OF INTEREST TO WOMEN ABROAD AND AT HOME

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 57, 8 March 1930, Page 19

OF INTEREST TO WOMEN ABROAD AND AT HOME

WOMEN'S SKIRTS

INDEX OF PROGRESS

THE CHANGING YEARS

The century Is now thirty years old; the' progress made within that period

has been vast.

Its extent may be

variously indicated,' Hut in "World's ": Work" Mr. Mark Sullivan sets up an

.'. unusual yet impressive standard. Of ..: changes that camo upon the surface *.-.' of life since tho opening of this cen-

tury, lie says, one of tho most conspieu'

■ ous has been diminution of tho quan~,i tity of cloth or other form of covering O V with which woman separates her per-- ■''■'" son from the world. A conventional --woman of the older day who, let us say, entered upon a Kip Van Winkle sleep --« in 1900, and awoke in 1930, would have " "some arresting experiences. She would "':be startled by the drone of the aero- - > piano in her ears, and would turn as■i tonishe'd eyes upon the sky. But she ...would have withdrawn them, to gaze ■ ' with cornparablo wonder and a greater •'• sense of shock, upon tho sight of "vwomen wearing skirts whoso lower .hems are measurably above tho knee. AS,THE YEARS ROLL BY. ■ Sir John Suckling wrote in the early part of the seventeenth century, and could have written any time up to ~,...1910, without-^ going contrary to- the ""everyday observation of the man in the street — Her feet beneath' her petticoat like little miia stole ill and out, As it tliey Teared tho light. Had Sir John Suckling been living in 1919, and disposed to bring his verse about the lady up to date, he would have been- obliged to. write— Her calves beneath her petticoat, Like little mice assuming that, as to the lady whose uharms he was immortalising, or indeed as to any lady, he would have felt he could say truthfully, and poetically, that, calves have any similarity to mice. Had. Sir John Suckling made a further revision a few years later, say in 1923, fidelity to tho. changing scene would have compelled some-such form as "Her knees . . . Like little mice . .'." and\he would have been ' obliged to omit the. petticoat, for it had disappeared. By 1930—but perhaps one should stop. Sir John Suckling's delicate verses would creak under the burden of accommodating themselves to the increasingly visible details of the female anatomy.

■ r It was about -1912 that a dramatic critic reproved what seemed to him a daring brevity of skirts in a musical comedy, by remarking that "the human knee is a joint and not an entertainment." The high visibility, of the adult female human knee, together Tsith an accompanying scantiness of all female clotting, became, during the 1920.'s —to the elder generation, to •whbin. the eight was novel —a subject for serious sermonising, or for philosophic resignation. To the younger generation, younger in years or in. carelessness of spirit, just beginning to taEe paucity ojL female raiment " for granted, it was occasion for a wit that \yas like-the wearer of the short skirt, ■uncertain just how daring it was safe t*> be. Abe Martin, in 1928, said:— "I used to think women wuz all alike, Tiut ,now I can see ther.'s quite a difference in 'em." By 1929, the condition having become more extreme, he ' remarked: "What to leave bare and "what to cover seems to be the question of the hour." A perodical in' 1928 jested thus, under the caption "Try a Doyley"— / '.-;•'' riapper: "I would like to try on that vieux rose frock in the window." Sales Lady: "I'm sorry, that's a lamp shade, tut. we could copy it.for you." -■, . ' "CAUSES AND EFFECTS. To identify the causes of any change, in any field, small or great, is a task .which historians undertake with a confidence out of proportion to their sue- : cess. Sometimes they make longarmed deductions, in which they may confuse mere sequence/ of events, ,or (Joincidence, with cause and effect. To the shortening of women's skirts, many agencies contributed; it was a symbol

of, and a part of, a movement broader

and more diverse than feminism, a movement that expressed itself one , way or. another, in practically every field of human affairs, and in ~ every quarter of the globe, including China, and finally, in 1927, Turkey. The process, considered in the light of all its causes, effects, and associations, was .. extremely important.

With these very broad qualifications, it. is. worth while to call attention to what is, at the least, a coincidence, and may be more. The striking elevation of the lower hem of women's skirts be-

gan about 1910, in which year it ad-

vanced from about the knob of the ankle bone upward as far as the shoe top^ In the same year, the automobile self-starter was perfected and put on the market. As long as automobiles had to be cranked by hand it was taken for granted that women genefal-

ly could not be drivers or owners. With

electric self-starters came realisation "S. Jby"aulfcomobile manufacturers that their market might be increased by persuad-

ing women, that they could now drive.

When woman began to move her feet ~ about among the pedals of a ear long skirts became an inconvenience. Which brings us back to the automobile as an outstanding cause of the changes that have occurred during these thirty years. ' .