New Britain herald., 1924-12-22

us recent as 80 years ago and
 editors of that period would
 run pictures of them when they de-
 sired to illustrate the ldiosyncracies
 Of past age, inst like their more
 modern brethren do today when
 they want to indicate how smart
 we are and how far we have ad-
 Naneed,
 Thirty years from today - to
 w.t. in 495i - editors will be print
 Ing pictures Of girls and women of
 today painting the moral Of how
 foolish we looked.
 Thirty years ago the fashion was
 10 wear wide sleeves -- at least, 1t
 was the fashion for several sea- sons, The sleeves were us wide as
 boomers; miniature dlrigible bal looms, us it were. A woman tripping down the street in those days looked like a pcrambulating buttcr- fly, especially when the huge arm balloons were worn with corsets which pinched the middle register of the human female anatomy to the vanishing point.
 Much could be written about these ancient corsets, or style of wearing them. which gave 10 fash lonable women a perpetual squeeze. lt took years of hygicnic agitation to inculcate contempt for such ter rlble self-torture, and today no style mogul in his senses would think Of wishing a return to such pince-nez treatment of the waist line.
 Then came an era when 1t was the rule among all the intelligent sia of fashion to make a most pc- culiar use of the right hand when walking. Skirts were expansive, but to prove that there was no desire to submerge the form to the point where 1t lacked interest, the right hand would grip the Tapping founces and pull tight, so that the back end of said skirts would be held taught over that part of the body. Thus they paraded, every fair hand holding the dress mere man wondering what 1t was all about. A favorite bon mot of the time was that 1t was done in order to prove oonclusiyely that bustles were no longer worn.
 The length of skirts in those days was to within few inches of mother earth, so that the side walks could be kept clean of germs by the simple process of being swept up by passing femininity. For a long time doctors were un- popular because they advocated a reform in the germ grabbing pro- clivities Of womans dress, and ul- timately this propaganda succeeded in raising the ante -- except that today things have gone to the other extreme and even promise to go to further extremes next year,
 Naturally, the bales of cloth used In dresses 30 years ago form a startling comparison with the pres ent system of using only few yards.
 And there were the hats! Noth- ing is more prominent than hat, and the hats 30 years ago were no inverted coffee cups. They required no telescope to dis cern; one could notice a womans hat mile away. The brims were like huge photograph disks, a bird cage effect atop of it. The addition of feathers, ribbons and artificial flowers completed the picture -- which is the right word. as these 2iaborat" upper stories were known os "picture hats" Photographs of these contraptions look as bizarre 10 us today as pictures Of the NeIgning beauties Of today will look to the coming generation, in 1854, And make no mistake the com ing generation will laugh just as heartily at us as we laugh at the ieIudcd folks of 30 years back.
 Of coursr, t.crc were no bobbed l hair damscls .n uc good old days; he style hadn't even reached Greenwich village, where it was Dopuiarized. GIrle who bobbed their ! hair did not circulate in public and lived apart from tho rest Of virtuous mankind. Likewise there were no 1 nice, decent g.r.s who smoked .igarcttcs,
 Yes, how ura,s do change; 8oobed hair is a.most uluycrsal and feminine cjgar~''e smokers not cx- lc'ly rarity.
 What can no expect 90 years from now - in 1851, Perhaps, on n hot summers day. they will he the hagHways in onc-piece ,athing suits and smoking cigars or pipes, Sounds like a ,ornalc pros 2ect, but f the fu'ure brings