The Jasper news., 1918-12-19
Styles Go Back
To Early Dates

New York.-It Is a long cry from
jumps that length In seven-leagued
boots and regards It as trifle. FASH
ion, indeed, asserts fashion critic.
places the two periods Of the worlds
history together without apology. She
takes bit from one and slice from
the other, and calls 1t frock.
History has been ransacked for three
years for inspiration, strange to re-
cord, when one realizes that a few
decades from now fashion will proba-
bly, start In to register the impress
siOns of these days, and throughout
all the ages to come, II there are such
things as fashions for women, those
who build them will go to this era Of
world-war as an aid to jaded brains.
Possibly Napoleon was sufficiently an
egotist to foresee that the period he
created In the worlds progress would
last the fashion designers at least an
hundred years, as 1t has done, but he
might have been startled at the fact
that, In q tremendous time like this,
which makes his mighty battles puny
events, we should go on playing varia-
lions on the theme of clothes which he
brought about through his Marian adj
ventures in other lands than his own.
None of the designers have gotten
very far away from the Napoleonic
era, and their apology is that inspira-
tion was drawn from every source dur
ing the reign of this one man, and that
1t would be difficult to find something
which had been omitted. Very true.
We Turn to England.
There was once a time, in the be-
ginning Of the Consulate, when fash
ion in Paris was turned toward the
ancient enemy across the channel and
borrowed ideas for dress. This was
done in spirit of perversity by GER
tain sections of society; but the Paris
designers now turn there in q differ
ent spirit-one Of intense gratitude
md friendliness, and instead of look
ing among present fashions for inspira-
ton, knowing full well by practical
evidence that they are Partisan, she
has gone back to British history.
Later she may remember Mesopotamia
and Palestine, and linking them to
Allenby and Marshall, swirl back to
Holy Land costumery.
At the moment she Is interested in
eras Of which she has thought little
and cared less. 1t seems strange
thing that the temperamental design
ers of Paris, on whom the world de-
ponds for the movement Of the season
In clothes, should revive the fashions
of Cromwell. Curious juxtaposition of
ideas. None has ever arisen In French
history who could be likened to this
Puritan, and we may find the reason
for this singular recrudescence in the
pleasant fact that Cromwell was sand-
wiched between two Charleses whose
frivolity is historically foreign to Paris.
The Cromwelllan inspiration Is new
the revival Of those fashions which
were adopted before the word had
any significance when Henry l was
king Of England. In looking over a
book Of old costumery the similarity
shown between the frocks of then and
ther we have gone in dress, Is the ex-
clamation that comes first.
Those were severe fashions when
Cromwell interrupted the pleasure-lov.
Ing Stuarts. Some one has said that
when Charles II came to the throne
England with a sigh of relief laid
aside her hair shirt to show that she
wore a silk one beneath.
Just recently there has appeared sew
eral sorts with battlemented hens,
II strange sign Of those times and
double row Of buttons on each side of
long straight front opening. The
wide linen collar and cuffs are added,
and one sees that It Is a new fashion.
Not so new, but equally Cromwell
ian, is the sleeveless blouse, or short
tunic that our shops sell as casually