The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-01-04
Dorothy Dix Tails
~ DOROTHY DIX
Drakss Highesa Paid womaA "
The Business Girls CIothes-1.

A club of business girls asks me If
will tell them how they should
dress.
To this question 1 can only reply,
in a general way, that the business
girl should be SO perfectly dressed that
Jail you remember about her clothes
is that she had on eXactly~the thing
that she should have had on Some
thing that suited the time, the place
and the girl as nothing else would.
The first essential of the business
girls clothes should be COMFORT. No
girl can do good work unless her
body is at ease.~eNo girl can keep her
mind on her work if her corset is so
tight that she is suffocating for air,
or her shoes hurt her SO badly that
she feels that she is all feet instead
of brain.
When salesgirl clings desperately
with one hand to her counter and re-
fuses to even turn her head to see il
she has the thing I wans, or when the
naughty goddess who takes my order
at restaurant snaps my head off
when I have the temerity to remind
her that I ordered lamb chops and
peas instead of the corn beef andseab-
bage that she brought me, 1 do not
get angry with them and report them.
I take one look at the shoes. two sizes
too small for them and propped up on
| stills that they are wearing. and know
that for hours they have been under
going the suffering of the damned,
and I realize that no human creature
could be expected to look please or
be agreeable while enduring such
agony.
That women are able to accomplish
as much as they do while they are
enduring such physical discomfort. is
one of the marvels of nature If gou
would dress a man up in straiEht-
front as unyielding as coat of mail;
if you put son him. a skirt so tight
that he yhadito plait5hi legs. aroAnd
each other as he walked; if you would
strap on his feet Instruments of tor
ture left over from the Inquisitions IT
you would put hair Mattress ever
each ear: if you would smear his face
with kalsomine and cover his lips
with goo of a nauseous taste and
odor, and send him forth to do a days
work, he would collapse on the office
floor before noon Yet millions Of
sort of handicap, and then wonder
why they don't get along as fast~a
men do.
Women will never, meyer be able to
| hold their own with men in business
until they learn to dress as comfort
tably as men do. No woman can climb
J the ladder of success in a georgette
blouse and spool heel shoes.
The business girl must learn to dress
sensibly because her health largely de-
ponds upon her clothes, and ner aDli-
| ity to hold down big job depends on
| her health. No sickly, neurotic semi
invalid is of any value in an office. no
matter how much ability she has. The
daily grind of the business mill must
go son, and employers must have sub
ordinates who can be counted on to be
at their posts. -
70, Therefore the girl who is always
! telephoning down to the office, or
store, that she is sick with heavy
cold, or laid up with a headache, or
can't walk for the rheumatism. need
never expect to- get a bigger pay en-
velope than she is getting, or to rise to
any position of trust. She is her own
undoing because she is not dependable.