New-York tribune., 1918-11-19
Reenter the Clinging Vine?

Down with the severe war frock!"
the fashion folk are already crying.
"Back to frills and femininity!" The
war is over. Returning soldiers will
wish to see their sweethearts and wives
dressed as frivolously as possible, is the
plea. Let US forget uniforms and can
teen work and conductorettes as quickly
as war conditions will permit.
Well, just how far back should fash
ions go, we wonder. There are three de-
lightfully feminine styles that come to
mind. If contrast is what our fashion
creators are after one of these ought
surely to be adopted. There is the EN-
pire, the pink nightgown" effect of the
early 1S00's, the most graceful of all
efforts to portray woman as thing Of
beautiful uselessness. 1t put the waist
line close to the armpits and tied the
clinging skirt so closely about her
ankles that she could barely step into a
hoopsllirt of the Civil War period 1t
achieved the same goal of uselessness as
the Empire frock by exactly reversed
method-by making woman SO bulky
that she could not do anything without
maneuvring like full-rigged ship.
Lastly, in the Centennial days, came the
forgotten princess affair, long and svelte,
with a train to keep one hand busy and
SO tight about the knees that going up
stairs became an acrobatic feat. This
reaction from crinoline reverted to the
Empire formula, it will be seen, for
making woman strictly an affair of
leisure and pleasure.
There is the choice, and much may be
said for each style. If you wish to see
just how charming crinoline can be go
hear (and see) Nine Yvette Guilbert
sing her song of 81 Innocente." If you
have fears of dulness inherent in the
Victorian type, she will disabuse your
mind. The technique of the modern
fapper is wholly different, but the re-
suits are closely akin.
No, it is not on the score of charm
that the modistes will find opposition.
1t is purely practical affair. If women
useful work and every sort of active
sport and revert to picnics and archery
as their extremes of endeavor, they can
dress just as dangerously and incon-
veniently as any inventor of fashions
could possibly desire. But you could
not have stenographer in a hoopskirt
not with floor space what it is in New
York! And while telephone operators
might wear Empire frocks at their
switchboards, they would have to drive to
work in carriages, being quite unable to
take step in the subway worth the
watching. A pappoose could drive
motor car quite as successfully as could
lovely creature in a princess frock of
1878.
All this overlooks the munitions
worker and the conductorette, of course.
The uniformed and the overalled work.
ing woman might be glad to fly to crino-
line and pantalettes when she escaped
from her daily task? Perhaps. But we
think not. Fashions in clothes seldom
conflict successfully with character and
habits. Women have learned to enjoy
free swinging bodies through a number
of decades now. And men have become
fully reconciled to them as companions
rather than fragilities. A few furbe-
lows may be applied for luck to modern
frocks But to revert to the old swoon-
ing, clinging female seems long leap.
We guess that neither munition firer
nor munition worker will be for it.