WOMEN AND CLOTHES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 128, 1 June 1936, Page 15

WOMEN AND CLOTHES

HAVE A "DRESS SENSE" ANACHRONISM OR —? No controversy could be aroused by the statement that modern women are iressed both more becomingly and in i more healthy manner than ever before, writes Marjorie Bowen in "The Queen." It is also true that dress sense is far more widely understood. In many periods of the past, feminine costume has been extremely beautiful; but it must be remembered that we gain our impressions of these garments of the past from portraits de parade, that is, likenesses of wealthy, high-born, or' famous women wearing n«Jt only their finest clothes, but some device or ornament invented by the painter as well. Those hand-made, hand-embroidered clothes, often trimmed with costly furs, were handed down from mother to daughter; they are carefully described in wills, and were regarded as "portable property" of great value. It is never easy to discover what the ordinary woman wore in the past; usually the simplest of garments, a skirt, bodice, cloak, and hood. In various periods laws were passed which prevented any but aristocrats from wearing rich materials, • ermine, sable, or golden ornaments. RIGID CLASS DISTINCTIONS. These rigid class distinctions, the enduring life of the homespun stuffs, the lack of wear and tear due to an indoor life, made the question of dress a rather dull one for most women; down to Victorian times, two new frocks for winter, two for summer, were considered a generous allowance for a middle-class woman—and there was more material and more work in those four than in a modern woman's wardrobe. A dress sense would not have helped any of our ancestresses; they had to dress according to their age, their class, their circumstances—there was little scope for taste, none for imagination. The dress designers were intensely conservative, fashion moved on leaden feet—it was useless for a "mode" to be "out" when every well-dressed woman was stocked with it made up in imperishable materials. We often read ol elaborate fashions being set by a Royal lady or an actress, but these charming vagaries affected only a few Wealthy women, the majority went drably enough. Now the providing of clothes for a vast number of women, most of whom are limited in their means, some of whom have very little to spend, has become a fine art. So has the training and advising of these women, so that few have now an excuse for being either wasteful, tasteless, or eccentric in their appearance. MISTAKES GENERALLY MADE. It used to be said that no woman— or one woman in a thousand—could be trusted with her own appearance. Perhaps it was—it is—true. It certainty seems to be wise for most women tc trust the expert dress adviser whose guidance always means the best possible results. The failures we still see about the homes, the streets, the countryside, seem to result from three mistakes—a woman with no taste has tried to dress herself, she has mis taken her type, or she is following £ fashion not lor her. Owing to one or other of these errors, we see plump women in shorts women with haggard, intellectual faces in "amusing" hats, and every type oJ woman mingling colours and pattern! badly—perhaps spoiling a pleasant out fit with the wrong bag or shoes, relic: of the days when "sensible" etcetera: were bought to "go" with everything, Now we no longer need, like Mrs Primrose, to buy our dresses for theii "lasting qualities"—a garden that lasts too long is often a bore; everything is cheap enough and nice enough for il not to be an extravagance to renew most clothes continually, though some basic garments are,permanent possessions. The danger for a woman nowadays is that she is too free, that the market is too temptingly crowded with delightful things; it is difficult to find in the shops anything ugly or in really bad taste, but it is easy to combine then: wrongly. "A DELIGHT TO THE EYES." Women who can afford a good dressmaker, the best shops, the best advice : look nowadays a delight to the eyes— in line, colour, detail they are impeccable. The girl or woman, young 01 old, earning her own living, is nearly always extremely well "turned out,' often astonishingly so when one considers how little time or money some of them have for themselves; these wage-earners cultivate a definite dress sense, and bring considerable intelligence and skill to their tasks—they seldom make mistakes. Between these two classes one finds —not often—specimens of the badlydressed woman. Middle-aged women sometimes "give up," elderly women lose interest, young women, absorbed in some other subject, "let themselves go," and among the leisured or hardworked middle casses you do some times find a certain now inexcusable indifference to dress. Some 'of these women with no dress sense keep theii more substantial clothes far too long they do not spend enough thought on an elegant evening outfit, they mingle colours with lamentable results, thej even still resort to beads and "bits,' while others, afraid of being dowdy buy at random fashionable articles thai do not suit either them or the othei portions of their wardrobe. There tenc to be less of these women every year for they began to be conspicuous amonj a well-dressed majority. Modern hairdressing is prettier thar it has been for years—and withir everyone's reach and suitable to everj age—how helpful this is to the gooc "dresser"—a neat head, under a hat 01 above an evening frock, is half the battle; gone are the "bird-nests" will' muslin flowers thrust in them, strag gling' locks beneath the sharp line Oi a brim. LAST ENTRENCHMENTS. The last entrenchments of dowdines: and bad dressing lie in evening wraps kept too long, ugly bits of fur, hmi scarves, evening bags and shoes tha have lost their first bloom. The womar • with any degree of dress sense whos< means are small gets herself one pleas • in" outfit which suits her for everj occasion and leaves fripperies or any thing that "dates" alone. The womar with no dress sense would be addm? to her own pleasure and that of bthei people if she would seek expert guid , ance. . . To dress oddly or in "period" is no : good taste; to be an anachronism is ai ' tiresome as being a fashion-plate, thi ' woman with the best sort of dress sens< takes the style of the season and adapt ! it to herself—there are always suffl [ cient varieties for fashion to stu everyone; shß never puts on anythinj because it is attractive in itself, or be I cause it suits someone else, and he ! instinctive good taste preserves he from wearing anything that clashe ' with her personality —her age, her en [ cumslances, her occupation. [ Instead of giving the children egg ; cups, which are easily upSet am . broken, save your face-cream jars am 1 let them use them for their boiled eggs : Those pots are heavier, and do not til : over as easily as the long-stemmed egg cap®.