WOMAN'S UNCHANGABLENESS: CONSTANT IN HER GREAT INCONSTANCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3443, 9 March 1920, Page 58

WOMAN'S UNCHANGABLENESS: CONSTANT IN HER GREAT INCONSTANCY.

The Graphic, the well-known London illustrated paper, celebrated ifla jubilee in December last. The following, concerning some of the changes -which have taken 'place during the past 50 years, appears: - In one-respect the woman of 1919 differs not at all from the woman of 1869: Her interest in "the fashions" remains fixed and absolute: they may change, but women's attitude towards them does not alter. In 1869 we used to read of Hungarian vestes, grossgrain, poult de soie and terry velvet. To-day we have the kimono sleeve, beige duvetyn, georgette and silk jersey. Our fashion-writers, like our fashionable frocks, are a little less voluminous. Thus runs a sentence in the Paris Letter of the first Graphic: "Nor will the members of the fashionable world feel certain or at ease in their mind as, to what really will be adopted till the great arbitrator (the Empress Eugenie) returns and sets an example, assisted by the ladies of her Court, whom minor stars will imitate, and so on till the mode is generally adopted, and the time comes round again for fresh changes, with the change of the season." As circumloctutory, this, as the flounces and frills which wound themselves round and about,, above and below, and under and over, the feet of the welldressed woman of the period. Woman may permit herself a discreet smile, too, when she read's how the 1869

lady "crowned the capillary edifice with the largest sized chignon." For, says the writer, "The more the chignon has been attacked the more it has increased, prospered, and multiplied. Instead of one chignon, two are frequently worn. Such is the effect of ridicule-upon she fair but perverse sex!" The fair but perverse sex is in 1919 making the same retort to a strongly contrasted criticism. The more her inadequately draped shoulder-blades have been attacked the more the coverings of her back have dwindled, contracted and decreased; such is still the effect of ridicule, if indeed, the desire to "go one better" than the other-woman be not really the deciding factor. The whys and the wherefors of fashion are strange. To-day's designs are always sure to please. Contrariwise, a woman has only to see a picture of herslf taken five or ten years ago to ask in astonishment: "How ever could I have brought myself to wear such an inconceivable atrocity!" A fifty-year-old fashion is another story. It has acquired the mellow charm of antiquity, and the inevitable comment ?s, "My grandmother must have looked very nice in that!"