Evening star., 1915-02-21

oring demanded for their clothes
q may be at rest
What Rodier has named silent col
ors have superseded the oriental ones
that blazed a striking path through
this planet since the cult of Poiret
and Bakst began.
In the hands of great masters ike
these, gorgeous colors were put
through their PAGES; but in the count
less hands of amateurs who piled red
upon purple. blue upon green, without
knowledge study, the result was
enough to make the people of Mars
thinh we had gone mad, if their tele-
scopes are strong enough to see US
running about the earth like multi
colored ants.
Whether or not such weavers ana
dyers as Rodier and Bianchini liked
the Indian and Slavic shades they
were compelled, or rather persuaded.
into making by the wish of the de-
signers, no one knows They did the
work beautifully. and If their ART
could have been repeated in all the
mills that produce fabrics. all wouio
have been we'll; but rarely did their
copyists get the right shade. and so
confusion was added to ignorance
A red and a green used IN PARIS
by a designer was heralded here as
the latest fashion, and unless one
mad the opportunity to buy these col
ors from headquarters in Paris there
was no way of getting them; natural
ly, the masses of women had to accept
what was given them, and they went
about in what was d travesty of the
original fashion
Even in the smart places in Amer
ica, where one paid abSurdly nigh
prices, there was no guarantee that
the one touch of marvellous color that
gave a frock distinction could be re
peated when the gown was copied
Most of the dissatisfaction among
women who have French models cop
led by their own dressmakers arose
from that constant deficiency
Paris Monopoizes Shades.
The American dressmaker had her
troubles on this score also. She bought
the gowns in Paris and was COM
PEELED to buy each of the materials
that went toward the building of them,
for the American markets do not imi-
tate the French colors anywhere near
the mark, and. often make no attempt
to do il. or even copy the weave. France
has a monopoly on these shades at the
beginning of each season, to judge by
their eXcluSiyeneSS.
Therefore, our dressmakers buy from
the fabric people abroad as much of
each material in it's proper color as
they think will be needed over here,
judging by their usual trade in gowns.
Sometimes they overbuy; again, they
underbuy In the first instance they
lose money unless they can put the
surplus to some good use, and in the
other case they are apt to lose Gus
toner or gain her dissatisfaction be-
cause the wrong shade was used on
an expensive frock that depended on
a certain shading to make 1t worth its
valuation by the dressmaker
Maybe you are only an onlooker at this
trfy
losing game of buying clothes. If so,
you must have wondered why 1t was that
SO many women wore such hldeous colors
and. of course, you put it down to French
influence. You exclaimed in horror and
patriotism over this yielding of our wom-
en- to the art Of such colorists as the
modern French school had produced, and
wondered when such perversion of good
American taste would stop.
Had you been privileged to see the
original offering as the French designer
put out you might have wondered why
the average American woman who
the simplest rules of color schemes. The
copy was no more like the original than
the daubs of the student in the Louvre
are like great masters. When one knows
the secrets of rare color combinations
then, indeed, does one mount high in
the realm of art.
OF course. the first trouble started in
the trying to copy rare colors in cheap
work And the second trouble was in at
tempting to make bricks without straw
In other words. to create a French frock
without the aid Of a French dye pot.
Silent Colors Will Rule.
II needs no color card to convince one
that the tones that do not Shrek will be
the ones insisted upon this spring and
summer. Rodier's statement that all his
colors would be silent ones brought the
public attention, through the felicity