Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1918-04-19

turn to English garden fashions. 1t
is made of blue and pink muslin.
SurpIce body ties at back, and neck
line is finished with outstanding
muslin ruche.
for these frocks, which bore close kin
ship to a softer epoch than the one
in which we take our part today.
1t is of psychological interest, this
Introduction into women's apparel of
kind of cOstumery that suggests
| everything we are not at this hour.
There may be no reason than that of
! tradition for US to associate Powered
musins, big taffeta Sashes with bows
at the back immense English garden
hats tied under the chin, and lace-cov-
cred parasolS with that part of wom-
ans nature that deals in coquetry, the
eternal appeal to masculine admira-
! ton. helpleSsneSS, and all the accen-
tuated tricks of femininity which the
world thought it had wiped out to a
certain measure.
Yet we do connect these clothes and
these traits. The world always looks
upon a woman who is frocked in u
figured muslin, her eyes shaded with
a huge hat, her arms half bare and a
rose at her belt, as one who is out for
admiration.
The Leopard and His Spots.
There cannot arise critic so fool
ish in these days as to suggest that
the militant woman is not capable of
| looking like a Vatican shepherdesS II
! she takes 1t into her mind to do so.
Therefore, our surprise is not that the
women of the moment should appear
well in the English garden type of
| clothes, with which one always asso-
ciates Strawberries and cream, low
voices, waving hair parted in the mid
die, and shy, almost gauche manners,
but that they should elect this flowery
and futile fashion at this hour.
Yet they are doing it. Both France
and America are heaping figured fab
RIGS upon its womankind. Lace is in
stalled again. Immense bows Of taft
feta ribbon, sashes of every kind ;
flowing, elbow sleeves; surplice necks
with wide handkerchiefs Of colored
| fabrics, are shown and worn by women
who have probably spent the morning
at class in nursing at hospital and
will spend the evening at canteen.
Isn't this a curious psychological
thing? Here we have preached for
two years the strengthening tendency
of women to dress more and more like
men in the day, and either very sim
ply or in an Amazonian fashion in the
evening.
We have tried to standardize clothes,
foolishly, but earnestly, throughout all
channels of dress. We know that one
of the most important leagues of
young women in America IS circulat-
ing petition, signed by its members,
to the effect that they are to buy only
three gowns season, one for each
division of the day, the price to be
| $50 apiece, and the uniforms to be
Of standard pattern. And yet these
very girls, right on top Of such an
endeavor as this to conserve and
economic, fling themselves into flow
cred voiles with pink and violet taft
feta sashes tied with deep hustle bows
ut the back, and huge hats of Milan
straw heaped with flowers
1t may be that the leopard cannot
change his spots, but women can GER
tainly change her type at will. She
seems to shrink and grow thin, to
curve out and grow full, to stand
higher or lower in her boots, and to
assume at will the militant or the
,oquettish air. In this spring of 1918
t looks as though she were going to
10 all Of these things at various times
* the day.