spread more or less at the bottoms.
cages are sometimes braided and Sometimes
Mot, ana coat skirts are longer or shorter
tnese, however, represent the limit of the
laiior power TO make the garments of one
season impossible in the next; and by rea-
son OF the fact that it usually REQUIRES two
OF tnree years fully to develop a change OF
style sufficiently conspicuous to be notice
apie, one who does not conserve his gar
ments with exceptional care NAV usually
wear out suit before he is required to get
new one In order to be presentable. The
professional dandy of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries had few imitators in
the nineteenth and has still fewer in the
twentieth century. It is no longer good
form to be in the least conspicuous and by
common consent the best-dressed men are
those whose clothes are remembered only
as without striking feature. This means
that, however costly, they must not be .'ex-
pressed in fancy"
The conventional dress suit has been the
subject of especial animadversion from the
academic dress reformers but best of all
1t has resisted innovation A great MANY
men are today wearing dress suits ten or
fifteen years old without attracting atten-
ton. There is now an effort being made in
Chicago to introduce a variant in the form
of TuXa6O hlt ic To To-
nominious failure. Equally futile have been
the efforts to popularize the ruffied shirt
front and the satin knee breeches. This is
an age of unitarian concepts. To know
that there hangs in ones closet a suit
which is perfectly good form for every oc-
casion of ceremony after 6 pm. that one
may Jump into it, IL belated, without the
assistance of a valet, and that 1t is not for
the moment but is for yesterday, today and
forever II 1t does not wear out or get shiny
at the seams, Is a vast comfort, and one
worth great deal more than any salts
faction to be derived from contributing to a
color scheme of drawing room decoration
The average man knows that II he gave
countenance and encourag cement to the fads
of the masculine dress reformers he would
have to spend on his personal adornment
dollars where dimes now suffice, and he Is
not such fool as to do 1t. The raison
d'etre of the black dress suit Is the fact
that once provided 1t Is good for years, and
this counts for great deal more than the
result OF dH eilOTt 10 ElVdi
the Protean magniicence of the woman OF
fashion who, to do what Is expected of her.
must give a great deal more time to select
Ing materials and being fitted than any
man Of business could afford. 1t Is best as
1t is. Dress reform would close the door of
society to thousands of young men who
have no time to think much about dress in
any aspect and for whom the sempiternal
Swallow tall of black broadcloth Is a
priceless boon. 1t Is at least an acceptable
foil to the coler delirium of the gorgeously
appareled woman. and from this point or
view 1t could have no better function.