Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1917-02-06
.HoW
High Water Skirt
Ages Women
By DOROTHY DIX.

What has become of the pretty
women this summer? Have they
gone off to the war as trained nurses,
or suddenly been smitten down by
age or fat, or some other dire misfor-
tuner" asked a man the other day.
81 don't mean girls" he continued;
thank Heaven the feminine peach
crop never fails, and the sweet-and-
twenties are more beautiful, more al
Turing and charming than ever, but
some blight seems to have fallen on
the women who were umpty-tumpty
years old, but who were still charming
to look at, and good to talk to, and,
to a mature man, far more fascinating
than the whole brood of the imma-
ture.
But suddenly all of these women
have lost their good looks. They
seem to have taken on pounds and
pounds of avoirdupois. They look
dumpy and ungraceful, and they've
aged ten years. What's the matter
with them?"
Skirts" | replied succinctiy, land
sport suits. Some malevolent enemy
Of the middle-aged woman has made
short skirts and sport suits fashiona-
BILE, and women have fallen for them
to their everlasting undoing. Every
inch you take off the bottom of a
woman's skirt after she has passed
10 adds FIVE years to her age, while
sports hat is searchlight of a mil
lion candle power turned upon every
wrinkle and crows foot and sagging
muscle in her countenance.
Never were the fashions so kind
to slim slips of young girls, and never
were they so brutal to women whose
beauty is beginning to wane and
whose belt measures are growing
bigger.
"A long skirt gives a plump woman
an appearance of additional height. A
short skirt cuts her off. That's the
reason that you notice that so many
ladies that you've never thought OF as
being stout seem to have suddenly
qualified for the heavyweight class.
Also, a woman's skirts balance her,
and when you shear these off nearly
to the knees you make her look the
shape of top, and top that's about
to topple over.
Another thing that the short skirt
does is to reveal the cold, cruel truth
about womer,'s ankles and feet Not
even the most bitter misanthrope or
the gloomiest pessimist could have
had any idea that there were SO many
knock-need and how-er-er-limbed
women in the world, or so many with
ankles like mile posts, or with feet
the size and shape of canvased hams
"You cannot walk down the street
now and gaze upon the awful exhibit
ton of pedal monstrosities that are
Displayed to the critical eye OF man
without feeling like weeping at the
folly that has made woman cast aside
the fluffy rufles, the rustling silk, the
lace and embroidery that obscured
and palliated her defects from the
world.
Here again the fashion that is fiat
ter1ng to the young 10 uA'He
in the middle-aged. 1t is one thing
for ninety-odd pounds to expose its
nimble heels, and another for hun
dred and eighty to waddle along on
heels that creak and bend under its
weight.
AS for the sports hat, it belongs
to riotous youth, and any woman
over rs who even looks at one does
so at her peril. You never can have
any idea OF how tired you look, and
how many lines you've got in your
face, nor how grizzled your hair is
until you surmount it by an aseetic
Panama. Nor can you dream how
you have faded until you put on one
Of the violent purple, or yellow, or
red monstrosities in which sweet 10
looks so ravishing. :.
after the first flush of youth is
gone a woman's hat is her whole bag