The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1916-07-06
When You Get
a Man Talking
About Styles
Ry Mabel Abbott

1.-TWO days in New York disguised the visiting
teachers of the National Educational association
with the styles worn by New York women" read
George Brown, manager of the Van Moves hotel,
yesterday afternoon, and looked at me over the
top of his copy of The Times If he considered ME
personally responsible for this item of telegraph
news
George Brown has opportunities for observation
at his desk in the Van Moves lobby and he is some
thing of philosopher. like to hear him talk.
We'll, styles are Observation-Disclosures just
now" remarked encouragingy.
He returned to his paper and read further.
"The teachers believe high school girls of the
United States must be saved from these fashions. F"
He laid his paper on the switchboard and drum
med thoughtfully the desk with his fingers, a
far-away look coming into his eyes
"Humph!" he said finally. E~t
"Well-maybe so, maybe so. But don't know
teachers did when they girls. That would
have been about the time of the big hoopskirts,
expect
'Those hoops were about the first style remem-
Der taking notice of. / don't know how wide they
were, but remember the trouble the women had
getting through the doorways The flat wires out
of the old ones mothers threw away made fine
pea-shooters. With piece of hoop-skirt wire and
alder stick you could make a pea-shooter that'd
carry clear across the schooraom and hit the teach
er every time
Then right after that came the" he hestated,
"the bustes
Il guess the girls needed saving then worse than
they ever will again. There's no use talking, a
woman looked like locomotive and train of
cars coming down the street with one of those
ungody things on.
And about that time, think 1t was, they took
to wearing their skirts tied back so tight they
could hardly walk II was every bit funny as
the hobble skirts raised such Cain about lit
tie while ago. don't know but II funnier, be-
cause those old ones had ruffles something all
up and down them, they wobbled.
And then came the trains, and all the dresses
had two three feet of cloth dragging the
ground. l was living in little town where the
streets weren't paved, and woman left trail
like log drag everywhere she went.
IT'S THE SENSIBLE STYLES WE FORGET
Lets now, what came next? Styles must
have been kind Of sensible for while, because
can't remember EN-.
ct amt the sensible ones you remember II
must have been somewhere along there, wasn't It,
that they had those big sleeves?
They were stuffed with paper something.
and you couldn't put more than two or three wom-
en- into church pew because crushing their sleeves
was the one thing they wouldn't stand for.
ANYWAY, that brings. 1t pretty close down to
the Merry Widow hats and the slashed skirts-and
that's modern history, as you might say.
Yes, sir, women wore all those things within
my memory; and bet those teachers can remem-
Der some of em, II they try. Nobody saved the
girls from hoopskirts, or bustles, trains, or
bangs, or any other kind OF foolishness but the
country'ss lived through 1t some way"
But what do you really think OF present-day
styles?" asked
George Brown laughed and glanced across the
lobby at extremely neat silk dress that was prac-
tically sleeveless, literally reckless and permitted
free exercise OF smart pair of tall white boots
II THINK THEY'RE THE KIND WE'LL RE-
MEMBER" SAID HE.