Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 135, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1915 — Concerning the Made-Over Gown [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Concerning the Made-Over Gown

Some of the season’s styles, but not many of them, lend themselves to the remodeling of gowns. Women who are clever at this work have been quick to grasp the possibilities of those models in which two fabrics are used for constructing the body of the gown. The difficulty lies nearly always in widening the skirt. If one possesses a last season’s gown very wide and voluminous as to the hips and very scant as to the hem, it Is sometimes possible to simply reverse it. That is, the bottom of the skirt last year becomes the top this year. The fashion of wearing yokes to which the lower part of the skirt is set on helps out, and the vogue for very short skirts is also to be reckoned with in making over things. Other features in the present modes that encourage remodeling are the use of wide bands of silk about the bottom of skirts as a finish, and the introduction of two or three bands in the body of the skirt. The same silk may supply new sleeves and a part of the bodice. Wide, loose girdles of silk that swathe the figure and obliterate the waist line are good style and will be for another season, at least. The separate tunic, or two-piece skirt, and the small coat, made in a

color sharply contrasting with that of the gown, are items in the mode that offer very interesting features to the economist. The tunic skirt is graceful and popular, and last year’s skirt Is easily converted into a tunic over a drop skirt of another material. Long sleeves of chiffon or other diaphanous material may solve the problem when new sleeves must be used. A pretty and gown of two mar terials is shown in the picture given here. The skirt, which is short and faced upon the under side, is attached to a gathered yoke of silk by a piping of silk over cable cord. Last year’s coat becomes this year’s bodice by means of a wide girdle of silk finished with flat loops and ends at the right side. This girdle is provided with buttonholes at the front and back which fasten over decorative buttons. A rolling collar of silk and long cuffs set on with a piping to the sleeve complete a design completely in the fashion of the present time.