REASONABLE DRESS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 66, 14 September 1929, Page 21

REASONABLE DRESS

OWING TO SCIENCE?

"Which.is the reasonable sex? There is no doubt about the tradition. Our grandfathers were quite sure that the charm of a woman lay in her words and actions being independent of reason, and our grandmothers at any rate pretended to agree with them. If the men wanted an example* to prove their point they would take women's clothes," says a writer in the London "Daily Telegraph." "Nothing, they used to argue triumphantly from generation to generation, could be more absurd than the farthingales, hoops, crinolines, bustles, and so forth which women insisted*on putting on. But.let us not go beyond the last fifty years or bo. The old gentleman in the family portrait gallery with the frock coat and the white waistcoat and the Gladstonian collar is obviously convinced that nothing could be more rational than his clothes, and you can see him admiring his wife for tho absurdity of her swelling, spreading petticoats. But nowadays—well, nowadays we hear Lady Rhondda remarking that she is an optimist, and. so she can still hope ' one day we may see men adopting "a reasonable costume.' ■ ■ . "HARD ON TATHEKS." "I own I think this hard on fathers. My sympathy is deep with the poor man who can no longer scold his daughters about the absurdity of their frocks without being told ,that he had better get some reasonable clothes himself This is bad for family life and domestic bliss. But I suppose there is no denying Lady Ehondda's charge.that .men have not .'shown much imagination or initiative' in making their clothes comfortable, healthy, and practical. The typist who wears nothing on her neck or her arms and nothing below the knee but stockings of silk, artificial or otherwise, looks more like a reasonable being than her employer, with a starched collar up to his chin and heavy ana impeding cylinders of cloth all over him. 'I do not know of any reason why the modern male should sternly object to be decollete except in a bust. Doubtless a Eoinan fashion of low necks for men would not add much to the beauty of the world, but I cannot think it dangerous to morality.' However, men have insisted on. high dresses for fifteen centuries or so, and I see no sign of a change. .

There may. be some signs of change about the legs. Knickerbockers have certainly been worn as long as I can remember, but I suppose of recent years the variety called 'plus fours' has become much more abundant. Men used ™ear S"£ h th? gS on]y for BP°rtive purposes Low they get into them with wV£ 0* doing anythiag afterwards._ Still you would not-say that 6 .M *any-Sign of a general discarding of trousers. The modern male is stiu incomprehensibly convinced that tor decorative purposes and for business there is nothing to beat that garment. This is no doubt a.final proof that the male is an unreasonable animal. WHAT THE DOCTOR SAYS. "The^odd thing is that it is only recently the essentially reasonable nature of. the female mind has been discovered lias i is not the first occasion, by many m the vicissitudes of fashion that bare necks and bare arms have been the rule.. The unskirted leg is certainly a new phenomenon. But you will observe that only a lew years have gone by since all the doctors and all the earnest people who look after our mo i" als were 'scolding- about the iniquity sW, Carm! Pne, umoJ« a blouses' and thin shoes. My humble self, under this same headline, I have ' writ paragraphs making what, I hope, was fun erVof thf f-6S^ Qi course/thel* were taulhf-"?^ g tMllgs of 1929 wt-re taugnt to believe iv wrarminohemselves up loved wool ne^Sf skw and good warm stockings. \y e « *« take to it kindly, but the doctors told us we should certainly con c to a-bad end if we didn't obey. And now your doctor tells you to wear fnvtfte«er.° thMg'bUtcertfti^«-"-mllktT^?* °ne a lUtl° while ago re-