DISCREET DRESSING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 6 (Supplement)

DISCREET DRESSING.

I it. a. passes. What is discreet dressing ? The question is more difficult to answer to-day than ever before, for the shifting sands oi public opinion have bad some severe jolts fcince the " neurotic nineties," that great j awakening from Early Victorian ism, and there are such variances of opinion that <-r.o hesitates to pronounce preference these days. Fublic opinion in the matter of dress has at times displayed extraordinary anomalies. I was in London when tho tuba skirt burst into all its glory, and Trhilc respectable ladies were breaking their noses tripping over themselves, getting in and out of their motors ar.d •.■mmbuses, two manniquins were mobbed an irate crowd, and had to be rescued by the police because they dared to appear at the races in harem skirts. Now, from an entirely unprejudiced aspect, which is the more sensible attire, the tight and hampering tube skirt, which had to be raised almost to the knees before a lady could step into a bus with any j degree of" safety, or* the trousered harem skirt which covered the leg to the ankle, affording warmth and freedom of moremeat to the wearer ? What is wrong with the harem skirt —other than its name? Certainly it is no worse than pyjamas on the Lido, which don't seem to laise a riot to-day. And /then came that copy of one of our British journals, on one side oi the cover a'lady in a crinoline, on the other a lady in a "tube skirt, and between them the words. "How ridiculous you look, my dear!"' Does the harem skirt look ridiculous ? Under the influence of custom how odd our judgments are at times. The matter of taste in dress is a sensitive subject, and one that we all like to please ourselves about, but when we do please ourselves, under the impression that there is nothing wrong with the way wo dress, do we give the subject sufficient outside observation to realise what we look like to others—particularly to others fit the opposite sex ? Details of dress aro observed very differently by men, than by our women friends. "Custom has long ago caused us to change pur standards in regard to what is, or is nOi descreet in dress. I was quite as alarmed as anyone when girh first be£an to exhibit their knees below the herns : of their skirts, but as I grew used to the j mode, and brought it under strictly imi partial observation, I was able to regard ; 34. ri3 rather a becoming style—that is for ! "drls in their teens, for the knee in action i Ss one oi the most prettily constructed ! joints oi the human body, when well | formed, and when one is really young. ! Tint a skirt- above tha knee, in my anti- ! quated opinion, is not only indiscreet, it \ is, to say the least of'it, inartistic, bring- ' in'g to view as it. does,' an unbecoming angularity. The short- skirt of today would seem , to be no more than a survival of the j graceful costume of the Grecian athletes, j -v. ho ran their races in kilted skirts t W the knees. It is one of those : r.obile perceptions evolved by Greece, in t her cult of beauty, which cult, by the i wav, did not lead her to any permanent ■ national success without the aid of "a •; nation of shopkeepers," high as she stands ; among the classics. It would seem that r there should be more in life than just i •• the beautiful," for nations as well as individuals, if we are to attain to true greatness.