A DOCTOR PROTESTS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 14, 17 January 1930, Page 13

A DOCTOR PROTESTS

EVIL OF LONG SKIRTS The prevailing fashion among modern women to wear short skirts is now threatened by the dress designers, who decree a change. If women sacrifice what is healthy, sensible, and convenient in order to follow the dictates of fashion we shall soon see long skirts sweeping the ground again, writes a woman doctor in a London magazine Woman has extricated her skirt from the mud with great difficulty, and now she is ordered to revert to the old unhealthy fashion. After centuries of irrational clothing a type of dress has been evolved which is not only reasonable, convenient, and pretty, but, what is moro important, healthy and hygienic. But tho law of fashion is inexorable, and its dictates are considered as a law of nature which no one dares to disobey. Men show much more individuality in their clothing, and it is impossible to stampede them into constant changes in the cut of their clothes. Men are also less imitative than women. They are more concerned with whether a thing is nice than with whether it is the latest fashion. But a woman would rather wear an ugly but fashionable dress than a beautiful old-fashioned one. The wearing of short skirts and thin, transparent stockings is particularly desirable in the summer, as it enables the sun rays to penetrate the skin. This not only benefits the legs, but the whole, body. Thin, transparent stockings are tho best alternative to bare legs in hot weather. Sun rays arc one of the best safeguards against anaemia, and the wearing of short skirts and thin, transparent stockings has no doubt helped to combat this disease, which used to bo so prevalent among women. Though the short skirt was abused at first, and is even now sometimes attacked, it is preferable to tho long skirt on hygienic grounds. Long skirts carry bacteria, which detach themselves from the dusty roads and aro introduced in millions into our homes. The saying that "a woman is as old as she looks" is no doubt justified. The short skirt helps women not only to look younger, but to feel younger. The reason modern women feel younger is because they aro healthier. It will therefore be much more advisable for them to sin against' the dictates of fashion than to sin against the laws of health.