Evening star., 1926-11-07
RY MARY MARSHALL.

HE woman who works exerts
a potent influence on the shap.
ing OF modern. fashions. This
Il fact-fhe fashionable impor-
tance Of the working woman
more than anything else In present
day life makes. present,day clothes
what they are. 1t counts for more
than the Importance of sports. more
than the automobile, more than the
S-odern dance-or any of the other
facts that we think Of as important
factors in the forming Of fashions.
You have doubtless often heard
some such observations: "Heoped skirts
could never come back. Imagine try
ing to get into a subway or bus at
rush hour In a hooped skirt: imagine
trying tn commute in skirt that
s,ood out yards around" The fact
is that hooped skirts, starched ruffs
and other exaggerated fashions of the
past have never been convenient for
women who work--women who now
ride in subwavs, busses and suburban
trains at rush hours Only in other
ages these working women didn't
count, so far as fashions were con
cerned. and now they do.
Once fashion considered only ladies,
and ladies didn't work. Housemaids,
cooks. nursery governesses. dairy
maids, seamstresses and other wage
earners found hoops as cumbersome
as would wage earners OF today-ste.
nographers. saleswomen, hospital
nurses, school teachers. Only In those
days the humble worker didn't at
tempt to follow the fashions, and the
workers who counted themselves of a
higher class just struggled along as
best they could, wearing clothes that
were intended for women OF leisure
and being doubtless much handicapped
thereby.
Peasant dress as developed in vari-
Ous sections OF Europe might be con-
sidered as former examples of the for
mutation of fashions for women who
worked No matter how highly en-
helished or colorful or picturesque
these various costumes were. there
way always something wearable and
practical about them. The skirts
were short. full without being enor
NOUS: aprons that adorned them
served the practical purpose of pro-
tecting the front Of the skirt. Sleeves
were short or so made that they
might he rolled up; bodices were neat
ly held in with none too tightly
drawn girdle and there was usually
a. washable underblouse or set Of de-
tachable collars and cuffs that might
time.
Each of these picturesque types OF
peasant costume showed the effort of
the women OF some particular section
to solve the problem of designing a
costume at once picturesque, wearable
and suitable for work. and rather CO.
quettish. But these costumes, no
matter how much admired, were never
fashionable. They were "a la mode"
only in the small canton or province
or county In which they originated.
Sometimes, of course. some detail of
the peasant costume left it's impress
upon fashionable coStumery-but that
was all.
Even the backwoods farmers wife
follows the mode nowadays. It is. in
fact, rather ca sier for her to do this
than not. for she finds 1t convenient
to buy her frocks ready made and
even the simplest cotton-work frocks
change every year, following the die
tates Of fashion.
Nowadays 1t is almost as absurd
to draw social distinctions between
the leisured class Of women and the
class of women who are "gainfully
employed" as 1t is to make distfnc
tionS between men who work and
those who loaf From the clothes
point of view the very fact that they
are gainfully employed-and have
money to spend-counts for great
deal
The American girl who works Is
still devoted to the one-piece frock
and full-leneth coat The twopiece
suit and separate blouse gain few
recruits here. This is once where
French precedence does not have
much weight. Gone are the days
when the poor working girl stays in
her hall bedroom at night to wash
out her white shirt waist in a wash
basin and later iron II and press her
much worn blue serge skirt on an
ironing hoard set up on the backs
of two rickety chairs. II she devotes
any time to personal laundry work II
Is to wash out some cohwebby stock
ingS and silkeu underwear that are
too dainty to he trusted to laundry.
She wears a silk frock to work and
puts a smock over it to keep 1t fresh.
The two-piece suit with separate