Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1919-09-21

of skin.
Now let us consider ror moment
the question-is bare back I'M
proper? Wells it? What Is it
after all but cutcle, moulded in
certain curves by muscle and bone
beneath it, fine grained or coarse
grained. charmingly tinted or not
so charmingly tinted. | myself be-
lieve 1t is only improper when 1t Is q
ugly-but that Is neither here nor
there.
What is there about the presen-
tation of it that is improper?
Someone has said that morals are
a matter of geography. I don't ex-
actly believe that, but l do believe
that the matter of how much or
how little of the. human body is
proper or improper to show der
cidedly Typography and also
little element of time 1t is, or,
rather. was, until recently, shameful
for Turkish woman to show either
face or hands. She had to be swathed
like mummy from head to foot be-
fore men not Of her household The
ancient Carthaginian woman could
go almost unclad so long as her hair
was covered. The Java girl Is
clothed so long as she wears short
skirt and a couple of long, spirally.
wound copper leglets and bracelets.
If she is seen without those bracelets
she Is as badly off as we are in those
awful dreams when we enter troll
ley car with nothing on but pajama
jacket might multiply instances by the
hundred.
After all, what is proper or improper Is
largely in the eve of the beholder.
Speaking purely philosophically. do not
believe that bare back is improper per se
II the spectacle shocks, It is because 1t Is
new to the eye. When the eye gets used
to 1t the bare back will cause no more
sensation than bare hand. When that
happens fashion will have to make 1t barer
or ingeniously cover it up.
How, you ask can fashion make It barer
and how much harer? You can answer
that question as well as I can. Back in
ancient Greece the girls wore robes that
in walking revealed the leg up to the waist
and nobody held up their hands or wrote
tracts about il. In the time of Louis the
Fourteenth of France the decolletage was
far below what we would unhesitatingly
call the limit-but no one seemed to no.
tice it.
They had very fine civilization in
ancient Crete. The women there, the
sculptures and wall paintings show, wore
dresses that wouldn't look amiss in Fifth
avenue-and their decolletage the court
OF Louis the Fourteenth might have copied
as model. OF course the court didn't.
But 1t all shows that the human mind
keeps milling around In the same old
groove. And when you get used to thine
something new is provided-only It isn't
something new, it's the same old thing they
thought new a thousand years ago when
they got tired of the same old
thing.
I except from this the bare
in 90
to-day. In the absence of evil
dence to the contrary that does
seem new as it is now being pre-.
sented. There are no sculptures
OF paintings or remains, so far
as ! know, that show It is an
article OF fashion in any age
They did have something like II
in the tenth dynasty of Egypt.
But at the same time they had an utter alb
sence OF decolletage-I mean their dresses
began from the waist and ran down. 81
that is hardly comparison
If back is pretty, charmingly curved
beautifully textured and colored-why no
show It? Then It is the task OF fashion Il
bring out Its points, to frame II becomingly
to amplify and intensity it's charm
And where is its limit of improperly?
At the top OF the shoulder blades? Thel
whyf
At the base Of the shoulder blades
Why?
Half way down the spine? Why again
Down to the floating ribs? All right
\ whyf
4 q III So AZ ~ E Il 3. 81 E + =