Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 288, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1914 — Dancing Frocks for the Debutante [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Dancing Frocks for the Debutante

THREE pretty and simple little frocks adapted to the use of the dancing girl are shown here. They make no attempt at the unusual in style or the intricate in composition, or to be anything but youthful and attractive.

Anyone who is patriotic enough to be interested in the use of fine cotton fabrics or cotton laces, of which, so much is manufactured here in America, may study these gowns and reproduce them in cottons. There is a world of beautiful goods in printed cottons to choose from. The plain voiles and marquisettes and figured patterns in the same materials, and the dainty printed cotton nets, vie with lovely quaker laces in adaptability to the simpler evening gowns. Already the foremost American designers are finding quaker lace ideal for those gowns made for the young girls’, dancing party. It is altogether practical, for it is an inexpensive’ lace as filmy as cobweb and as durable as net.

The youngest of the three little maids who seem to be in gay readiness for the next dance has s on a short, plain skirt of taffeta. Over this a bodice and overdress in flowered voile has inserts of princess lace at the front and bordering the sleeves. The pointed neck is set over a little fichu of folded chiffon.

Her taller sister wears a draped skirt of soft crepe, folded over at the front and with a low “baby” whist. Over this a plain short-sleeved bodies and short tunic of quaker lace is worn, confined at the waist with a twisted velvet girdle. Velvet ribbon is draped on the skirt under the lace tunic in a clever sash arrangement. The sleeves are edged with a narrow fancy cotton edging.

The remaining dress of the three is made of a light-weight satin, with plain underskirt and a tunic set on to a yoke. A plain short waist of the satin is sleeveless..

The chic coatee of renaissance lace, made of lace braid wrought into floral patterns with lace stitches, is the dominant feature in this charming gown for the oldest of the three young buds. Lace of this kind is handmade, and except for the difference in the braids used, is much like battenberg laCe, which so many women know how to make for themselves.

The fine cotton crepes and voiles, plain or printed, and the filmy cotton laces, not to speak of the silky mercerized cotton fabrics which are to be had in all the light evening colors, offer the most appropriate materials for the young girl’s party gown, and in them the charm of her youth makes itself most strongly felt.