Arizona republican., 1913-10-30
ART OF DRESSING IS
 ID BE INCONSPICU0US
Maroerte Patterson Has Set New and Sensible Standards for Young
 Women on the Stage and Off.

So often we hear that the Ameri- can woman is overdressed," says Miss Margerite Patterson in an article which she has had expressly pre- pared for this paper. It is not a fault of women universally, owing to the insane competition of modistes to get something new and bizarre" Four months previously to her opening her season in officer 666. |" which comes to the Elks' theater Thursday and Friday nights. Novem- Der and :, she toured Europe. and while there she made close and shreWd observation regarding the modes and styles.
 1T think you will find that the best dressed woman is the Parisian woman in moderate circumstances. She is essentially a home-Ioving per- son and she dresses to be inconspf- cuous This is really the art of dressing. She is neither under dressed nor dressed. The Ger man woman is frequently so badly dressed that she positively does harm to her self The English don't have the ability to adapt a style to their form and the result is a lack of har- mOny which is actually noticeable. In Vienna the younger women dress well; the older women appear to neg feet their personal apeparance No where, however, is there such a heterogeneous mixture of styls as there is in this country. The req son is that Amer+a has become the dumping ground for all caricatures of costumes. The newspapers. with their tremendous circuIations, easily give
 
 spreads. Now as a matter of fact. it is the exceptional woman who looks her best in elaborate and ex- from the show girl ideal Every one has a distinct type of personality, and she would seek only to make that personality appealing This she can do, if she seeks merely to be stared at. Ra
 The more simple, the more in costume, the more she herself stands out Particularly on the stage is it a huge disadvantage to wear conspicuous clothing. I spend quite as much time in choosing my gowns for a play like "Officer 666. which is a modern up to the minute play. as I do in preparing my lines dress is so complete a part of ones being. One actress now promi- nent, failed season after season be- cause she depended on her art alone | for her success and ignored her gowns. l remember one dress in particular that ruined her play A weeks thought and three or four i hundred dollars would have saved | month of hard rehearsaIs and seven | )r eight thousand dollars investment | n addition. I might venture to | state, though. that the women in | egiumate productions on our stage 1 Ire the best dressed women in America. In fact, on opening nights ! n New York city, there are present ! representatives of practically every fashionable modiste in the city. They Netch the gowns and make fulsome notes on each for they are certain hat in a day or two Mrs So-and-So will demand a dress made exactly ike Miss So-and-So's in the second ct of the play
 There is considerably too much f this initiating, however. The sue essfuIly dressed woman is one who ,lans out her own design so that she, erself stands out and not her owns
 The dresses that I wear in Of icer 666 were in the process of se- ection and making for nearly four months, but I don't regret any of he time that I spent on them.
 -O- Doris Kean is appearing in Chi I ago in Romance