The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1922-01-12
WILL THE SHORT DRESSES
STAY?

changes in dress and especially IN
woman's dress. Sleeves have been
made too tight and then too large
and now they have scarcely any
sleeves at all. We have gone to the
extreme in short skirts and hobble
skirts and it is likely that most peo-
pie have been expecting the skirts
to be heightened again.
A bit Of information comes across
the seas to indicate that the long
skirts may not return for the reason
that women like the shorter skirts
due to their convenience and the
greater freedom of action which the
short skirts give them.
Since the days of Napoleon, Paris
has set the pace for the fashions Of
the worlds dress. But now the re-
port has it that since the attempt has
been made to lengthen the skirts and
the Paris designers have not been
and he Paris designers have not been
successful. The story says that the
French factories could not get orders
enough to keep all their people busy
and they concluded that if the skirts
were made longer it would make
demand for a great deal more cloth
and the manufacturers went to the
French government about it. The
government officials went to the de-
signers and the designers took to
the idea and designed the longer
skirts. They were quickly made up
and placed on living models and
worn and displayed at the fashion
able resorts, but the women did not
take to them.
When this failure was reported
back to the designers they compro-
missed with the public by designing
short skirts with points and flounces
attached, and when these appeared
at the resorts, they met with some
favor and orders for such garments
came, but came slowly.
The inference from these expert
ments with the public was that wo-
men having become accustomed to
the short, light weight skirts, are not
going back to the long, heavy ones
on account of the ease and comfort
of the short ones, the freedom of
movements and the lightness.
In the past century women wore
the hoop skirts and the hustle, the
train, the long, heavy skirts measur-
ing twenty feet or so around the
bottom, and they cultivated what
was known as the kangaroo droop"
in imitation of a member of royalty,
who was badly deformed, and it
brought them nothing but distress
and extra work and expense and
species of helplessness that was con-
sidered womanly, but which has lost
its appeal. Society has found plenty
of other things to render women
helpless without building dresses es-
pecially for it.
The old idea was that 1t was i'm
modiset for a woman to allow her
ankle or lower leg to be seen. To
allow men to see the size and shape
of the calf of her leg was positively
shocking. Now it is different. To
the average person the sight of the
lower leg creates about the same in
terest as the sight of the persons
face or neck, and any little accident
or unusual position that exposes the
knee creates about as little impress
sion as was formerly true of an &C
cidental exposing of the ankle.
1t all depends upon custom, the
circumstances attending the view,
and the thoughts existing in the
mind of the observer. A clean mind
filled with high purposes thinks no
evil, and any other kind of a mind
would be evil still, no matter what
the woman's attitude or how fault
less her conduct.
There is good prospect for the
short skirt to remain in evidence,
and people may as we'll accept it.
People who are disposed to be
shocked at it may as we'll reflect
upon what some sensible girl writer
has penned when she said, "Why all
this shyness about legs and the men
ton of legs anyway! Doesn't every
body know that a girl has legs? And
how do they suppose she gets around
anyhow, unless she walks on her
legs? And if they happen to be
pretty and shapely according to ac-
cepted ideas of physical form, why
not admit it and accept them in evil
dence the same as pretty neck, a
pretty chin, a dimple, or a pretty
face and the spitcurl!"
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