The One-Sleeve Gown

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue XXIII, 8 June 1901, Page 1095

The One-Sleeve Gown

The evening- gown with one sleeve has been appearing at dinners and balls and at the opera in Paris from time to time. It made its first startling appearance in New York with Miss Fannie Johnson in her Spanish dance in “Florodora.” The costume of black satin embroidered in vari-col-oured chenille was charming, but somehow it suggested a vision of a mishap in the dressing-room, and the audience was unkind enough to titter. The next morning the gown was sent back with a plaintive little note saying that the owner simply could not “go on’’ again without the customary number of sleeves. Miss Edna Wallace Hopper also tried to introduce the novelty, and. like Miss Johnson, grew faint-hearted after one night of “laughs in the wrong place” by an unappreciative audience. But Miss Jessie Milward, appearing in New York in “Mrs Dane's Defence,” continued to wear one arm covered and the other arm bare. The one-sleeved gown, as Miss Milward wears it, is described as being really both becoming and effective. The gown is of green embroidered velvet, and is worn in an after-dinner scene in the fourth act. The left arm is clad in a tight sleeve reaching to the elbow. The gown is fastened over the right shoulder by a narrow green velvet strap, and after that there is nothing but a long, graceful line of white arm. There is a first shock at the irregularity of the design, but a second glance accustoms the eye to the strangeness of the sight, and soon women’s voices are heard saying. “How pretty!” Will women off the stage wear the onesleeved gown? The left arm is always the one that is clad. In fashion, as there should be in everything, there is a reason for this freak. The excuse for covering the left arm is because it is generally less developed than the right.