Evening star., 1915-11-28
3rt Sleeves for Street Fr0cks Is the Latest Fac
Sleeveless the SeaAmoon Dresses Display Bare
- introduced CanotAn
Brilliant
Meet AppovHow Paris
Ideas Are Handled by Americans.

tive women who abhorred the fashion
able manner of treating the arms in
evening frocks, and who insisted on
| the semblance of a sleeve and the
! tightening Of the underarm drapery.
| Isn't it an amazing quality of toler-
ance In human nature that prompts the
| people to accept without question a
fashion that in it's incipiency was con-
1 sidered utterly indecent?
| / saw the first struggle for the in
stallation of the evening bodice that
| had its lining cut away above the bust
and chiffon substituted 1t was in
Paris of course, and the women would
| have none of it, no matter how eagerly
| the designers argued Such a fashion
belonged to the burlesque stage, they
said, not to the drawing room.
| Yet little by little the designers won.
Women who appeared at the play in
| the evening with the shoulders slightly
veiled at the side of the decolletage
We're stared at as they were on the
| streets when the first "hobble" skirt
was worn.
| The women of the French aristocracy
refused 1t for season. the South
American women took it up first: then
| the North Americans followed. First.
| the extremists took it up in daring
| evening gowns: then it became lead
| ing fashion. and for several years it
| has been the only accepted manner of
| intended for rough usage.
| When. last year. Nine. Cheruit at
tempted to bring in the evening gown
with it's opaGue fabric carried straight
up to the shoulders and it's deep de-
colletage, back and front. merely edeed
with a band of flesh-colored tulle.
women rebelled at once. The effect
was so heavy. they said. They could
not tolerate the warmth of satin or
velvet over the top of the arms. across
the back and the chest,
y
And these were not the extremists
| who objected, or rather, theirs was
not the only class which found the
arrangement unattractive. Women had
become accustomed to nothing but a
flesh -colored yelling above the bust,
with the lining and the heavy material
cut away, and they had simply for
gotten the hullabaloo they had made
about it at its initial appearance
When this fashion was fully estab-
lished the entirely sleeveless bodice
was brought out. and 1t, also, re-
ceived stern condemnation, not only
from the women, but from the Ameri-
can buyers who were in Paris selecting
clothes. They said most emphatically
that our women would not accept this
lack of drapery; that we demanded
some kind of sleeve. above and be-
low the arm. Did we? Subsequent
events have not proved 1T.
A floating wisp of tulle that did not
make a pretense of covering the arm,
and a shoulder strap that was nothing
more than thin line of defense to
prevent the slipping of the bodice, are
the two things that have been accept
ed as sufficient for two seasons, and
the incoming puffed sleeve that really
covers the top part of the arm, no
matter If 1T is transparent. is, there
fore, regarded by those who watch
straws as of prime Importance.
1t Is in these seemingly small in
novations that large revolutions are
hatched; foreshadowed is the better