Woman's World

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 15, 5 June 1914, Page 6

Woman's World

NO OLD WOMEN. At any big congregation of women j one looks in vain for the old lady in her : perennial black silk gown and bonnet", and comes to the conclusion that there are no old ladies nowadays. Aged tliey may be, counting the years and outward signs, such as silvered hair—if they be very honest—but old they are not, nor will they ever become in their attitude towards life. What is (Ice reason of this? It is simply that the women of to-day do not, look in (lie glass to see crow's feet multiplying, and count their grey hairs in despair, thinking of the back seat they must soon take. Instead, they go to a better costumier, and clever constructor of corsets, change their hairdresser for 3. more skilful eraftswoman. practice face I massage, and increase their millioner's bills. After all, it, is the hat that makes the woman from the cradle to the grave. , The bonnet of a generation ago often aged her, and labelled her old and imin- j teresting even before she had left her , youth behind. ; '■ Quite recently a woman who ihas passed the Psalmist's allotted span (if life, was described by a reporter new to the work as wearing a bonnet at a social function, whereupon the good lady, feel- \ ing that such an error was unpardon- , able, wrote straightway to the editor of the journal declaring that she never had I worn a bonnet, and that she never in- ; tended to wear one. , j The very idea of such a thing, when i it is now the old woman (misnamed old | of course,) who invents new and beeom- ; ing ways of hairdressing, and gives her ! married daughters lessons, not only on | the choice of 'hats, but' on the more I difficult matter of wearing them! I It is the elderly woman (forgive the | mark)! who wins her way to youth by ' her age, and in the end becomes the • young woman; because she takes up the ] charming things young women are neg- ' lecting in their efforts to be smart. She ' knows the beautiful trappings that have decked women throughout the ages, and \ made their passage a glorious procession ■ of colour in a world that can be hide- j ously drab, may once have been symbolic [ of slavery, but under certain conditions ' can be turned into signs of freedom. ! What a difference there is between this and twenty-five years -ago, when the i ageing woman gave no the battle of life ' without a fight, and crept off to the fireside in faded lavender and old lace, j Now she wears the sheath gown and the ' halo hat as convincingly, and often more so, than her daughter." j Among the throng at a recent race meeting was an old lady of over ninety, who was as anxious to secure a good j point of vantage in the stand to see the ' •horses and the frocks as her great-grand-daughter of nineteen. This speaks well I for the virility of the Australian woman, ■ when one Hearing a century of age can trip a measure in the dance of life to the tune of the Randwick races.—Sydney Telegraph. ' J \