For Elderly Women

1901

In the mixed Oxford suitings in dark gray and black are a number of different qualities that make up well in coat and skirt, and it is just as necessary for an older woman to have a coat and skirt costume as for a young girl.

The skirt is best that has a flaring flounce at the side and a front breadth narrower at the top than at the bottom and with skirt of medium length. The jacket should always be three-quarter length and with straight fronts with pointed revers and fronts faced with some dull silk so that the coat can be worn open if desired.

If a woman is stout, she should have her coat made rather shapeless and with box back, or a seam in the middle, and at the sides curved in somewhat to the figure, this being more becoming than a tight fitting jacket. In black wool a light weight material made in this way, with the flounce trimmed with bands or folds of satin, makes a smart gown. — Harper's Bazar.

Fashion Changes — Women Drift From Womanly Ideals

1910

By Stella B. Ames

The advent of the immodest gown came with the appearance of the peekaboo waists some five years ago and since then women have been vying with each other, seemingly, to see to what extent they could go in displaying their forms. Evening gowns have been opened clear down the back and down as low in front as is possible. The display in New York during the grand opera season, for instance, is absolutely horrifying.

The directoire gown came into style, and although it was not carried out to the letter, yet the spirit of the gown was carried out shamefully. Even though the slit up the side has not been worn open, the skirts have been so disposed that the entire outline of the body has been shown plainly.

The Dutch necks carried the peekaboo waists one step farther and the short skirts which have been worn the last two years have been affected by middle aged women who are willing to show a good portion of their ankles.

Even the bathing suits have been becoming more and more immodest. Fifty years ago the bloomers were worn clear down to the ankles and the skirts came way below the knees. Now neither the bloomer or the skirt quite reaches the knee.

I do not believe that most women consciously set out to dress immodestly. Most of them just blindly follow the fashions. A little honest thought, however, will show that women as a class have drifted very far away from the womanly ideals which should prompt all women. I believe that we should combine to bring about a common sense revolution in dress.

The Garden of Eden

1911

Joking Around with the News

Now we are told that the Garden of Eden was located at the North Pole. Possibly we shall learn also that Adam and Eve were Eskimos and ate of the forbidden blubber instead of the forbidden fruit.

A Boston young woman has been visiting dentists' offices and stealing money and other valuables from the wraps of the patients in the torture chamber. Here's another excuse for not going to the dentist when you ought to.

The New York doctor who asserts that overripe eggs are as nutritious as the fresh kind will not meet with violent objections if he tries to get a monopoly of eating the ancient vintage.

The hobble skirt and high trolley car steps have clashed in Trenton. The steps may have the logic of the situation, but the hobble skirt has the eternal feminine end of the discussion, and all human experience is a unit on what happens when logic attempts to tackle the eternal feminine.

One of the worst things under the sun is a shady reputation.

The following testimonial was given to a servant girl: "This is to certify that the bearer has been in my service one year less 11 months. During this time I found her to be diligent at the back door, temperate at her work, prompt at excuses, amiable toward young men, faithful to her sweethearts, and honest when everything was safe under lock and key."

Save Lots of Money by Not Shaving

1911

Wise Cracks in the News

A Massachusetts octogenarian who has never shaved in his life, claims to have saved $24,000 in that way, but most men would rather not have the money than the whiskers.

A lady smuggler arrested with $8,000 worth of jewels in her stocking claims that that's where she always wears 'em. Evidently we've been overlooking a good thing.

A few phlegmatic men who never become excited about anything are not going to buy a fruit farm next and get rich in one season by raising apples.

The fashionable dressmakers are still quarreling over the location of the waist line, and women will have to go along a while without knowing where it will finally be located for the season.

There are many ways of getting in bad, only one of which is to travel on a train which is about to be wrecked.

We are told that the day of the novel is ended. When we consider the alleged literature that has been perpetrated recently, we cannot squeeze out even the semblance of a tear.

Smuggling in Bustles

1888

It will soon be unsafe for a lady to go on board a steamboat adorned with the dorsal embellishment of the bustle.

From its first appearance the smuggler seems to have marked the dress-improver for his own, and in particular he has been struck by its advantages as a receptacle for contraband tobacco. Hitherto, however, this abuse of beauty's weapons has been confined to ports which the nobility and gentry do not frequent in large numbers.

But on Monday two aristocratic looking damsels, landing at Queenstown, were discovered (by the courteous instrumentality of a female searcher) to owe their "improvement" solely to Cavendish tobacco. It is a sad state of things when an American belle, in full panoply, can not land on our shores without an inhospitable summons to show "what she has got there."

For your general profit and instruction, ladies, mark what happened to the above adventurous maidens. Amidst the great bustle of the custom-house they left the garments of that name behind, as well as the tobacco and its treble value in current coin. — London Life.

Modesty of Slit Skirts Debated; New Fashions Give Sight to Blind

1913

Daughters' Dress Care of Mothers

Denver Pedagogue Says Parents Can Check X-ray Gowns and Slit Skirts on Girls

DENVER, Aug. 30. — Superintendent of Schools William H. Miley expressed the utmost satisfaction today at the stand the Mothers' congress has taken against transparent and slit skirts for school girls. He felt so sure the mothers can accomplish more than the school department officials in the direction of discouraging immodesty of dress on their daughter's part, he said, that he does not even consider it necessary for the school heads to issue any orders on the subject.

Some well known Denver women were not so sure, however, that the wearing of the new styles of skirts can be prevented by the means adopted and one or two went so far as to hint that the new skirts critics are inclined to be old fogyish.

"How can children be disposed to moderation in dress unless their mothers display it?" asked Mrs. Henry Hershey, a prominent member of the Mothers' congress. "I hope, too, that the congress will move with delicacy and tact. There is an idea that old styles are more moral than new simply because they have been worn for a long time."

"It isn't the display or concealment of the body that constitutes modesty or immodesty," said Mrs. Dora Phelps Buell, also a leading member of the congress. "And I am sorry to see the mothers beginning in the wrong way. The moment a woman or a girl wears a gown shows her figure there is a howl that the effect is immoral. The world has gone mad over externals."

—The La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, WI, Aug. 30, 1913, p. 6.


Slit Skirt Makes "Blind" Man See

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Aug. 30. — M. J. McCarty, "fake" blind man, who was sentenced to serve 100 days on the municipal farm because he gazed for thirty seconds on the aperture in a slit skirt, was not at all downcast today.

"Believe me," said McCarty, "believe me, it was worth it."

McCarty was wearing a "Help the Blind" sign around his neck when a pretty brunette, with a skirt slit to the knee, passed and dropped a dime in his cup. J. W. West, a clerk, saw McCarty turn and stare after the girl. West stared too, and then he called a policeman.

—The La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, WI, Aug. 30, 1913, p. 10.

When Women Should Drink

1903

It Is Better If They Leave Ardent Spirits Alone

That many society women drink ardent spirits, and sometimes to excess, is a well known fact. They have many opportunities for indulgence in this form of dissipation that the men do not imagine exist. Of course, the society woman does not "drink" in the sense in which the hag in the slum and the bibulous cook do. She is too careful of her sylphlike figure and of her porcelain skin to indulge in much champagne, and she has enough to make her nervous about whisky, but what she does take is a sip of liquor here and a tumblerful of Madeira there and a drop or two of cognac in her coffee after luncheon, and maybe a cocktail to give her an appetite for dinner. This all counts up at the end of the day, and after a while madam feels the need of her little fillips and encouragers in order to enable her to carry out the exacting routine of her busy social life. She doesn't realize that she drinks. But stimulate she certainly does.

Living as she does in an electric atmosphere and under highly unwholesome and artificial conditions, with nerves always strung to the highest state of tension and ever looking out for some new form of excitement, it is almost inevitable that artificial stimulants should be reported to in order to enable the jaded human organization to meet the excessive demands that are made upon it. From morning until night, and often through the night, as well, there is one long round of worry and excitement.

The demands of fashionable society are so exacting that even the simplest things become either fatiguing or exciting. The mere act of dressing, for instance, which has to be repeated several times in the day, makes a severe call upon the strength of a delicate woman, even if she has a clever maid to assist her, and after having been laced into her armor of satin and lace and had her head coiffed elaborately she is too tired to go out without having recourse to a nip of cognac or cordial to brace her up and give her courage to face the world with the stereotyped smile of amiability expected from her.

Then there are the ordeals of shopping and trying on. Standing on high heels and in a tightly-laced corset — straight-front hygienists notwithstanding — to have a heavy velvet gown fitted in a superheated room is an ordeal that would cause most men to topple over and faint. But the poor fashionable lady has to stand it and perhaps drive off to pay a half dozen calls after she has been dismissed by the dressmaker. But the dressmaker knows the psychological moment when the customer is just on the verge of fainting or hysterics, and comes forward with an offer of a glass of Benedictine or the "finest drop" of green Chartreuse, and her fair customer finds it so grateful and comforting that on her next visit she looks out for it as a matter of course, and in a short time starts a bottle in her own room, if she has not already done so.

The high-sounding names of the various expensive liqueurs have such a distinguished ring about them that it never occurs to the lady who is consuming them that she "drinks." Some women delude themselves still further by drinking eau de cologne or some other perfume on the assumption that a pick-me-up of this kind is quite harmless, whereas, if anything, it is more deadly than the other.

Of course, it is not suggested for moment that all women who have recourse to this kind of thing go the length of making themselves intoxicated. But they do often get as far as acquiring a color and sparkle in the eye and a style of conversation, all of which are quite foreign to their real nature, and the effect in the long run is bound to be unmanageable nerves, if nothing worse.

The Beautiful Frills of Fashion in Great Vogue

1903

Many of the long evening gloves are inset with lace insertion.

Colored laces are having great vogue, not only the laces dyed to match gowns, but coarse filet darned in patterns in blues, reds or browns.

Some of the new dotted silk mousseline veils have gaily embroidered borders, two or three inches deep, in the popular strawberry design.

The hats will bear fruits in and out of season. One supports a spray of small oranges, another is a strawberry bed, a third is luscious with cherries.

Handkerchiefs exactly matching the frock in color are a present fad and some women go to the length of having kerchiefs dyed to match each of their gowns.

Smart turnovers of the collar and cuff protector variety are of white pique, with deep but narrow and very sharp points finished with a heavy edge of embroidery.

An attractive round gold bracelet is set at intervals with round pieces of turquoise matrix, six of these on one bracelet, each piece being set in a fancy rim of gold extending beyond the lines of the bracelet.

Jeweled belts in turquoise and steel emerald and jet and other combinations are among the accessories that give a special touch of elegance to the costume, but their price places them beyond the purse limits of the average well-dressed woman.

There is a pronounced vogue for evening robes of white, black or deep cream guipure lace with under slip of place silk or satin. The lace comes in circular form, all ready to be worn as a skirt and requires no trimming, the handsome border answering all purposes of garniture. For the bodice an allover design in guipure to match the skirt may be used. The usual trimming is a garland of flowers and foliage outlining the décolletage.

One bride of the winter wore an original wedding dress, the skirt being heavily trimmed with insertion of Tambour lace put over a strong silver tissue that gleamed through very effectively. The train was of lace with a wide hem and insertion of silver embroidery, and the bodice, which was trimmed around the best and in a point to the waist with similar silver embroidery, was finished with a yoke of silver tissue and lace.

Women Cannot Collect Damages If They Wear Long Skirts

Chicago, 1903

Law Hitched to the Skirt

Women must hold up their skirts and protect their gowns from threatening nails and sharp corners while shopping or marketing, says the Chicago Tribune.

Justice Hurley yesterday refused the protection of the law to those who neglect such simple precautions. It also appeared that the woman who goes marketing in a silk skirt with a flowing train, made for Derby day, has little standing in his court.

On these points Mrs. Lucy O'Donnell, 1010 Garfield boulevard, lost her suit for damages against John R. Thompson. Mrs. O'Donnell's skirt, in an unhappy moment, caught on a nail on an orange box in Mr. Thompson's store at 38 State street and a large hole was torn in the garment. She said the gown had cost $15 and she wanted that amount of money from Mr. Thompson.

"You were in a great hurry when you entered the store?" asked Adolph Raphael, Mr. Thompson's attorney.

"Of course I was in a hurry. I had been to meet some friends at the depot and I wanted to do my marketing and get home. I rushed in and hastened to the rear to the meat counter. Suddenly I heard something tear. I was walking so fast I had to take two more steps before I could stop to investigate. Then I found my fine silk skirt torn to pieces.

Mrs. O'Donnell proceeded to tell how the garment had been made to wear on Derby day and what its value was.

"Was not that an expensive gown to go shopping in?" suggested the attorney.

"That doesn't make any difference," retorted the witness.

"And did you hold the train up?" asked the court, taking a hand in the questioning.

"No, I did not. If I had, the tear would have been much worse."

"Those orange boxes were securely stowed under the counter," Justice Hurley said. "The fault was with Mrs. O'Donnell, she should have held up her skirt. Let women carry their skirts and not trail them over the floors and furnishings."