New-York tribune., 1909-11-07
When He Becomes a Man


A WOMAN is only woman, 50 sang tittiug-
Sogged Englishman. forgetting in his phrase
making frenzy that a Is until he
has earned the ineable privilege OF dressing woman
and then walking after her-well out OF the Hang
through row OF enviOus bachelors with ossihed liv
ers and tobacco hearts.
Drape the woman in honey COlored satin with old
pearls IN her hair and white orchids over her arm,
and She becomes the invincible beckon, the Follow
Ne OF the ages the big uncomfortable call that
makes worlds wheel and puts kingdoms the blink.
The dress builders, the masters old and yOuEg
that brood the TUNES and the tOpknOts IN their
Paris studios. gathering motifs from seine daWns
and twights on the Avenue des Acacias. could their
French minds be unlayered. unlaced, and dIveSted
OF lliOms-what studies we should have OF a subject
We know but vaguely
There Is a salon artist in the employ Of d Fifth ave
rnilliner who gets thousands of francs q week which
he spends III trequenting the Paris restaurants the
races the theaers where he observes the departures
the foreshadowings the down and outs. OF fashion.
The letters he sends his patron far too remark
able for print they studies similar TO scientist
experiments with tinted rays a doctors commen-
taries on some new and fascinating disease. UnmIs-
takably these notes arrange the direction OF the
wind which later on blows the avenue.
To all these fashion Sharps, dress Is serious. real
earnest. Good art can never be funny. 1t Is only
the limitations al which we laugh,-the amateur
irving 10 pick out a symphony on the piano with
finger when It means 10 him only tune that he
could never play IN q thousand years even II he was
Necessity of Atmo,p phere
nRESS must be learned 10y LCtS Well 10y
~ The cresCendos and the dImlnuendOS must be
marked. The crash by Wagner IS tumutuOus. the
Knockout oi the soul that Turks unsuspected under
the dull-tnish shirts and the Heleu breasts while
the same crash 10y COhan Is merely a loud noise.
Atmosphere Is everything III dress.
And line OF course There ls nothing inherently
dron about spiral. but when the artist converts II
into the ta OF a pg the one lonesome spear on the
head of a bald baby II al reaches those remote
cells Of eyity the possession OF which Is derded by
the tat-headei
The snare has an these qualltlee. rhythm. color,
Corlt mists the shr note ot coral lining II a velvet
cloak the drip ot "a willow plume from the turn OF
tilteI hat the cruel thrust Of leWeled pm through
the heart ot a rose.
Artists know this Dress thing. and use Its mystery
IN making their effects They VIII always aacrInce
truth for beauty Just the sculptors make the limbs
OF their running uymphs "A harmony when the run
ming -ir technically about pretty as the tTottlng
horse
II Is the up-reach the star-clasp that the artist IS
after rather than the properly polnted lie gets
III psychic dabs of velvet and wicked gLHts oi cop
rr~v gold II i- the dress even. that makes the
dancers mo. rineut- delight. The undrape1 dance
could never ice lovely though II might go III the syn
di,ate houses. We must have ~ least one oi the
seE Ell wells
4 London iressmaker had bright itea one day.
and decided 10 name each gown that she designed as
though II Was a picture London Is dairy lust no"
about crystal glone7 and mysticism and those moss
green parlors Hanover square are nllel every