DON'T "LET GO!"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18496, 5 September 1923, Page 14

DON'T "LET GO!"

Much has been said of the moral 'damage caused by the dress mania, but strangely few writers—male writers at? least—look at the other side of the picture. If women were to cease to care about their clothes, men would be the first to complain. And women—even she who has just spent how many guineas on a ' winter costume—know' well enough' how dangerously easy it is to slip into sloppiness. To omit to remove that stain from a skirt to wear that glove unadorned; to employ a pin (for just this once) in place of a button. : * ' •

And say what you will, "long-suffering papas and husbands, you cannot bear a sloppy woman. But, surely, you will say, it costs nothing to be tidy. It costs nothing, but it requires an incentive. And that incentive is a frock one respects! We all take good' care of a frock, costume, coat, or hat which is remembered by the hole iC made in our resources. Once a woman begins to "let •> herself go" in the matter of clothes, she is lost, whichever direction she takesthat of the bankruptcy court, or the slattern's backyard. • The straight and narrow path of moderation is the path which leads Co self-respect and) a good appearance. When a woman begins to compare her appearance with that, let us say, of her slovenly neighbour, she has already set foot on fho downward path. j That physical sloppiness tends. to- | wards mental and moral carelessness, there is not the slightest doubt. Watch your fellow-travellers to town' by the morning tram. You can pick ' out the -respecting b'uisihess-woman by her self-respecting clothes. You can " spot" the slack worker as often as not by the spotted shirt, the down-at-heel shoes, which have postponed their visit to the cobbler day after day, and, most of all, by her coat collar, which would do with a good hour's scrubbing with ammonia and soap. One hardly knows whether the overdressed or the sloppy individuals offend the eye most. At least they are akin in one respect. They neither recognise the great dress law of moderation. And you will often find that Che overdressed girl in the streets is ,a "kimono" girl on Sunday morning. The difference between her and the habitually sloppy is that one cares what folk will Chink of her, while the other doesn't. But neither cares much for her own opinion of herself !