The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1913-08-29
WOMAN-HER DRESS AND LINZ
ITATlONS


Our grandmothers-upon whom We
bestow so much praise, and they de-
serve it all and more-wore the bal
loon hoop-skirt; her granddaughters.
the tight-fitting garnet.
Compare the two side by side and
(''honest Injun'O say which is the
prettier garment, and which conforms
more modestly to good taste?
Yet when those grandmothers were
reigning bellies and were logged out
in those immense affairs, we thought
them the prettiest creatures on earth,
and when their granddaughters, who
are now reigning bellies, appear upon
the streets gowned in their close-fit-
ting dresses they appear to us as
possessing not only the "glass OF
fashion and the mold of form" but
the very perfection of beauty. A slit
in the lower part of the skirt, deli
cately and tastefully ornamented, not
only adds to the comfort and locomo-
ton of the wearer, but heightens her
attractiveness.
Ever since good Mother Eve mod
estly wore the historic fig leaf for the
purpose of concealment and adorn-
ment-because she had nothing else
to wear-woman's dress has been the
subject of unseemly and unjust critl-
cism and ribald jest and satire on the
part of those of the opposite sex who
are abnormally constructed, and are
spiritually and morally out of joint.
The balloon hoopskirt was succeed
ed by the hustle" Here the women
had to run the same gamut of criti-
cism. 1t was said that she made her
self hideously deformed, yet her very
deformity transformed her into a
thing of enhancing beauty.
But the criticism flung at the bus
tie" was merely as pistol shot COM
pared to the canonading fired at the
"Grecian BEND
Yet the dear, harmless, innocent
wearers lived down the criticism, and
the "Grecian bend" soon became an
object of admiration.
When women first appeared upon
the streets attired in what has since
become the greatest boon to woman
kind-the neat, comfortable and SEN
sible "shirtwaist," what an avalanche
of criticism and ridicule she had to
endure.
The world has long since accepted
the "shirtwaist" as woman's most
common-sense garment, and the won
der is that she had not worn it GEN.
turtles before.
The pretty little collar and necktie,
! which make her look so sweet and
charming, had their ribald critics,
too, and had to battle for existence,
but they are now extolled on every
hand.
1t was said that the wearers want
ed to be men, and were not satisfied
| to be women.
/ The little patch on her cheek, worn
innocently just for little unmonoto-
ny-something out of the usual
could not escape its detractors.
The peach basket and big hat"
could not escape the satirists and
had the usual jibes in the funny col
umns of the newspapers, just the
same as all other fashions that had
gone before.
A long time ago some old queen,
because of some deformity, was COM
PEELED to ride horseback sideways,
set the fashion which held women in
thraldom for centuries, and when
some woman, more bold and intrepid
than her weaker sisters, for the bet
ter safety and security of the lovers
of the horseback riders of her sex,
broke the custom, the pulpit and press
were Mortified and proclaimed with
all the lamentations of jeremiah that
the women of the land had "unsexed'
themselves.
When some woman, not more braz-
en-, but drawer and holder than her
sisters, for the purposes of hygiene
and exercise, as well as the pleasure
| to be derived from the widening of