Why Frenchwomen are Well Dressed.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 838, 23 March 1888, Page 5

Why Frenchwomen are Well Dressed.

Like every other fine art, diess requires the sacrifice of time and attention, and these a Frenchwoman has more at her command than an Englishwoman. Her life is less complicated, less hampered with the looking after of servants, ordering of meals, writing of letters, etc. The middle class Parisian woman lives in a flat, waited on by one or two servants. She seldom dresses before dhjeuner, at 12 o’clock,' and devotes the morning hours to going over her afternoon toilet, seeing that every button, hook and frill is in its right place. Very little dressmaking is done at home ; ladies’ maids are unknown in a middle-class French household. Mr. Ruskin’srecomendation to women ‘that can afford it, to get their dresses made by a good dressmaker, with utmost attainable precision and perfection,’ is indorsed by all Frenchwomen, who believe it to be the best economy, Their wardrobe numbers half the amount of dresses of Englishwomen of the same social standing, but they are generally made by a first-class couturiere. The anomaly' is never seen iD French households, as I have seen in .many an English one, of girls employed in adding another to an already large stock of gowns, while gloves in stockings in daily use are nnmended or nndarned. —London Queen.