Evening star., 1932-05-22

MERE are still some women, up
to date in most other respects,
who cling to very old-fashioned
L ideas about evening dress. It's
all very well to have old-fash-
ioned ideas about some things, but in
this matter of evening dress the new
ideas are SO very much better and so
much more practical that the old ones
aren't worth keeping.
The old idea was that evening dress
was always formal That is unless you
had a good deal of money and social
position you wore evening dress only on
occasion-important dinners dances,
formal card parties, the opera, to the
theater If you went in style.
Under ordinary circumstances, you
simply wore a daytime dress of some
sort, sports dress, perhaps, an after
noon dress, a street dress or whatever
else you happened to have on when
daylight faded and evening shadows
fell Even if you took the trouble to
change your dress for dinner-unless
there was something important on the
program you donned some sort of after
noon dress.
THAT, at least, was the attitude toward
evening dress held by the great
ma jority of women. If you didn't have
| loads of money it seemed more or less
like putting on lugS to wear an evening
dress every evening, and even if you
did have loads of money and were in
clined to live a comfortable, unpreten-
tious existence, you probably didn't
bother to dress" in the evening.
The reason for that state of affairs
was, to be sure, because evening dresses
as a class were formal, much too formal
for evenings spent in an informal, do
as-you-please manner. They seemed
| out of place if the men of the family
couldn't be persuaded to adopt the Gus
| tom of dressing every night for dinner
and the men couldn't be persuaded to
do it. 1t seemed strange to meet your
man at friends house for dinner, all
dressed up in an important looking eve
ming dress, when he had to come straight
| from the Office in business suit. And
when you went away to a Summer re-
sort it seemed rather bad form to doll
UP for dinner every night when most
of the time that happy-go-lucky hus-
band of yours would wear sport clothes.
| GO you included few evening dresses
~ in your Summer wardrobe and
much larger number of pretty afternoon
dresses of the sort that you could wear
| for dinner In one sense of the word
those pretty afternoon dresses were eve
ming dresses, but you didn't call them
evening dresses and they were not en-
tirely appropriate for real evening
parties.
Now, fortunately, all this has changed.
Evening dresses are as varied as day
| time dresses. They are informal. formal
and semi-formal. They are designed
| for important occasions and unim-
portant occasions for home or dining
out or anywhere that you may want to
| go in the evening. But no matter how
| informal or simple they are still really
evening dresses, just as daytime dresses
no matter of what material or cut are
still daytime dresses.
This new status of the evening dress
has not come suddenly. On the con-
trary, fashions have been working In
this direction for good many years,
but this year 1t Is quite definitely set
tied and consequently we have a wider
variety of warm weather evening dresses
to choose from than ever before. You
can pay your money-very little, II you
choose-and take your choice.
| \ II
THERE are simple sports evening
dresses as Wearahle as a tennis
frock, tailored evening dresses as smart
as any street costume. figured chiffons
and organdies as picturesque as any
Summer afternoon dress, chiffon, plain
or figured, taffeta, satin, silk voile for
more formal occasions,
There are clever little washable eve