Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1921-11-24

the width of the skirt, q tennis
racquet decides the type Of corset
a woman shall wear. while butterfly dive
disposes of all discussion as to the rroprietv
of one piece bathing suit. Such is tho
Importance of comfort when one is engaged
in outdoor sports.
These athletic activities Of womer. which
have become popular within the last decade
and q half, have revolutionized the feminine
silhouette and changed bonds into freedom.
No women in the world are less hsmpere1
by their clothes than the American women,
and there is no other country where outdoor
sports are so generally INDUCED in as here
Followers of Sport May Defy
Paris Dress Edict This Year
So devoted have sports loving women be-
come to their comfortably short skirts that
when Paris recently decided that feminine
ankles were to be shrouded in folds of fash
ionable material American women openly
rebelled. They declared they just wouldn't
go back to long skirts, or even to skirts
much longer than they had been wearing.
Not one of the dozens interviewed on the
subject of whether American womanhood
was again to become an adjunct of the Street
Cleaning Department and help sweep UP
curbs and sidewalks favored the ankle length
skirt. And invariably each based her objec-
ton on the discomfort such a skirt entails
when going up and down elevated or subway
stans or harding a slIrface oar
Sport fashions have been accepted as tho
daytime dress for the business and profess
sional woman. They all know the comfort
of sport suit and the boomers and bras
siere and pliable corset worn underneath.
and to support them In their determination
to cling to comfort for working hours they
call attention to the trim appearance OF
women who dress in this style.
Physicians and athletic instructors stand
by them in their refusal to permit any radi-
cal change in the favored sport dress. Health
experts heartily approve the short skirt for
everyday wear, both for looks and sanitary
attributes. So does DR.. Thomas D. Wood,
athletic director of Teachers College, and for
the same reasons Both declared the sem
sible dress of to-day about as sensible as ever
had been achieved by the combined aid of
those who design fashions and those who
wear them.
An act Of Congress, which permitted the
late DR.. Mary Walker to wear male attire
because she considered it more comfortable
and better adapted to her activities than the
long, wide, haircloth stiffened skirts and
leg O. mutton sleeves in vogue in the heydey
of her career, never quite accustomed or
reconciled the public to seeing a woman
dressed In mems trousers. Yet the recent
appearance OF young women wearing knick-
erbockers as they strolled along the avenue
caused scarcely ripple of excitement among
the thousands Of afternoon shoppers. Sports
have accomplished wonders in the meta
norphosis of feminine clothes.
At Last Men Are Used to
Seeing Women in Trousers
If the world hadn't grown accustomed to
seeing women riding astride in the neatest
of breeches and coats, or hiking over the
country roads in khaki knickerbockors, or
skiing in brothers. army togs, or playing
golf In the trimmest of bifurcated tweeds,
there probably would have been more necks
craned to see the fair pedestrians as they
proceeded down the promenade We are
Citing used to common sense in dress, though
the common sense is by no means the ugly
thing 1t formerly was.
The Rainy Daisies" as the members of
that club which instigated the fashion of
the short skirts are called, gave a vivid
picture OF what streets looked like twenty
five years ago, when the feminine members
Of society were unwillingly enlisted in the
street cleaning job. The little movement
started then by a group of women shocked
the public more perhaps than cigarette smok-
ing or skirts worn up to the knees. And all
they wanted was the public's approval of a
fashion that lifted hens Just tiny bit above
the ground.
Did they get Il? Ask any of that little
band Of Rainy Daisies" who trot'ed forth
in wet weather and in snow and even In
sunshine wearing skirts that measured ex-
actly four inches from the ground They
will tell you that instead Of approval they
were jeered at by men and women small
boys threw stones at them and society
women drew aside their own trailing skirts
as X there might be contamination in tho
very presence Of dress so shocking thar
1t showed the wearer walking on perfectly
good pair OF feet instead of on stills or
wheels.