THE BLOUSE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 91, 10 January 1908, Page 3

THE BLOUSE.

, ' AN APPEAL ;BY "A MERE MAN. ' , There, is some, reason, in the following wail by a mere man which appears ill the "Daily Mail," but'.his complaint would have , been oven more to the purpose a'year ago w.hen the want of accord between,blouse!and ?kirt 'was., much more apparent than it is liow. ."1 am loth, ho says, to east any,, doubt on the; artistic senso or the romantic nature of the modern woman, but. I. cannot help suspecting that a . utilitarian lurks' in'hbr heart of.hearts. ' I notico that'tho "fair sex"—a term first lisped in the days of 'ohfyalry—r-is now. generally referred to as the "purchasing sex," and; I havo observed'that the spirit of . the market-place has : 'found its .way into the. boudoir—not that I often find my way there.

I may, of course, bo wrong, but if woman is not a utilitarian, how can we. explain the vogue, of the blouse?. For the 1 fair or purchasing sex is a blouse-wearer to a woman, and it can hardly'be contended that the blouse hiis any artistic value in situ. '

In itself, it is often a .thing of beauty, a dainty, an exquisite tiling, indeed, I have scon creations in real lace, in crepe do Chino, in ninon do soie, in fine charnicusc; fashioned and wrought with such cunning, that 1 have been tempted to forget my principles, and when a man forgets his principles. .. . . But the blouse is all wrong. It is bad ab initio, as thoy say in tho law. Artistically, it is an offence.- It is 'a . rank weed that threatens to kill woman's taste in dressj a

pestilence, that has raged for a decade. It is worse til an tho fancy waistcoat. Anything is batl which destroys the unities —the savoury of a modern dinner, the epiof modern drania; indeed, disintegration is the note of tho day.' And the blouse divides the most charming,' most adorable unity in creation' into two parts which are not on speaking terms with each other. ' So long as tho "colour of tho skirt. does ' not clash witli the colour of. the blouso.the feminine artistic sense-is 'satisfied.. /Recently, it is true,'fashion deqrcod that'-it was not. enough'for the colours to blend; they must be identical. .But tho question is only partly one of colour. It;; is ono of essentials,, and n nice attention to colour does not abolish the offence, but, merely mitigates it. :: Ono .seos everywhere the most glaring inand tho juxtaposition-of the incongruous is not always humorous; it "is :of ten-painful;'arid if; members of tho sex I admire so much only realised- the distress caused by their utilitarianism they would never again, wear a lace blouse, wdtfc'a'tweed skirt, awhito shirt with a skirt of voile, or a frail confection in the pale tints with a skirt of white cloth;

Imagine, dear madam, a man with' a dress coat .and. tweed • trousers I Imagine a house Queen Anne up to tho-first floor and Italian Renaissance above (this,-however, may'often .be seen in. tho suburbs)! I suggest to'you that, you in your.blouse are: only less -ridiculous . than theso because you- are so charming. . .... ...

But is it not a pity for you to be so wanton when Nature has taken such infinite pains with you, moulded you with; such subtlety, tinted you with sucli delicacy! The gods did not give you a waist to split you into two parts. It was not intended that you should regard it as a convenient depression from which to hang a skirt.- It is not proporly a ring fence dividing two separate estates. ■ It is not rightly a hint that you were shaped for a harlequin'or ■ any other piebald freak. My view is that you wore designed all in one piece, and tliat you should dress yourself as .you wero designed. A pretty blouse is not enough to make you presentable at l-flin-nor—even though your skirt be:of the latoist mode. It will not. help matqrially .if the two things, are of the same colour, ,evoji if they are.of the .samo. material. Unless your frock' has boon ,conceived and carried.-out' <as a .whole,'you will score only.half-marks. .-, The women of Ancient Greece, knew bettor that -you, and I am quite' sure they were really not half so charming. You receive all of homage. Why not keep that of tho,artist?