WOMEN'S FOLLY.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1920, Page 7

WOMEN'S FOLLY.

A subject that is exercising the minds of thoughtful women—'the foolishness of modern dress —was dealt witli by the Biennial Convention of the Women's Clubs of America. A resolution was passed to place on record that the members of the federation were heartily in favor of the movement for simple, becoming, and modest designs in women's clothes. The stupidity behind the present craze for dressing has begun to dawn on thoughtful women. In these days, when nearly every woman is a worker in some form of activity, the astounding stupidity of much of their dressing is apparent. Men have been forced by stress of working conditions into a uniform—for what is the present "suit," either dark, or light, but the plainest of uniforms—and something similar will yet be forced upon women by financial stress. Over and over it has been repeated that production is governed and controlled by consumption; that we choose what shall be grown, made, and presented for sale. Our attitude towards dress seems not to have been sufficiently analysed. Years ago women made their own clothes and did all sorts and kinds of harder things besides. But a dress once made lasted for years, not alone because its material was good, but because it remained "in style." Then came changes. Prosperity increased, and with it women were released from many of the privileges as well as the hardships of household work. Certain activities were carried out of the house into the industrial world; others were carried 011 by people hired to come into the home, .and a wide margin of time was released for the women. At that period women were denied outlets for such intellectual or artistically creative impulses as they might possess. So, in order to fill their leisure time, a round of social functions was devised, and for these functions women must dress, not merely becomingly, but competitively, each to outdo the other. The things we believe fashion imposes on us, the constant changes in style, the extremes of fashion, the time and the money we all waste, arose from conditions now wholly altered. Moreover, the producers of garments are suffering, and the workers are in the worst state of all. The most appalling fact the Home Economics Department of the General Federation ascertained was the result of constantly changing styles upon the garment-makers themselves. There are no words of con demnation too strong to eharacteris. , the ignorance or the selfishness of women, I who, without a thought of the people ' who make their clothes, are willing to be led by a thing they call Fashion. It j is ridiculous that we should lack the courage to as completely standardise our street clothes as men have standardised theirs. It will not put the dressmaker or the costume tailor out of business any more than the men's tailor has been done away with because so many men wear ready-made clothing, and all men dress more or less alike.