Lingerie is Dainty

1910

Undergarments Look Like the Work of Fairies

Attractive and Almost Endless Selection of Materials Now to Be Had Give a Most Gratifying Variety

Once upon a time a girl thought herself very well provided for when her mother gave her a bolt of longcloth and some spools of cotton and admonished her to be industrious, but times have changed, and girls have changed with them. Today longcloth undergarments are practically unknown and instead of the tatting and crocheted trimmings once fabricated so laboriously the modern woman goes to the shop for the daintiest laces. Her intimate little garments — nighties, chemises, drawers, skirts and underbodies — are all made of cottons or linens that look as if they have been spun by the fairies.

The one thing the dainty modern girl does in imitation of her grandmamma is to make her under-raiment by hand. If she is not skilled in the use of the needle, she buys lingerie by hand.

But, alas, even in the finest materials ready-made lingerie is of two sorts, the good and the bad. It may come from gay Paree or be made in the slums of the great American cities, but it is open to the same objection. The lovely restraint which is shown in the good things is balanced by a superfluity of ornament, a gushing abandon as you might say, that brings a blush to the modest cheek. Is it possible, you think, any woman would wear such horrid things! When garments in coarse lawn and cambric are trimmed in this way they seem so inappropriate, that only to look on them dulls the appetite for elaborate lingerie. "Let me be plain forever more," you growl, "and go forth with a nunlike petticoat, treated only to hems and tucks."

The best results in lingerie are correspondingly attractive, and the endless variety of materials now used for the purpose gives a gratifying variety. Fancy lawn skirts, flounced with dotted muslin or cross-barred muslin, and nightgowns, chemises and underbodies are all made of these dainty weaves. The expensive batistes and dimities, the crinkled crepes and handkerchief lawns once regarded as exclusively for outside wear, are now used for all kinds of undergarments.

With lawns, linen and cotton some new insertions that look like canvas are much used and several kinds of lace appear on a single petticoat. Tasteful monograms in hand embroidery are now de rigeur, and ribbons are run through a lawn insertion with slits of the exact width.

With the exception of the joining of the seams, which is done by machine, every garment constructed in perfect taste should be made by hand. A delicate touch of color sometimes appears in the figured dimities, but the general preference is for all white, with only the ribbons tinted.

The illustration comprises a very smart petticoat and corset cover of nainsook. The skirt is gored, and the two cuts show it may be made either with a deep or a narrow flounce. For a dressy costume the flounce could be of lawn, with lace instead of the cambric trimmings, shown herewith. The underbodice is hand embroidered, and can be made in a single piece, except the tail, for the tucks at the sides fit it into the figure.

Good undervests for summer are of lisle or Italian silk — the vests which are not ribbed. Three of a very excellent gauze-lisle can be had for a dollar, and one dollar and twenty five cents will buy a dainty silk vest with a lace edge and ribbon drawstrings. — Mary Dean.