RETURN OF LONG SKIRTS

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1930, Page 9

RETURN OF LONG SKIRTS

WARM DEBATE AMONG PUBLIC.

MEN’S DRESS REFORM LEAGUE.

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, May 8. Almost before London realised it, long sweeping skirts had returned. Each day and night sees thousands more victims to the fashion. So seriously has the invasion, which was regarded as almost impossible, been taken that it was the subject of a debate by the associations of women clerks and secretarys to-night. Miss Ellen Wilkinson, M.P., advocated skirts three inches below the knee, and Lady Duff Gordon six inches. The art critic, Mr. G. S. Sandilands, declared for longer skirts day and night, but received small support. Miss Wilkinson declared, that short skirts had largely obliterated class differences, and appealed to the power of fashion dictators. She asked if the crinoline was just beyond long skirts. “If they get us into long skirts they will get us into corsets,” she said. Miss Wilkinson fervently appealed to business _girls rightly to resist.

Lady Duff Gordon declared with emphasis, amid applause:- “The long skirt will never return. Men will stop it. The girl who wears it is a fool.” Thus saying she stood upon the table to exhibit her own short skirt.

Mr. Sandilands urged that the business of art through the experience of the long skirts had triumphed. "I do not advocate short skirts, but trousers,” he said. He was howled down.

The audience unanimously declared that it would not wear long skirts.

Meanwhile the Men’s Drees Reform League, in which Dean Inge is prominent, declared: “The women have let us down. Last year we were upholding her as a model of good sense to misguided men. They are now behaving like the poor fool, man. They trail disgusting dresses on the floor, then return to the nursery and kiss the children, carrying millions of disease germs.” Nevertheless, the dress reformers are getting ready for the summer campaign.