Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1907-12-12

| half-concealed smile. "It really makes
her look like top!' and the smile
would broaden into a ripple of sheer
amused laughter, while my poor model
strobe from the room indignant at the
ridicule.
And then the laughter would stop,
and the scoffer be surprised into a
half-unwilling admiration of the grace
full, swaying figure, its beautiful con
tour outlined defined, emphasized by
the clinging, sheath-like skirt.
The very woman who will raise an
objection to the Paquin skirt will go
to a glorious struggle with the surf
accompanied by several men of her
acquaintance; and emerge looking like
nothing quite so much in the world
as beautiful, unconscious sea-nymph
Is she immodest? Certainly not one
American woman in a thousand-no,
nor one in hundred thousand would
call her so. Yet this same woman will
sit down and think for long time be-
fore she will commit herself to a
gown that so much as suggests the
gracious curved lines of her body.
And her French sister, who will de-
plore with significant gestures of up
raised hands and shoulders the i'm
modesty of mixed bathing, and will
be decorously rolled TO the edge of
the water in her bath wagon, will
adopt the new skirt with no compre-
hension of the qualms of the Ameri-
can.
Perhaps it is because have lived so
much abroad that | can see more easi-
ly and clearly from the French point
of view than from the American. And
then to me the possibilities of beau
ty in something new appeal most pow
erfully,
Yet in reality the Paquin skirt is not
new, nor can we claim it as an ex-
elusive invention of the twentieth cen
tury. More than 100 years ago the
French recognized it's possibilities and
developed them into what have come
down to us as the Directoire styles.
Not of the skirt alone is this true,
but of the coats that accompany it.
Short-waisted affairs they are, with
full cutaway skirts, overelaborate,
fanciful if you will, but graceful and
charming nevertheless.
1t may take little time before the
American woman will give the Paqun
skirt her generous, unqualified ap-
proval But | am optimistic, and |
fimly believe that year by year we
grow in appreciation of the beautiful,
in broader conception of the true
significance of lovely lines and colors.
and that, given time, we eventually
accept the best that is offered to us.
In reverting to this older type of
, dress | can frankly sayI am glad of
thc change, not that I like change
merely because it means novelty. but
because | welcome it when it stands
for esthetic development. And so |
say very emphatically that | do like
the Paquin skirt; that | hope, though
| cannot prophesy, that 1t will have
long g-lived vogue. Paqun has adopted
it, and Paquin leads Paris as Paris
leads the world. You and follow, but
not, | hope, like poor stupid sheep.
Examine it for yourself and if any.
thing | can say helps you to view il
more intelligently and more appre
ciatively well and good But if your
taste and judgment reject it, my dear
madame, remember that you have
quite as good a right to your opinion
as l have to mine. Indeed, | have an
honest contempt for the woman who
Will adOnt a fashion TnpreIy borouca n
is fashionable and decry it as hideous
unsightly, impossible.
u n