HOW WOMEN DRESS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11248, 11 April 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW WOMEN DRESS.

■THE QUEEN'S GOOD TASTE. M. -Worth of Paris is contributing a series of articles j.to Harper's .Bazaar, the first, by the way, that he has ever contributed to any periodical. Speak--ing of the various tastes of his royal customers,- he has something interesting to say. of Queen Alexandra. He says that she i is a bora artist m dress, inheriting her talent iii this direction from her mother, the late Queen of Denmark, who carefully taught to her children the rules of good taste : /. ' Queen Alexandra, could— often does —trim, her own hats and bonnets, and makes root-and-branch alterations m oven the most recherche Paris millinery. Never does her majesty permit the extravagance of fashion to irtyade her immense .wardrobe.- • She does not ask, "Will panne or stifl brocade be favored ?" : orV "W'll- fur be admitted ', for evening wear?"- or "Will tight' sleeves last through another seaM>n?" No. And not oecaiise her majesty is a law unto hersejf,. It is merely because, she she has exquisite taste and unerringly chooses' modes that become her known beauty. The queen gets charming ideas from museums and galleries, and used, to design m the tapestry room at Marlbordgh House under the direction of the late Lord Leighton. , M. Worth is something of a plrloso 1 pher, and surely if philosophy is ever needed anywhere it .is m the trade of the costumier. He implores women not to .pretend by their dress that they are younger than they are, for ' no policy could be worse: Instead \f dressing ten or ( twenty years younger than their age, women past their youth . would fhjd it a much wiser plan to dress years older than they really are ! For what would happen ? Why, just this, that people would say, "Why does madame wear a dress so ■much too old for her?" Surely, that is better than the remark, "Look at that old woman pretending to .be a girl!" The happy medium, however, can be acquired with care and taste.' Here, too>, is another piece of advice that." may! bo listened to when it is the great Worth who gives it: If only girls would' buy themselves by degrees pieces of real lace instead of the yards and yards of poor imitations with which they plaster their frocks, I can promise them that every inch of real lace will achieve for them the admiration, of 1 some discriminating man. For can it be supposed that men really admire the tawdry odds and ends with which so many women deck themselves, rather , as if they were wild salvages pleases' with the , glitter of worthless beads, than educated individuals of refinement who know good from bad, and false from true? .' ' . One more extract is perhaps permissible, from an article that should be rca-d 1 m its entirety. Jt is addressed not to young girls, but to women, the women "such as I dress" : In Parts the woman of true refinement, such as I dress, will not wear at the \ theatre any cloak or toilette that draws attention to her; but will so mark her.«elf that ho who runs may read a "charming woman" by her quiet attire and its exquisite simplicity of design. It is true that the materials are fine — better can not .be bought for gold, : and the gown fits "a merveille,'' as we say. But all the effect is entirely unostentatious.