The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-02-03
CLOTHES, NOW AND THEN

was a custard-brained creature. It was all very well to spend a certain amount of time planning and think ing about clothes, but everyone fled from the woman who let the subject intrude, for If she did 1t meant usual ly something very self-centered, un- ina aginative and vapid
 The woman who talked clothes was always telling you how much she paid yard for materials and trimmings, something intensely stupid to all but the person who pays it. She was al ways concerned with what they were wearing" She read the fashion books-not for suggestions but for hard and fast rules. There was prec- ious little romance, nothing of his tory or psychology, and amazingly little of art or beauty in that sort of clothes talk, says the New York Sun.
 But talking dress nowadays is a different thing, or at least, it may be. It is not simply dressmaker's shop talk. It takes us far af1eld in the realm of romance and history, of art and psychology. And the woman who | imagines that she can keep up her end of the discussion of dress with out keeping we'll abreast of the times | is also painfully mistaken. Intelli- gent dress talk is about as interesting a topic as can be suggested, and the funny thing about it is that some | times the most interesting contribu- tions to this field are offered by men. | Nowadays, the really cleverly dress
 ed woman does not content herself simply with buying the latest number of the most up-to-date fashion maga- zine or looking over the latest French i colored sheets on her dressmaker' s reception room table. She makes lit
 tie excursions to the art museums, or if she cannot do that she looks for inspiration in books where interesting pictures are reproduced.
 She finds the plays she sees far
 more of an inspiration than the fash ion plates. To be sure, there are the women who see no connection be- tween the dress seen on the stage and their own possible wardrobes.
 i With this new way of looking at dress, the dressmaker's task is not SC easy as it used to be. In the old
 days when 1t was mainly a matter of
 what they were wearing the dress
 tron that the fashion plates she
 showed were the very latest and then
 it was a matter of choosing between
 some half dozen new models.
 If she could make an exact imita.
 ton of the newest sleeve, then the
 sleeve was admirable. If the effec was not becoming-well, that was not the fault of the dressmaker. It was madam's fault, perhaps, and anyway there was ample consolation to the
 wearer in not looking her best if she
 only looking in fashion. So each sea
 son the dressmaker had only to per
 feet herself in a few tricks. If she
 lived in the small town or suburb she
 made a trip to the city each season
 and, having seen how the famous
 metropolitan dressmakers turned the
 new fells and performed the new
 tr1cks, that was enough.
 But now with women interested fl clothes in the new way, the matter i.
 different. One day 1t may be the
 dressmaker's task to make for ont customer velvet gown suggested by portrait of Van Dyke. The dress
 maker must catch the inspiration iron
 the portrait, but bring the gown itsel
 into line with things as they are. Tht
 result, you know, Is not to be for fancy dress party, but for something that will look entirely up to date. , Then the next customer may hay, a piece of antique Italian yelvet-ant
 her request may be that this fabri, . be converted into an evening gown il
 keeping with the period when it wa
 made as well as with the present. An,
 the velvet itself must not be cut to, much. It must be skillfully drapet 7 and of course the dressmaker has n, 5 precedent for this
 = Then comes a woman who has be :, come convinced that she is of a Per = sian type of beauty and she wants tn
 dressmaker to produce something un = usual from some Persian fabrics sh 5 has bought-and so it goes
 s To be sure, the result is more in = teresting, but the modiste must be V historian, a globe trotter, an artis I and psychologist, as well as a ciev s CT dressmaker, to make women I clothes nowadays.
 f Anglo-Saxons turned their attention
 to sturdy cashmere stockings an o made wool more fashionable than silk ; the French took up silk stockings. l = was a queer reversal of their attitud V toward all the bits of costumery tha H they group under the name of lingerie They are making a great to-do owe Il there about the introduction of sil . underwear and jersey silk chemise
 and knickerbockers, and one of tn
 French writers naively wonders 5 America will adopt this style of lin 6 gerie This has been the fundaments t part of the wardrobe of the great mas j. of American women and girls for seI y. eral years. They have also worn sil d stockings in every class of societ, n from those who work for wages t l. those who spend the unearned fncom g Possibly France is borrowing some C o Americas ideas in clothes withol " knowing the source.
 Le But all this is far away from tn IS semi-annual discussion of tailore ,r suits, although 1t Is in attenuation ( h the fundamental fact that France cut l. the skirts of her street suits nearl 1t to the knees, while we cut them quit .- to the ankles. Twice a year the littl n SyTdllOH OL pupllC oplllou taxes plaC .. around tailored suits. There is a ra -o pid swirl around a new center, an TT, it sweeps over two continents.
 Twice a year women regard tn
 tailored suits as the most importaI
 problem to be solved. A new one fc
 autumn and new one for spring
 the necessity of the rich and the e1
 travagance of the well to do. Tn l. III with fur or covered with smart to to aao+s dias ort In antrnnn an