A CYNIC AT THE DRESSMAKER'S.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1015, 3 January 1911, Page 9

A CYNIC AT THE DRESSMAKER'S.

Very different from tho methods of the nineteenth century dressmaker aro those of her modern successor, fays a writer ia ,an English paper.' . At' last it has been . realised that,. although men, ■who may havo a passion for conformity, may meot, the world all clothed after the same "manner, yet a woman must first' find ( her individuality, and then express it.-in lier garments. To all barbaric races pictures make a more vivid appeal than words, so women are now shown tho'latest inspirations of fashion' in a series of living tableaux. The client is. ushered into a spacious-roomed,' lnany-corridbred house, sleekly carpeted and blurred with flowers. At the far eiid of ono -room is a small stage, hung at the back with curtains of dull green, which part to admit the mannequin as she swims forward with a decree of haughtiness never seen but in her and in a fashion-plate. So cunningly is the lighting contrived that nowliere is a positive shadow—beaten back from every, angle bv .the dazzle of electric bulbs, the bafflod shade is a mere breath upon the background of ".curtain. For a few seconds she' stands there, every eye in the room.-: eagerly trying, against time, to take in all the detail;!; then, still with that gait to which the Early Victorian epithet of "swan-like" is alone applicable, the mannequin descends from' Jier ...throne and floats down the room, through tho ante-rooms aiid along the passages thronged with attentive women. As sho disappears, the crowded faces, turning with one accort; to scan her sncceasar, give a sudden, shook of pallor from , tho massed darkness of liatj and dresses, yet in those pole blurs all tho vitality of .the place Mems concentrated. Nobody-notices the clients' gowns; they sink to nullity beside the creations displayed, but the bored, immobile countenances of the mannequin's might bo those nf painted puppets compared with the faces round them, in which the verv essence of' interest gleams. The gown's oi the women stared at. and the expressions of. the women who stare, these are. an education in themselves, and one t "n! 1 cnn on '- T ' )e at the shop of the- truly modern dressmaker.