DRESS ECCENTRICITIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 27

DRESS ECCENTRICITIES

MELBOURNE, November 21. Tlie Melbourne City Council is contemplating taking action to \ check the tendency of women to wear freak dresses. One councillor stated that female clothing was likely to assume greater transparency and airiness, and something should be done to prevent immodesty. In the Victorian Legislative Council Mr Manifold, in discussing the Crimes Act, said an amending Bill should be introduced to protect men, as had been done in America, by forbidding the wearing of transparent skirts which showed the whole female form and the limbs in detail. Women were vicing with one another in costume, or the want of costume, simply to attract men. It could be for no other reason —it was not to attract women. SYDNEY, November 22. The Lord Mayor of Sydney, in discussing the question of passing a by-law against the wearing of freak dresses, said he considered that the innate common sense and collective modesty and good taste of women would be a sufficient deterrent to any venturesome or ill-advised exponent of the wearing of freak attire. Two factors —viz., woman’s common sense, and man’s protective attitude towards his own, where the proprieties were concerned —should prove an insurmountable barrier against the inroads of immodesty or the encouragement of the grotesque in women’s attire.