AN BALL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 443, 7 October 1881, Page 5

AN BALL.

(London Letter to the Philadelphia Telegraph?) I had the pleasure of attending an aesthetic ball the other night. It was very intense. Oscar Wilde was not there, but Burne Jones was, looking long and solemn, like the lanky while maidens he is so fond of painting. Punch and Harper have* pretty well familiarized the American public with the make of the gowns and the style of the coiffures of the aesthetic set, so I will go into no detailed description of the costumes, only pausing to declare that Mr. Dv Maurier has not caricatured the aesthetic style of dress in thelleast. On the contrary he has drawn it very mild. The favourite colours are peacock blue in a dull shade, sage green, terra-cotta red, and bright saffron colour. Most of the ladies had their hair cut short, and pulled out in wisps to look like the personages in mediaeval illuminations. One lady present had copied the costume worn by Ellen Terry as " Portia." and her dre u s was made of magnificent satin and brocade, but, lacking the consummate and exquisite grace of that consummate actress, the effect wan far from being good. The materials employed were mostly crape, cashmere aud thin Chinese silk, with here and there a heavy satin. The wearers of these wonderful robes posed about the mom in a limp and backbonelesa manuer, leaning up against door-posts or convenient pieces of furniture in attitudes more or less marvellous to behold, but all on the floppy style. In fact to be truly aesthetic, one must ha*e neither backbone nor back hair ; cropped locks and a tendency to double up on the smallest provocation being essential. This new craze, however, has its advantages. A pretty girl in one of these queer dresses looks pretty in spite of it, while an ugly one has at least the comfort of being conspicuous, and attracting a degree of notice that she would not otherwise obtain. And if the thing were well and tastefully done, it would be rather nice than otherwise, being picturesque and peculiar at all events. But the dresses themselves are bo hideous, and so badly made, and often, alas and alas I anything but clean, and the cropped heads are so very trying, and the lilies and sun-flowers lcok so absurd that the picturesque element in the affair is overridden by the ridiculous one. It has, however, one great merit— it is economical. An aesthetic ball dress would cost but very few more shillings than a Parisian one will pounds.