Evening star., 1924-11-16

tremely smart. There are metallic
turbans to be worn with formal eve
ming dress, but these have met with
greater enthusiasm on the part of de-
signers and modistes than with most
women. However, you do see one now
and then at a smart evening assem-
blage.
What about earrings?
The idea seemed to be a little while
ago that with the boyish bob the ear
ring was Inappropriate. But fashion.
seems to care little for conventional
and we'll established ideas Of appro-
priateness And at smart gatherings
now, both here and overseas earrings
are plentiful.
HT OW neck and short sleeves" was
- the way one sometimes used
to hear. people refer to real evening
dress. That was in the days when
women in this country did not cor
rectly wear low neck and short
sleeves" to the theater-only to the
opera. But on all other occasions
when men wore evening suits women
wore "low neck and short sleeves
! unless their necks and arms were
| too scrawny or they felt some puri-
Now, seemingly, low necks and
short sleeves haven't such a great
deal to do with it. At very smart
evening gathering recently several
women wore frocks so low at the
back that they left their wearers un-
| covered to the waist line in the back,
or the region that used to be known
as the waist line. But these gowns
were cut quite high in front-high
enough to cover the collar bone. Usu-
ally, of course, the formal evening
gown Is cut without sleeves, but mere
sho -sleevedness does not make a
dress an evening dress. for the short
sleeve still persists for daytime
frocks.
Just season back, when the de-
signers were trying to put over
longer skirts, fashion authorities told
us that while short skirts would per-
sist appropriately for sports. moder-
ately heightened skirts would be Sc
lected for afternoon and rather longer
skirts for evening. Now, 1t so hap
pened that the smart young woman
hadn't the least hankering to wear
long skirts in the evening. 1t seemed
just as important for her to have
rather more than ankles showing
when she danced as when she played
tennis and golf.
So at present the very short skirt
for evening frocks seems to have es-
tablished itself, SO far as the younger
and smarter women are concerned.
The exceptions are made in favor of
the women who temperamentally can
not endure short evening gowns
they find the longer ones vastly more
becoming and more graceful-and in
favor OF the fatter women, who have
enough good sense to know that the
very abbreviated evening frock is
something of an absurdity when worn
by a woman whose overweight cannot
be persuaded to fade away.
| X * X
EVENING dress is essentially the
~ dress Of youth. For, If truth
| were to be told. there are thousands
of families in the land where evening
gowns and accompanying accessories
as distinguished from day dress and
day accessories. are the property only
of the younger women. Such things
are part of a girls equipment for
having her good time and possibly
getting husband. For the most
part. essentials after the strains
of the wedding march have ceased to
sound.
So in a community where possibly
only hundred middle-aged women
would be accustomed to evening dress
eight or nine times that number of
young girls would have their little
outfits Of evening party clothes"