The Times THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1938. Women's Dress

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 40, 17 February 1938, Page 6

The Times THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1938. Women's Dress

AVho settles the fashions in women’s clothes is a question often asked by the innocent, remarks the London Times. The more knowing have a vague vision of sleek, mysterious men meeting now and then in Paris, and there deciding how the clothes of next year shall differ from the clothes of this. The vision may have some truth in it; but it obviously docs not cover all the ground. It docs not explain why the secret conclave should decree that backs, say, should he barer or sleeves longer, instead of the other way about, or why women of taste should be so obedient to their dressmakers. Lome power there must be that guides both those who decree and those who obey. It is even possible for the innocent to catch a glimpse of its working.

The present simplicity of women’s day dress and the frequent use of the technical adjective “sports” cannot be altogether unconnected with the way in which women now get about, working away from home and playing outdoor games; and the long skirts and the semi-nakedness of evening wear are a necessary re-assertion of the feminity of which the day-dress says little. Thus, in the most elementary degree, we may see reason to suspect that there is a philosophy of clothes; that the changes of fashion have not mere caprice, but some principle or set of principles behind them. And, if that should be so, of what art could the principles be of more interest and importance than the very intimate art of dress?

It so happens that during the last two months of 1937 a great deal of light has been thrown on the subject. In November Dr. C. Willett Cunnington published a beautiful, wise and witty book, “English Women’s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century,” which, taken together with his previous book, “Feminine Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century,” linked women’s dress with the main stream of life and thought. A little later Mr. James Laver published a book, “Taste and Fashion from the French Revolution until To-day,” which also relates women’s dress with other forms of expression, especially with interior decoration and architecture.

Both authors, it appears, would agree with the conclusion that was forced upon St. Mael very early in his ministry among the Penguins—that fashions at all times arc designed to attract the male; but in the progressive working of that instinct through succeeding changes of fashion there lies a rich and hitherto too much neglected store of knowledge.