The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-31

| knows fashion and its laws; she has seen | the'well dressed mondaine on the Riviera, l in the Bois, driving through the parks of { London and at Ostend. She knows the I adaptibility of the New York woman. and the degree of keenness manifested by l the smartest of Chicago's fashlonables. She is q student of fashion, this Mme. BacSer, and her studies have led her from shop 10 shop and through fashions prom enades the world over, so that she can answer, quick as a fash as to where to
 buy laces, who is the best tailor. and who the leaders among modistes. and she tells one with emphasis that they are not an to be found In the same spot. She talks with fluent enthusiasm of taffetas change ant and beige and lainages and braided nets and macrames and peau de soes and mousselines and embroideries until one is mentally faint and drowned in an imagined sea of billowy fabrics. The null tiplclty of their names and uses arouse the suspicion that if the time taken up by our women in learning to differentiate between the things that are modish and the things that are motif that time were devoted to some useful purpose there is nothing, not even the right of suffrage, that they would be denied.
 That was my thought as Mme. Backer showed beautiful, bllowy evening con lection" of blue chiffon and shadow lace duh iidltildl ipStOuus anu all titlDIolutifu garnture that was fashioned by her own artistic hands to match beautiful but
 insufficient bit which she had found in the store. And then the gorgeous robe she Is making for dear young bride to wear al her wedding-a luminous thing of satlny lengths and lacy cascades, and then a clever little tafeta all straight lines and puffs and panels and frayed ruff fles And it was this quaint thing that started the ultimate discussion:
 Doesn't this prim little frocS look pre- eisely like the old things in the atticg And doesn't it justify Aunt Sue, whose ideas we thought must have been just plain "tacliy?" And yet, strange to say, the final verdict is; What a charming thing and how becoming 1t will bel''
 And Mme Backer tersely accounted for this change of opinion in time honored fashion: Why, it is the style"
 "Don't you think, Mme Backer," she was asked, that imitation is a congenial characteristic of women? That if any one of dozen who are prominent in the social
 life of the different cities should appear in public place wearing nose ring, in three months that form of personal adorn- ment would attract no more attention on a woman in this country than it does on the women of the Levant?"
 l would not go so far as that" she re- piled, especially where the women of the south are concerned. l find them rather conservative than otherwise. Your Bir- mingham women appear well, and so many of them are pretty and chick that it is pleasure to bedeck them in ones best creations. But do not find them as ready to adopt the new in dress as their north ern and eastern sisters. This is, think, to their credit, since it shows a certain independence of mind. But in the mat ter of fashions here and In every other Al
 all the originality of the last sheep of the flock going through a fence. Pacquin and Doucet and the other arbiters sent out word from the other side that the skirts are to have, instead of the tight hips, a few gathers introduced at the waist line. the skirt to hang straight from
 there. The modistes must not disregard this. The wearer of fashionable clothes must demand it's fulfilment. It is the law
 Docs this introduction of hip gathers mean widening skirt that will fost some such ultimate monstrosity as hoop skirt?''
 In unaffected horror the vivacious con | turiere raised her hands. q hope" she said and firmly believe, that the race is too strongminded too enlightened ever again to suffer the modification of the hoopskHt. I will go further. believe that the narrow skirt, not the exaggerat- ed tight or hobbled skirt. is a perma- nent fixture It is sensible. comfortable
 and attractive. It is too thoroughly com mendable to be easily done away with 1 do believe that the tendency is toward
 sensible fashions though of course as long
 as there are women and as long as there
 are men to admire them. there are going to be new frivolities for there is nothing
 on earth that bores one like the usual " When asked as to her opinion of the foreign shops in comparison to those of this country Mime. Backer rather gave
 the weight of her preference in behalf of
 the domestic ones. "rhe American wom-
 en- she said. are the hest dressed in
 the world. The principal reason why so
 many cultivate the foreign shops is that
 exquisite handworlS may be secured on
 the costumes at pitifully little cost and that the laces and embroideries are so
 very reasonable. Ir is all matter of
 cheap labor. you know Just fancy the
 expert lacemaker receiving F cents day for service And the other helpers in many establishments are rewarded smi-
 larly. Here we have superb tailors and modistes who are artists. of course, but America is too rich a country to reward
 service in so slight a way, Any way our women are the smarest in the world.
 to my mind. and one never fully realizes that until one compares them with the
 women of other countries in some fash ionable place abroad"
 But to continue our discussion" re- marked Mme. Backer, 'fashlon is all pow
 erful, where women are concerned. the
 world over. As terse an analysis as I have Lever heard was the one written by Mrs Balfour: Fashion makes people sit up at night when they ought to be in bed and keeps them in bed when they