Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1913-04-11
IMMORTALITY OF DRESS

Some time ago an editor of
country weekly ventured to sug-
gest that the cut and style of
clothes worn by women and
young girls these days are in
decent and immoral, and also
gave it as his opinion that the
causes of the attacks made on
women by negroes and white
men, too, could, in some in
stances at least no doubt, be
traced back to suggestive
clothes. The idea was hooted by
some as the emanation of a
vitiated taste, ETC., etc.
The editor of the small country
weekly is backed up by no less
an editor than Mr.. Box, of The
Ladies Home Journal. A few
extracts follow from the editorial
page of the April issue of this
Journal, read by hundreds Of
thousands of women, all over
the world: "The Partisan
fashions that come to America
are not those that the nice
women of Paris wear; they are
essentially the styles of the
mannequin and the Parision I'M
derwofld = = but but the French
girl of modesty never wears
these styles, and that is where
our American girl of modesty
goes astray. She does not dress
like her French sister, but like
the girl whom her French sister
disdains, IT 1t is not at all an
impossible transition from the
Partisan imprint upon the hat
or the dress to the Partisan i'm
print upon the character of the
wearer."
What we must not forget,
Says the editor of the Journal,
is that there is a distinct point
of morals in this question of how
a girl dresses. When you see
young girls, as we saw them in
larger numbers last summer
than ever before, brazenly or
innocently displaying in their
attire their physical rather than
their innocent charms, the fault
is not so much with the girls as
it is with the mothers who per-
NIT them to buy and wear such
clothes. + d There is no sense
in our being shocked at the
social evils that exist and
threaten our young girlhood at
every turn, so long as we direct
ly add to these evils, yes, bring
many of them about by allowing
this shamelessness in the dress
Of our daughters. 1t is all we'll
enough to deplore the vicious
habits of men, but is this sort
of dressing calculated to check
them? 1t is hard to see what the
mothers or fathers or guardians
of these girls are thinking about
to allow this sort of dress to 90
on. 1t deliberately courts dan
ger. Il But why? They
deliberately invited the danger
in the girls method of dress,
why be surprised that the
method succeeds? Rather let
them and us be surprised when
a girl escapes danger. 1t is
nothing short of a crime to allow
an unthinking young girl to wear
clothes that, when she goes out
into the world, are the very
signals of danger. Some older
person is responsible for allow
ing the dangerous dress, and
that some one will be directly
responsible if danger comes to
the girl and she goes under"
The above is the gist of this
strong, clear editorial. Every
woman in this land ought to
read this editorial, cut it out
and paste it in one corner of her
mirror where she can see it most
frequently. But, alas How
many instead of reading
tais editorial will turn over to
the fashion plates and adver-
tisements in this great journal
and read and study them instead
of the editorial? Truth is, the
dangers of dress-the democrat |
lzation of dress pointed out, has
been augmented, if not actually |
brought about by the fashion
plates and advertisements in the
great publications.
The youngsters are not to be
too severely ccnsured, when
their mothers themselves set the
example.
One of the most effective
"preachmen,s against the de-
grading and dangerous styles of
women's clothes would he toI
change entirely the ad-
vertising pages. No use to decry |
the baneful effects of liquor
drinking and still advertise
liquor. Clothes, the same. In
any journal for women you
chance to pick up may be found