LADY HARBERTON ON RATIONAL DRESS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7718, 15 April 1887, Page 3

LADY HARBERTON ON RATIONAL DRESS.

A fashionable audience of ladies assembled in "Westminster Hall a few weeks since to hear a lecture, for women only, delivered by tlio Viscountess Harbcrton, on the subject of "Rational Dress." The chair was tajcon by Mrs Oscar Wilde, who, after giving evidence of the spread of the movement in England, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, allnded to the disadvantages under which the association labored. These she stated to be due to the vitiation of taste consequent on modern fashions, the sacrifice of health, convenience, and beauty to conventional modern ideas of dress, and the small effect obtained by reason when opposed to the prejudices of both sexes. The latter, she averred, countenanced follies the most outrageous and antagonistic to commonsense, and turned a deaf ear to arguments in favor of divesting women of the dress trammels which enthralled them.

Lady Harberton, in opening her lecture, drew a comparison between the fetters by which savages were bound and tlio.se voluntarily assumed by women. She expressed a, doubt as to whether thn growing discontent sit woman's dress could be viewed as a hopeful sign when she considered the slow advance made in its reform. Attention was I hen directed to tho injury caused by the pressure of the corset on tho ribs, and consequent inability to breathe through every portion of the lungs ; while medical evidence was adduced to' prove that, so far from being a beauty, a round/waist

was a positive jleToi'mlty. Oppression, compression* aha dragging were, Lady JJarbei-ton stated, the characteristics of modern dress, and inseparable from injury to health. Love of self-tormenting and a' desire to accumulate mud must, she declared, be inherent in the minds of women who could wea ,. the long, cumbersome skirts imrio'sed by modern fashion. Thec'ostmneVtf a nurse, for which doctors are responsible, and that of a fashionable lady, uue to Worth, were, said Lady Harberton, conclusive evidence of man's inability to dress womem Modern dress was shown to he needlessly bulky, ill-eonsli-ucted, . tally put together, and incapable of meeting the requirements^ the wearers. Under present Conditions it was designed to please the idle woman who took luxurious ease in her own home, while the lve'eas of the useful woman received no consideration. Tailor-made dvcSses were stigmatised as "cruel 'crushing machines;" and the lecturer maintained that so long as a woman was recognised as a biped she was entitled to garments that would give freedom to all the limbs. She pointed out the absurdity of the claim set up by the sex to obtain social and civil rights whilst they remained the abject slave 3 of conven tion in matters concerning their'own dress and comfort. Lady , Harberfon . then directed attention to the d'reSßS3 of the ladies on the platform, who all wore divided skirts. Mis T. Taylor had a tasteful costume of prune do monsieur, made \Vit\i a yoke bodice of velvet, into which were set fnllings of satin, terminating in a belt at the waist. The skirt, made on the Wilson pattern, left no division apparent, but merely showed a series of box-pleatinga taken from the waist to terminate at the ankle. A short folded drapery was arranged over tho. front, while the long straight back drapery was set in outstanding organ pleats. Miss Taylor's dress, pronounced by Lady Harberton as the perfection of a girl's costume, had the appearance of astraight skirt, convertible by means of fastening into the tunic of a fishwife, while the underneath petticoat of the latter was represented in knickerbpekets. Mrs Pfeiffer wore a Greek chiton of dovecolored cashtiiei'e, embroidered round the edge, and draped across the chest over a skirt of rich brown silk. She had neck-

let and girdle of antique ornaments, and on the bonnet, which matched the dress, a tuft of pink feathers and ospreys. Lady Harbci'fcon'sblack silk dressshowed similar sidrt pleatings to that worn by Mrs T. Taylor, and under the handsomely-de-corated velvet jacket of her ladyship was a blouse-like vest of white satin, confined at the waist by a jet ornament. Blue fox was the trimming on Mrs Oscar Wilde's costume of striped cheviot, and birds' wings ornamented the hat to correspond. Mrs Pfeiffer, in warmly seconding Lady Harberton's advocacy of dress _ reform, suggested that purveyors and designers of women's clothing, should study antique models, historical characters, Greek designs, and the treasures of the British Musenin. She advocated the adaptation of womeh*s dress to the work and aim of

her life, and reminded her hearers of the danger arising from the fearful power bestowed by the gods of " getting accustomed to things," lie they never so noxious. Miss Ada Ballili related sonic astounding experiences to illustrate the follies of which women are capable in the cause of vanity, and the evils consequent thereon. At the close of her address, a lady in the

full dress costume of a Chinese made the lour of the room, while discuss'on was invited, and models of reformed dress exhibited and explained.