THE HAREM SKIRT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 93, 1 April 1911, Page 5

THE HAREM SKIRT.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —There is no doubt you are an up-to-date man, for 1 notice even in the matter of the Harem Skirt you deliberately ask ‘Why Not?” Well, I say so too. Why not, indeed? Would it not be more decent than the long skirts which lick up the abominations of the street footpaths and carry home filth and infection ? The streets of Hastings give ample evidence of the necessity for a cleaner mode of dress than the skirt “just touching the ground,” which is the requirement of modesty in woman’s apparel. The harem skirt, I admit, is not suitable nor becoming for tnis country, and is also beset with prejudices not easily to be removed, but there should be no objection to the hockey skirt, which is regulated at 8 inches from the ground. The absurd “trou-trous” gathered in round the ankles, which accompany the harem skirt are both unsightly and unnecessary, I would not on any account advocate their adoption, but I do strongly speak out in favour of the hockey skirt from the point of decent cleanliness, health, and comfort. What can be more uncomfortable on a wincy, rainy day than the flapping of muddy, wet skirts about one’s heels ? I should like to see a women’s league formed to abolish them. There is nothing immodest m the wearing of a short skirt. In many ways, fashion is much more immodest. However, it is not any good to expect such a welcome innovation in Fashion’s creed, for if one or two women, a little stronger-minded than the others were to set the example and appear in short skirts, they would be scandalised forthwith. Truly women’s fashions are deplorable, not to say demoralising. Only to look in the milliners’ shop-windows and see the monstrous hats with their exaggerated trimmings makes uue wonder if hats are substituting brains. Lectures on Health and Fitness are absolutely labour lost, until women have learnt to adopt more hygienic principles in the matter of dress. Enormous hats, paddecV heads, screwed in waists, and skirt tails collecting filth will inevitably produce their crop of injuries to those who favour them, and are in point of fact infinitely more reprehensible than the harem skirt.— I am, etc., MADGE.