A CYNIC AT THE DRESSMAKERS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 9894, 26 January 1911, Page 3

A CYNIC AT THE DRESSMAKERS.

Very different from tne methods of the 19tn century dressraaKer, are those of her modern successor. At last it has beeu realised that, though men, who have a passion for coufo/mity, may meet tlie world all clothed alter the same manner, yet a woman must first—iiud her individuality, and then express it in her garments. To all barbaric races, pictures make a more vivid appeal than words, so women are now show.n tlie latest inspirations of fashion in a series of living tableaux. The client is ushered into a spacious-roomed, many-corn-dored house*, sleekly carpeted and blurred with flowers. At the far end of one room is a small stage, hung at the back with curtains of dull green, which part to admit the mannequin as she swims forward with a degree of haughtiness never seen but in her and in a fashion-plate. So cunningly is the lighting contrived,that nowhere is a positive shadow—beaten back from every angle by tne dazzle of electric bulbs, the baffled shade is a mere breath upon the background of curtain. For a few seconds she stands there, every eye in the room eagerly trying, against time, to take in all the details; then, still with that gait to which the Early Victorian epithet of ' swan-like" is alone appli. cable, the maunequin descends from her throne and floats down the room, through the ante-rooms and along the passages thronged with attentive women. As she disappears, the crowded faces, turning with one accord to scan her successor, give a sudden shock of pallor from the massed darkness of hats and dresses; yet in those pale blurs all the vitality of tlie place seems concentrated. Nobody notices the clients' gowns; they sins to nullity beside the creating, displayed, but the bored, immobile countenances of the mauuequins might be those ot painted puppets compared with the faces round them, in which the very essence of interest gleams. The _;owns of the women stared at, and tlie expressions of the women who stars, tnese are au edncation in themselves, and one which can only be , obtained at tlie shop of tlie truly modern dressmaker. — "Tlie Times" Women's Supplement.