The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-05-19
THE SEASON FOR WOMEN
 TO POTTER ABOUT SHOPS
BY ANNIE kEnDRIcK WALKER.

Everywhere in the many shops you see the sweet girl graduate, the prospective brides and sponsors for the reunion, their trousseaus the one absorbing thing.
 Not to be a sweet girl graduate! This 1 means you are hopelessly passee Not to be prospective bride This but emphas- izes that you are In an uninteresting class, while unless you are sponsor, or at least maid of honor to some one, the fates are cruel in this season when you should really belong in one of the three classes just described.
 Other women, more or less young, more or less pretty are pottering about the shops daily. Here are some little guides to shopping, taken from that clever Marie Weldon, who writes in the New AorK Times of what smart women are wearing;
 This is certainly a checked-or shouiu one say eheckered?-season in the modlsh world, as every fashionable woman with any pretensions to youth has at least one shepherds or other plaid or checked gown in her wardrobe, and just al pres ent they are in evidence. Indeed nothing is smarter for travelling, shopping ana walking than these checked gowns, and as they may be made with either long or short coats. of either chiffon yelling or heavy mannish cloths, and also in many different colorines and blends of the same color, as well as size of checks, f.,gl fr- | umphant in town and country.
 Many of these checked costumes in heavier materials trimmed with groups of short and narrow bias strap pings, the ends of which are ornamented with tiny gilt, silver, or other small but tons, or when the section of the cos tune these strappings ornament is cut on the bias the strappings are straight. Narrow bands of braid. either black, white, or of some color corresponding with one of the palds is used instead of straps of the material The woman who wriggles her shoulders wAen she walks should, however eschew the Eton coat with straps and buttons on the back so arranged as to form the upper half of similar section on the skirt just below the girdle, for the effect is, to say the least, extraordinary when the straps and but tons above begin to lose their balance and slop from side to side. One such costume seen recently, noted at fashionable restaurant, was in plain dark blue; the costume itself was smart and pleasing until the wearer began to walk and wrig- gle her shoulders, and then it was ridic- ulous.
 Miss Alice Roosevelt, lunehing the other day with Mrs. Robert Goelet, was in pale gray plaided coat and skirt, trimmed with red cloth and black and white braid. The plaid was almost invisible. At a dis tance the effect was of plain gray, but close to it resolved itself in a half-inch plaid composed of fine lines of gray and white, with now and then a line of red, but the red was so fine a line as to be practically invisible. The round-length skirt and a few deep. straight plaits; the coat had an Eton top, a black belt, and in the back below the belt were short and wide extensions of the gray cloth. The extensions were between the hips and the centre back, and were tabs of the cloth outlined with three-quarter-inch widths of braid. the first white and the outer one l black Just above the tight belt the coat bloused out trihe but was almost close fitting about the shoulders and bust. The collar was on the sailor order in the back and of red cloth bordered with white and black to match the tabs. In the front the revers were very wide and very short, the coat being cut away at the top in rounded fashion to show the white un- derblouse. The coat closed in almost had upward turning points of red cloth as cuffs, and these were finished in black and white. Her large round hat was of