The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1918-08-01
Be Own DESIGNER
Americas SLOGAN

New YOrk.-Fashions are rarely
fixed, but have they seemed to
%fluctuate more fluently and perversely
than now. 1t does not need a Diogenes
with q lantern, asserts q foremost fash
ion writer, to find the reason for this
condition. Certain raw materials are
lacking; labor grows scarcer every mo-
ment, although it shouldn't with so
many women to be employed, and the
designers put out in the morning what
ever they dream of at night.
To the observer these days are fas-
cinating. To the woman who thinks
she has settled the question of clothes
for ar entire season by buying her cos
tunes at the beginning of it, the stu
alton is not only perplexing but irri-
tating.
1t is quite useless for the world to
go against human nature by preaching
Standardization Of apparel or food. We
will not eat the same dishes three
times a day 1856 days in the year, and
we will not wear the same gown ten
hours a day for twelve months. If we
can't get raw materials to diversity u
food and apparel, at least we can slim
ulate the appetite and the eyes by mix
ing what we have into new forms.
Everyone Plays on Fashions.
Viewed from the airplane point Of
view, it looks as If the entire world
Of women will attempt to bring. out
something new in clothes for them
selves or for their neighbors.
This does not mean that they have
ceased to work for the Red Cross: It
only means that such work has in
tensified their desire to dress we'll be-
fore the public, and has brought them
into such an active current of air that
they see new things and think Of them
with brains that might have been al
most atrophied from inaction before
the war. Stimulate a brain in n d.
rectfon, you know, and it reacts in all
directions.
Stimulation is the heart and soul Of
life, and it is undoubtedly the means
Of producing the very best kind Of
national dressing. It will a wom-
an to rebel against looking as if she
belonged to a procession in which every
member must dress alike. 1t kindles
a flame in the brain, which heats it up
and makes it respond to whatever
there is in it Of creative power.
Therefore, every woman becomes her
own designer. She no longer goes to
q shop and takes the gown that she is
assured Everyone is buying" Once
she regarded that phrase as the de-
cree of power; today she listens to it
with a shrug of her shoulders and
usually insists that that's the last gown
she wants to buy.
Heretofore the woman with slender
opportunities and rare contact with the
outside world chose her clothes blind
folded. led by the hand of the sales
woman to whatever was cut by the
hundreds and sold by the thousand.
Today she is quite worldly wise.
She has seen too much; she has come
in contact with the moving world. She
may buy a gown that is cut out by the
hundreds, but she gives a small price
for 1t, knowing that she can remedy
the poor sewing at home, put on some
better lace Or tulle and add to the in
sufficient quantity Of hooks and eyes
ut a cost Of less than five dollars, let
us say.
She Is not so easily hoodwinked as
she was, because the public was as
much to blame for the constant repeti-
ton Of n model sold at varying