Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-09-28
FLUFFY RUFFLEs.
Charles J. Ross Draws Ben Picture
 of ihe latest Craze.


 T wonder after all whether Broadway is holding the mirror up to the stage or whether the stage is hold ing the mirror up to Broadway. Which is more real, the female ped estrian who trips over the f1agstones of Broadway or the choruses which are now getting hearing at nearly all of the metropolitan theaters. At- ter all which is the real creature, the show girl of the street or the show girl of the stage.
 Tt seems to me that if the stage is sounding an artificial note to-day it is because it is tipping the mirror up to the big purple and lavender bubble which is retiecting the indoor and outdoor life of the metropolis. This bubble which seems all soap and all cold cream and all rouge and all plumage is the female part of the town. All passing women here are fluffed and puffed and ruff1ed and l know that the lady of the curb has fingered longer than the soubrette over her makeup box. The women in the public haunts of men are more artificial than their sisters who are trying to portray them before the calcium.
 Some of these street types startle Fluffy Ruffles, and every normal Wo- man in town is trying to reconstruct her anatomy to look the part of Miss Ruffies And the stage has taken up the popular note. Consequently the show girl has returned.
 "Someof these street types startle one; while the dominating note is the same, now and anon there is differ- ence in degree. Daily l note Wo- mn twenty-five, thirty and even forty years of age sumter by in short pettl- coats with braids hanging down their back. The Puffy Ruffles craze is rampant. Mothers trip by with short skirted daughters just past the threshold of youth.
 "A young woman all awry, be- draggled and unkept, but bedecked with the offerings of vanity fair, top pied along the street the other day She was in her cups, hatless, a sad vision, indeed, but happy, and gen. tilely arrayed in a pair of soiled white kid gloves whose short sleeves hung limp over the backs of her fluent hands.
 "I say fluent, as they were being waved to the passing throng. Rouge an inch thick hung upon her parted lips. Withals she :was ruffied. "The art of makeup prevails un- der every bulb of light. Feathers as long as my arm, commodious hats that would conveniently hold the seven wise men who went to sea in tub, reminding me of the wooden bowls in which ones grandmother used to cut the mincemeat, pendants ] at the pink tipped ears as big as door knobs, in blues and pinks and whites, parasols nearly as large as the hats and marcel waves nearly as the. .parasols vibrate here and there along ones line of vision. Upon my soul l believe these Fluffy Ruffies accessories vibrate. Anyway the parasols and feathers and skirts and hats toss and fiutter and there is a quiet undulatingof the marcel waves.
 Every line and feature and color has been studied out. There has been general scramble after the simple drapery effect. There has been such an aggressive stampede after the simple airy costume that the finale creation has resolved itself into a series of complicated feminine &C., cessories, notably dull monOtony and sameness, about the shoulders of the New York woman, nothing simple.
 The goal has been hidden. true the general picture is very pleasing but one woman's gown is to another woman's gown what one woman's dark eyes is to another woman's dark eyes; one may express a world oi sentiment, but after all the anatomy and color are the same.
 Make up for mems sake is the universal cry of the Broadway wo' man. I wonder if he really wants it What an oddity along the Great White Way is that young woman in white muslin who lacks the touch oi the pencil and the odor of the make up box. saw such a creature skim hesitatingly along the flagstones some weeks ago. Men caught theiI breaths. She enlisted the attention more than the young woman who bobbed up on the street the other da! in a bathing suit. having made g quick change of clothes in a nearb! telephone booth; for the bathing sui smacked of the Fluffy Ruffies variety The young woman aforesaid seemed quaint; sans rouge, sans ear pend ants. sans feathers, sans puffs. san, etc. She sayored of new mOwn hay Dropping no odOrs. but wholesome, if her own natural plumage. like thu bird that daubs on no rouge. shl stands an equal show with her sister who are be-fuffed and be-rufied 1T the feathers of the bird of Paradise The type will be portrayed in 'Th, wN-H q