Year: 1877

The semi-annual openings at the leading fur


nishing houses brought to light great number
of elegant dresses, and some very simple and
stylish ones that will be useful to plain and


practical people. Among the latter were COS
tunes Of soft twilled woolens in the fashiona-


BILE claire de lane gray, seal brown and plum
blue shades made up without any trimming
other than rows of sewing-machine stitching


and a single side-pleated founce. The over


dress for these was a yoke polonaise with


pleated front and back. The yoke is straight and
square the pleats disappear in the skirt below


the waist and the belt is confined to the pleats
leaving the tapering sides unbroken by belt


line. From six to ten parallel rows Of stitch


ing On broad facing or hem finish the edge


very neatly. The sleeves are SO nearly tight


fitting that the outer seam is left open at the


wrist and buttoned by two or three buttons and


holes. A long-ooped bow with ends of narrow


ribbon is on the left side of the waist in front


and similar one on the right side of the


back. The pleated hounce has large side


pleats, is hemmed on each side and is held in


place by four or five rows of stitching. This


costume is also made up in light qualities of


navy blue or gray waterproof cloth and is then


an excellent dress for travelling, morning


walks and for rainy weather. Other very use


full suits, jaunty enough to please gay, youth


full tastes, are made Uf similar materials with


coaching jackets and pleated vests This is a


pretty basque buttoned only by two or three


buttons and soping away to show a vest below,


and with rolling collar opening on a fiat folded


scarf such as gentlemen wear. The over skirt


is long and round, and the whole dress is


trimmed with rows of braid.


More elegant costumes are combinations


suits of the new rough threaded wooden stuffs


with silk or else the brocaded silks and stamped


velvet with plain velvet or gros grain


or perhaps there are three materials


in one costume. 1t is no longer pos


sbe to say that the polonaise Is the garment


most used, since the very latest importations


show more basques with trimmed skirts; in


deed, only one generalization is safe, and that
is that whether the over dress be all in one
piece as a polonaise or in q separate waist
and over-skirt, the whole costume, when COM
plete, must appear to be in one piece-in fact,
as princesse dress. The habit shape for the
back of basques is the decided favorite, and
this varies from short basques to those with
long square-cornered backs that almost serve
as "a polonase Vest fronts and Pompadour
squares, either real or simulated by trimming,
are more popular than at tany former season.
A suggestion of the Breton costume, either in
the front or back, is found in two-thirds of the
new importations. For plain suits sleeves are
narrower even than coat shape, and are, in
deed, tight sleeves gathered at the elbow to
give sufficient room there, and left nearly un-
trimmed at the wrist, to be worn with broad
linen cuffs turned back outside the sleeves.
For more dressy toilets the sleeve Is made to
| flare below the elbow, and is very much trimmed
with frills and laces. The French gray cordu-
roy dresses are made up In plain designs with
little drapery, and are richly trimmed. Moss
green is the prevalent color found in all mate
rials; it is, perhaps, the handsomest color
shown this year for rich .velvets and brocades,
and will be the first choice in the wardrobe for
visiting and church toilettes. A simple, single
founce is the most stylish finish for the bottom
IS aIr h. 1o.1 80
have its outline interfered with by an elaborate
| trimming below it. A favorite design is three
narrow tapping rose-leaf pleatings only as
| broad as one hounce usually is. Another is a
| triple box pleat with eight or ten knife pleats
between each box pleat Fussy looking
| founces that curve upward and outward are
| not as stylish as those that lie closely against
| the skirt The skirts of handsomest imported
| dresses have no braid binding, but are merely
faced, first deeply with cambria, then half this
| depth with crinoline, or with an improved
| buckram that is stout but not very stiff, and
| finally the outer edge of the skirt is turned up
i an inch or two and hemmed on the facing;


black dresses usually have narrow facing of
Il alpaca. a favOrite fashion and an economi-
cal one is that of drawing the back breadths of
the lower skirt together and fastening the
/ apron drapery OF the oversklrt beneath these
| breadths; this is especially liked for combina-
tion suits of two materials. The lower skirts
of most dresses are of silk, and as these are so
| nearly concealed by the overdress very inexpen-
siye silks are bought for this purpose even
when the dress is entirely of silk Woolen
| pleated hounces are set on these silk skirts.
| Many wooden hounces have bands of bias silk


for their trimming The edges of most flounces


are now hemmed by machine; very few are


bound. Narrow nife-peatings of satin trim


handsome silk dresses. How to trim the bot


tom of the dress is by no means as, important
as it formerly was, as SO little trimming is LETT


visible by the long over dress In many
/ dresses the skirt trimming is confined to the


front and sides, as the pleated fan breadths Of
the back require no ornament,