Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1894 — WHAT WOMEN WEAR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHAT WOMEN WEAR

STYLES FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO LOOK PRETTY. Tn Tailor-Made Gown* the GlrU AU Look More or Lew Alike—Style* for Her Who Will Sot Don a Uniform—Striped Collar! and Cuff* Are Swagger. Talk from a Big Town. New York correspondence:

RITICISM can be * made on the current styles, for so many tailor gowns F are seen that it seems as if fashion has, indeed, established a uniform for street wear. The girls all look more or less alike, and that is well, for the very best taste dictates that woman should not attract distinctive attention on the street. Her personal charm of carriage, her beau- , ty, or her grace 1 may individualize A her, but not her Ljdress. There g should be a gen_er al standard of

correct and suitable wear for the street, which should be adhered to by all Women. Just now puch a standard seeins to have been established, and it is the tailor-made. Every other woman is thus arrayed, the usual model beinj; the two-piece gown worn with waistcoat and “linen.” Light mixed cloth of close texture in the tweed variety is the best se’ection, and the mixture of color results usually in a dull tan tone. Gray is less generally adopted.. A few street gowns are made up in suitings like those in use by men, but jhose stuffs can be better secured at some tailoring establishment than at a ladies’ goods store. Lap seams prevail, and in all cases these gowns are self-trimmed and are without braiding. The bodice is in coat fashion, made with full skirt set on, and the most stylish have the skirt reach to or even below the knees. Stylish rigs are also planned with cut-away sack coats. Much br little of the waistcoat may be seen, it is made like a man’s ana fits exactly with a slight conventionalizing of the figure. It may be of pique, of cashmere or of any of the many vestings in vogue. There is the widest latitude in color, Scarlet or scarlet showered with tiny black dots is in perfectly correct taste and not conspicuous. White is all right and very dressy. Tans are! worn, and white dotted "with red, tan or blue. Light and gray-blue and navy-blue in cashmere or in wash vestings are all good. The tie is either white or black, or of pique to match the vesting. The linen in the best taste is quite plain. At the same time,

striped collars and cuffs are recognized as swagger. If the waistcoat is bright, it is usual to have a touch of corresponding color in the hat. Now it is, of course, quite possible to have your street dress in excellent taste and without the least bit of loudness and yet be quite unlike the most prevalent mode. Many women will consider it desirable to have their costumes different from the styles which have been adopted so generally as to constitute almost a prescribed uniform. The attention of such women is called to the two dresses of the first two pictures here. Both are dressy and correct, despite the entire absence of tailor cut. In the first one the trimming of the gored skirt consists of seven lengthwise narrow bands of silk put on with twenty-inch spaces between each, bordered with soutache. The bodice has revers that form a round collar in back and overlapping fronts. The bottom has a blunt point in front, but the back is round and the revers and the bottom of the bodice, as well as the cape-collarette and the sleeves, are all garnished with narrow bands of silk, headed by rickrack soutache. The other dress is composed of mordore voile, with the bodice gathered and puffed as shown, both in front and back, and fastening at the side. The sleeves, collar, and belt are made of mordore silk, and the circular skirt is garnished with three gathered puffs around the bottom. There are shown for wear indoors very pretty apron-like overdresses with a deep point in front, short over

the hips, and two long sash ends falling in jabot folds half way to the edge of the. skirt. These are particularly becoming to short women. A pointed overskirt is seen on the right-hand dress of the third illustration. Its two points reach nearly to the skirt hem, but in back it measures but fifteen inches. The toilet is made of modecolored cloth, and its skirt has a six-

inch band of white bengaline around the bottom, covered with parallel rows of copper-colored soutache braid. It is lined with the same shade of taffeta and has a frill of the same inside. The costume is completed by a white bengaline blouse and modified Eton of the cloth, having white bengaline revers turned-down collar, and cuffs also trimmed with copper-colored soutache. The blouse is finished with a standing collar, and a bengaline belt, also showing soutache garniture, hooks in front, with two fancy mother-of-pearl clasps. The companion figure in the picture displays a gown of cocoa-brown cloth trimmed with dark-brown silk. The skirt is lined with black taffeta and is bordered with a narrow roll of darkbrown silk. The bodice is draped with cloth and hooks in front It is finished by a short velvet jacket that has no seam in back, but is fastened to the bodice with the under-arm seams. The fronts turn back in draped revere and a cape collarette furnishes the epaulettes over the shoulders. The jacketds finished by a standing collar that hooks in back, and a large jabot of mull and lace, or entirely of lace, is placed in front. Around the waist, below the modified Eton, is a folded bias belt that hooks at the side with a cloth bow and has one end pendent on the skirt. Lace is as popular as ever, but less is used in white than ever before. Black and unbleached lead. The latter comes in a dull yellow, and in imitation of this there are any number of cheap guipures dyed in vivid yellow. A dull gray lace is also used, and gray-yellow and ivory tints are all blended together in some of the choicest designs. Vandyked lace is much in vogue, and laces with deep net finished at top and

lower edge with points of guipure finish, are expensive. Nets of all kinds are almost as pretty as lace, and many clever women combine cheap net anil cheap guipure, cutting the patterns of the latter, and applique-ing them into the former, with excellent effect. A reception di'ess made of watered silk, a material which is just now very popular, is displayed in the fourth sketch. The bottom of the skirt is finished with a ruffle put on with a small head and garnished with large jet ornament? at regular interval. The draped bodice hooks at the side, and its sole garniture consists of a large simulated jet yoke, made of somewhat larger ornaments than those on the skirt. There is in home dresses and simple ball toilets a fancy fora bodice of light silk sprayed with a flower of contrasting color. The bodice has a serpentine sash belt of silk, matching the color of the flower, and the skirt of the dress matches the sash, being lined with satin to match the ground color of the bodice and enriched with hip hoop-frills of ribbon of the same color as the flounce. A lovely gown of this sort has a bodice of India silk, having pink roses sprayed on a pale amber ground. The sash and skirt are rose pink. The two rows of amber lace are set about the hips, and the skirt is lined with pale yellow satin. Rose color stockings and slippers are worn. This style of dress commends itself, because the skirt may be of any light cashmere or crepon. A dainty evening dress is the artist’s last contribution to this column. It is made of white silk crepe, strewn with small, faint pink flowers, and is trimmed with moire. The full drooping sleeves are of black moire, and across the neck and around the

hem there comes narrow trimming of the same material. The gown opens under the left arm and its fastening is concealed by a fall of lace, which is secured to the sleeve by a moire rosette. On the bodice portion the crepe is gathered in the center, and, if desired, the dress might open there and the opening be hidden by the gathers and another moire rosette. Already it is time to think of summer dress on the street. Summer materials of the more durable sort are made up exactly as tweeds have been. Linen is a favorite material, and solid colors and tailor finish prevail, to the point of tabooing frills. Wash braid and bias bands of wash material in color contrasting with the body of the gown, lend charming effects. A charming rig in gray-blue (of course there is a new name for this color; -there is every season, but it is the soft gray shade which, since its introduction same twelve years ago as “cadet blue," has hardly changed save in designation) is made with a double skirt, the upper skirt jauntily rounding down in front and shortening over the hips and at the back. There are three rows of bias folds of white on the edge of both upper and under skirt The bodice is little Eton affair which Sets so snugly down at the back that the short skirt of the overskirt seems to be rather the skirt of a coat bodice. The cotton shortens toward the front, exposing the white pique waistcoat. The latter is so high as to show only a little of the linen. Collar and cuffs are blue and white stripe, and the rest is plain. Copyrignt. .There are 172 known species of the fly.

FOR HER WHO WILL NOT DON A UNIFORM.

A CONTRASTED INDOOR COUPLE

OF WATERED SILK JET TRIMMED.

ELEGANCE IN BLACK AND WHITE