The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-09-08
DRESS
BY ANNE RITTENHOUSE.

For the Woman Who Wishes to Dress
Well for the Street There Is Com
fort in a One-piece Frock.
OF knowing how to put on and how
to assemble an outdoor daytime cos
tune better than any other women in
the world is a distinction that Ameri-
can women have won in Europe. And
probably they deserve it. There is a
fine attention to detail in the wearing
of what we call street costume that is
sometimes overlooked by French
women, even those who hold the dis
tlnction of being best dressed. More
than that, the American woman has
a close regard for the ensemble. She
realizes that to be well dressed out
doors, she must know that there is an
unbroken chain of careful adjustment
from the tips of her shoes to the top
most feather on her hat, and she
knows that she cannot hope to depend
on the softening or enhancing effect of
background as she can in her own
home.
This knowledge Of dressing for out
doors is fairly recent acquisition, for
not many decades ago the outdoors
was, so far as American women and
their clothes were concerned, simply a
place that had to be passed thru in or
der to get from one place to another
Shawls and mantles and wraps and
cloaks were put on after one made
ones toilet. Now 1t is the arrange
ment of these outside things that is
half the battle when one is dressing
to go outdoors.
Keeps Her Jacket On.
1t has long been the feeling of we'll
, dressed American women that even in
| warm weather they should not go out
| without some sort of jacket or wrap
unless their frock was of the sort that
was distinctly built not to be worn
with a wrap. Wearing a shirtwaist
and suit skirt sans suit jacket was
something that the discriminating
woman didn't do. And another thing
| that she didn't do was to remove her
suit Jacket. To be sure. you did see
women at lunch in restaurants or their
| devotions in church slip off the Jacket
but 1t looked much as it would to see
man remove his suit coat under SIM
liar conditions. And as the we'll
| dressed woman never wore a suit in
her own home, then it simply meant
that a suit skirt was never worn with
out suit jacket, and the shirtwaist
beneath was simply something that
you knew was there but never saw,
| save perhaps for a little glimpse in
| front that might just as we'll be a
substitute in the form of a little
! guimpe or waistcoat. Why wear a
! Jacket at all? or why wear a shirt
/
cling to absurd devices in their dress
merely because they are traditional.
| All the kings horses and all the kings
men could not persuade a mans tailor
to make up his next coat without all
Of those pockets that they never think
of using. But women have no such re-
spect for the traditional. And so it
came about that new sort of costume
was evolved-one that looked like a
coat costume but wasn't. or at least
one that gave the impression of being
perfectly appropriate for the street
without an additional wrap, but that
really was all in one piece. and con-
sequently cooler and much easier to
! wear.
It Is Quite Genuine.
There was nothing fakey about this
type OF costume. 1t was not on a par
with the false blinds on old-fashioned
houses or made ties or gas logs. For