Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-05-22
BY ANNE RITTENHoUsE.

| The French dressmakers say that the
| Americans care more for linen clothes
than the women of any other nation;
even in tropical countries it is the men
| and not the women who daily indulge in
! the luxury of linen.
| No one quite understands why the wom-
en- Of Paris do not take up the wearing
of linen suits, for many OF their summers
are warm enough to need them. 1t is
not expected that they would relinquish
their sartorial tradition of wearing a coat
of some kind in the street by adopting
the American uniform of white linen
skirt with a thin blouse. Paris never
quite understands why America goes in
for this sort of dressing, but even with
| out the French approval the custom con-
tinues over here
The other nations insist that coat suits
| of dark, thin materials are more eco
nomical and more dressy than the white
linen suits which easily crush and show
soil. It is an amusing custom that the
French dreSSmakers have OF insisting
upon serge suits for summer and crepe
de chine frocks for winter; it is difficult
to compel them to make thick, warm
suits for Americans who are ordering
winter clothes; and when this became
easy enough through the kind of fabrics
",
them to fasten the coat above the waist
or draw it's fronts nearer together than
five inches over the chest.
The unwary American is always misled
by the French dressmakers into getting
clothes that are not suitable for her eli
mate, and, one may add, for her method
of living. To judge by the clothes that
are offered and made for Americans one
might be led to believe that no one in
France fastened her own frocks or
1o1 rod hor or m
monia under any stress of weather.
When you suggest that no one of the
gowns offered is suitable for your kind of
life in America, the designers give a
shrug which conveys the words they dare
not say. Nine. Paquin once said that
only an American woman was capable of
asking for gown suitable for church
and bridge.
1t is we'll for the American that she
is what she is. an aggressively independ-
ent creature who absorbs everything that
she wishes at its source and transmutes
1t into what she needs in her own en-
vironment. Therefore she wears thick
suits in winter and cool suits in sum-
of the American for frequent street wear.
New Kind Of Linen Coats.
There are fewer white coats with white
skirts this season than there are colored
coats. The dressmakers should be re-
warded with a popular acceptance or
this fashion because they have been so
persistent in their advocacy of 1t. never
letting up even under seeming failure. A
year ago a mannequin wore white skirt
with a black coat and the costume caused
comment on both continents, as it was
instantly recorded by the cable, and this
fashion was followed more or less by
fashionable women in Europe last sum
mer, but it appeared to the average
American as too much of an innovation
for her to adopt. She preferred suits in
one color and she chung to them
During the winter she adopted skirts
of dull plaid with cutaway coats in solid
color; then the fashion for brightly color
ed coats with white linen skirts came in
overnight at the first breath of hot
weather. Today the shops offer some