TEMPORARY TYPES OF GIRLHOOD.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 241, 4 July 1908, Page 11

TEMPORARY TYPES OF GIRLHOOD.

THE GREENERY-YALLERY GIRL.

Out of the rag-bag of Time one picks curious things (says a London paper apropos of the new voguo for the sheath frock), and none more curious than the aesthetic young person who has but lately died. Those full throats, tboso limp, boneless bodies, those faded art colours, that look of intenseness —gone. The drawing-rooms that welcomed them would laugh at them now. The Directoire lady would stare through her long spy-glass (I suppose those will come in with the other absurdities) and marvel that women could, ever look' so foolish. Yes, I suppose we shall have to suffer the single, spy-glass, and the tall cane with a liig bow, and tho Greek sandals. THE GIBSON GIRL. And yet another on the page of fashion, following- on many peculiar people, following really on the heels of the girl' Du Maurier drew; the streets were full of them not very long ago. For a moment there is a passing vision of an awful person called The New Woman. A creature determined to kill grace, beauty, charm, all those gifts by which women rule the world; a creature of short hair and long ideas; a creature who wore masculine boots and tweed suits and stifE shirt-collars. , To kill and end this being came a rather jovable person; trim-waisted, short-frocked, brown-skinned by open air, with- • a fearless face and .a square chin. The streets were full of her; one never knew there was so much health in England before her day. THE FLAPPER. Her day went, and only' yesterday there was an astonishing girl who occupied the street. She was wonderfully young, her bair was still tied .at the. back; her short skirt revealed dainty petticoats. She had a vivacious air, and was apparently easy to copy; sinco she poured out of every house, and had a certain chic which was very catching. She was essentially a Cockney, and was invented, I imagine, in some musical comedy. Anyhow,, there she was, only yesterday, very young, pert, pretty, small. THE DIRECTOIRE GIRL. Now one is just awaro of the new girl with her lack of petticoat, her swathed body, her enormous hat. Chic is dead, and something at present indefinable has taken its .place. And you will find that, after the ".first shock, women will mould themselves in fashion,_ and big women will become mysteriously slim and elegant, and a new face will, appear, a face of the correct date, a face that will fit the clothes. It would seem thai we have exhausted the invention of dressmakers, and are forced to go back' over our tracks and copy old styles. The only really new thing the last ten years •have seen is the motor outfit, the big coatj the veil, and the cap, and women look very delightful in them. But then, whether history, repeats itself or not, woman looks delightful in anything truly feminine. One' thing I feel most deeply, and that is that the world, from a picture point of view, will never bo perfect until every woman has a fashion of her own,, a fashion absolutely fitted to her figure, to'her face, to her own individuality. That day will come ' when.-'taste will be consulted before fashion,' and wo shall see the streets full of varied types of beauty, of hundreds of different styles, 'of multitudinous forms of coiffure; of all the colours of the rainbow, and the fashions of every age.