PETTICOATS ABOLISHED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4480, 23 March 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

PETTICOATS ABOLISHED.

I mat as well mention the very last dictum' .of fashion. The petticoat is abolished ! Henceforth that generic term will be obsolete, and the other sex will have to devise . some[" new term in which to make slighting . mention of the claims and pretensions of ours. The " petticoats," whether " tumultuous," . as the poet calls them, or not, are suppressed by: the decree of the absolute dictator— : fashion ! In the very most recent trousseau turned out by the leading modistes for the very latest marriage in high life, the Lady T. T.'s wardrobe included no such item, and the graridc mode now is that the female body shall be encased in afourreau of the richest material so constructed that with everymovement the lines of the limbs shall be fully displayed, and anything like length of step effectually stopped by the narrowness of the . skirt, nnder which thickly-wadded drawers only are worn. The effect is, of course, a question of taste, and I merely pretend to record my own in saying that a more unsightly and a less modest costume than that which is the very highest fashion of the day has never, I should think, been devised by the man or woman milliner mind. The' enormous crinolines of a dozen years ago were no less absurd, perhaps ; but they were certainly more decent.—Lady Correspondent ■Australasian.