Indifference to Dress.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 978, 28 November 1890, Page 4

Indifference to Dress.

A clever writer in the Woman’s World thinks that no lady has any right to pretend to be quite indifferent to her dress. She says: ‘ For a woman to affect indifference to dress is in the highest degree absurd and reprehensible, and when you meet with a woman who indulges this affectation, you may be sure she is utterly devoid of taste, has no sense of form or colour, and knows not a well-made gown from a veritable sack ; or else, for some reason best known to herself she is practising hypocrisy. The dress of a woman reflects her discernment and love of the beautiful, and a harmonious and appropriate costume is invariably the index to a well-ordered mind. As As the poet clothes his fancies in the fittest phrases to produce the desired impression of lyrical beauty, as the painter adapts his artistic means to his end, so as to bring abou a symmetrical effect, so does a woman reveal her refinement and sense of the fitness or things when the grace of her person is one with her costume. Some ancient cynic haa contemptuously designated woman as an animal that loves dress”; and that she very rightly is so I proudly aver; but to love dress is one thing, to understand it is quite another. The mere fascination of finery is ,common to the most vulgar and the most uncivilised, bu the art of dress, by which I mean congruous and appropriate clothing, is a matter ° culture combined with native gifts which by no means common. As a sane mind i found in a healthy body/so a woman of tas will always be found in a tasteful costume, n matter how simple.’ &

To bl&ach a faded gown a good plan is **, follows j-T-Wash the dress in hot suds, a . boil it until, the colour appearß to ha g°“ » then rinse it and dry it in ,the sun. “ho it not be rendered white by these means / the dress in the open air, and bleaob it several days. If atill not quite win w repeat the boiling.