Year: 1879

Pompadour and Marie Antonette styles are
continued in the new French dresses imported
for autumn and winter The corsages repre-
sent two extremes one of which is closely fitted
to the figure like a glove, while the other is n
full waist in fan pleats, with great punches of
shirring at the waist line in front and back
The oYer-dresses are short in front and quite
long behind, with the real panier drapery
which is more properly seen on the hips than
behind, with all the becoming revers, scarfs,
and tabiers that belong to the styles of Louis
XIV, XIV, ard XVI The fabrics and colors
are exceedingly rich, and the combinations of
colors are studies for an artist. The founda-
ton of the dress is usually of some quiet, SOM
bre hue, but the gay, broche Cashmere, silk or
plush with which it is combined, at once trans
forms it into very brilliant costume. The
darkest shades of green, blue OF brown, are en-
livened by bright-colored Persian silks with
old gold, red, and rose tints; even black dresses
are no longer monotone for they glitter with
Cashmere beads of all the colors of the prism,
or else with jet or with satin, or perhaps they
are partly made of wool woven in imitation of
the borders of India camels-hair shawls.


The over-dress that promises to be most pop
ular, because it is susceptible Of the greatest
number of arrangements, is the Marie An
toinette. The back is like that of a princesse
polonaise, quite long, and draped simply or
elaborately, as the wearer chooses. The back
proper, consists of but two pieces, VIZ, the two
middle forms, which are now cut very wide at
the waist line and very short on the shoulder;
they join the side form, or else the extended
front in the arm-hole, and the effect is very
similar to that known as the French back.
Sometimes additional fullness for the skirt is
added at the waistine, and pressed in flat
seams in the pleats; in other cases the fullness
is added several inches below the waist line, as
i'll the Marguerite polonaise. Usually the ends
of the back are left square-corpered, and are
piped down each side and across the bottom.
They are then very lightly draped by one deep
pleat quite high on each side, while pleat
much lower down catches up the middle. The
fronts of this garment are not cut very long to
begin with, and are then greatly shortened by
being caught up in fine pleats ON the back, and
sewed underneath the piped sides of the back,
making fewer seams than were formerly seen
in such garments. In such cases the part usu-
ally called the side form of the back is cut in
one with the front, and the garment is shaped
uuder the arm by dart instead os the regular
under-arm seam. In very many dresses the
panier fullness attached to the front is brought
outside of the side forms and back, and is
joined together by large rosette or sash
bow in the middle seam of the back. This is
especially liked for the half-long over-dresses
which are really only long basques and are
worn with skirts that have an over-skirt set
upon them. The front of the over-dress is
open from the belt down, and curves outward
in curtain shape. The skirt for such dress
will be laid in box pleats two inches wide from
the belt to the foot in front, and as high up on
the sides and back can be seen, or else it will
be made of striped goods, or else the front Will
be succession of horizontal putfs or perhaps
there will be three or four wide pleated
flounces. Among imported dresses this style
of costume is shown with box-pleated skirt
of wine colored satin and an over-dress OF sat-
in of the same color dotted all over with broche
polka dots of the gayest red, blue, green and
yellow; the pipings of satin are the only TRIM
mings, as the box -pleating is hemmed at the
bottom, and allowed to hang loose from the
skirt, instead of using fiounces for trimming.


In some of the new overdreSses the short
round full panier front is set on in one piece
Just at the ends of the darts, if attached to o
basque, and is then gathered into the curved
side seams. This suggests good plan OF mod
ernizing old dresses, as this panier piece need
not be of the same material as the waist, nor
indeed of the same color, for the broche goods
used in combinations are usually of contrasting
coors.


Basques are very much trimmed around the
hips to give panier effects. Dark wool dresses
have bias silk pieces about three fingers broad
put in full irregular gathers on the basque be-
low the waist, forming folds that pass around
the hips, and are held in place by lengthwlse
straps of the wool goods. Shirred surpice
pieces are still more used than any other trim
ming for the front of the basque. These now
begin with q narrow frill of the silk doubled at
the end, and sewed quite deep down the shoul-
der seam, beginning Just below the colar;
they are then shirred in six or eight different
places across the trimming.


The shirred fan basque revived during the
summer for thin dresses is now seen IN the
thickest winter stuffs, which are made soft and
pliable enough to permit these volumlnous
gathers without adding much bulk. Some
times there are three pleats spreading out ON
each shoulder, and the shifring is only at the
waist line; other dresses have the shoulders
fullness only in the front, while others reverse
this and confine it to the back The overskrt
with such basques is usually shirred down the
front, and often there is broad cluster of shir-
ring in the middle of the back.


Amcng the fabrics used for the richest COM
bination dresses are Amazon cloth, which is
lady habit CLOTH repped woolens; English
homespun cloths of sleazy manufacture show
ing threads of rich colors on olive, bronze or
gray ground; plain cashmeres; and very heavy
twilled woods as thick as the smooth-surface
Amazon cloth. These come in bronze shades,
wine-colOr, garnet, amaranth, and the new
blues, and are combined with broche CASH
meres in palm leaf patterns, or in Japanese
fans, or Persian arabesques: or else in plaid
velvets, or soft Persian silks, or perhaps plads
stiped in two colors, such garnet and pea
cock blue on an old gold ground. A broad
deep collar like pelerine cape is sometimes
the only way in which the gay goods appear on
the waist, sometimes it forms surplice drapery
on the bosom, and panier folds around the
bottom of the basque; sometimes it is the en-
tire waists and in other cases it is merely the
paniers of polonaise. Borders are on the
skirts, but there is another fancy for making
the whole front of the skirt of the figured
goods.