MODES OF THE MOMENT

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 252, 21 July 1934, Page 16

MODES OF THE MOMENT

Passing Notes by Jane

Wellington, July 20.

Dear Mavis,— They are talking about a coming ball. “Hostesses—that-really means chaperones,” said a Bright Young Thing inspecting an invitation card. “What exactly is a chaperone? What are they “Most necessary and useful,” answered the Nice Young Married Man promptly. “Why, how otherwise is an unkown deb. or a visitor to get dances except through the good offices of her chaperone?” “You poor thing!” commiserated the B.Y.T. with her eyes, but, At hat s the matter with her partner?” she enquired sweetly. “Is he going to leave her flat’ I’d like to see myself waiting round the wall for some miserable creature to be brought to heel by an officious elderly lady and commanded or wheedled into dancing with me. If I couldn’t provide myself with adequate male “But’do yot/mean to say,” gasped the N.Y.M.M., "that a girl who goes to a dance on spec, so to speak, with a well-known woman as chaperone would tS ntro.d. "I te „.> ° f a “r t can S remember e over and over again, Down South,” continued the man. “being’rung up on the day of a dance by some married woman who was taking a girl and being asked to keep a dance or two for her. Why, her programme would be well arranged before she got there, and all because her chaperone had taken a little trouble beforehand. That’s what chaperones are for. “And what about when you found she couldn’t dance.' And what was your own partner doing meanwhile? And how long ago was this? Before the war, I suppose, or the Flood?” „ “Don’t be silly. I’m not so old. Dash it all And so they argued, and I had time to think. J remembered debs., all down these years, who had looked forward to the glorious emancipation or “coming out,” and whose first dance was carried through on a succession of kind acts by friends who knew her parents, while young coveted males capered, hopelessly out of her reach, with sophisticated young people who knew their way about. This independence, of which we are so proud, I thought, had brought unexpected changes in its wake. Not girl is born with eithei the capacity or the inclination to do her own battling, and the sight of an occasional wallflower at a dance is the result of a miscarriage of justice, surely. For there are many more who stay at home. No one wants a young gill to be hurt, and yet she will be if she is taken unpartnered to a modern dance. The bravest chaperone is not game to hold up a young man she knows and ask him to “dance with a girl she’s brought.’ He might be quite polite, buhe would be definite. To be really effective she must be able to give some form of entertainment in exchange for services rendered. The only way for a girl who has a small acquaintance among the young of the opposite sex to really enjoy a dance is for the chaperone to take a hand again, but to put in a different sort of spade work, such as a preliminary dinner P One of the younger set who knows about these things told me the other evening that there is even a successful and an unsuccessful technique in this. If he said you give a dinner party before a dance, keep it small.' Three or four couples are enough. If there are more the party becomes unwieldy ami is very easily broken up, so that its aim may be defeated. Which is tine, because I had proof of it not long since. A young man was arranging to call for a pretty girl at 9.45 p.m. “Sorry it’s a bit late,” I heard him say, but I m ■going to a big dinner,, and I shall have to get a dance or two in first. A nice voung man? Well, yes. But modern. « Of course, if a girl can afford any number of double tickets, tbeies nearly always a perfectly good partner to be raised on the telephone. But the whole situation is rather puzzling, don’t you think so? And I wonder what the next change will be? —With love, Yours, JANE.