Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1916 — HIP DRAPERY PUZZLES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HIP DRAPERY PUZZLES

MATTER OF FASHION THAT IS MAKING WOMEN UNEASY. Little Need for Real Disquietude Over the Matter—lt May Safely Be Left to the Skill of the Dressmaker. What do the women think of the new styles for 1916? I have asked hundreds of them, and the only summing up that can ba made from the various answers is a decided anxiety

Black Silk and Pink Plumes Are Used ' to Reconstruct a Bonnet of Long Ago for Present Day Fashion. concerning the problem of hip drapery. Every woman comes back to this, no matter how great a field you may take her through regarding the rest of the fashions. She is startled and disturb-

ed by the growing acceptance of panniers and farthingales, and gathers and plaits over the hips. There is really not so much cause for anxiety as there seems to be on the surface. The American type — that is, the woman with the broad shoulders, long waistline and flattened hips need not worry about anytnlng In fashions; her slim hips solve all problems, for after all, the great battle of fashions during the centuries has been a question of whether or not you bulge out below the waist. ■ However, every woman cannot hold herself up as the American type. She has all the curves that she Is heir to, and diet, mental science and dancing cannot always reduce the curve that sor 1 * generations was considered woman’s chief beauty and is now considered her chief handicap. The reason that the women with curves need not worry about this incoming fashion for hip draperies which is firmly established already, is that the dressmakers have enough skill at their fingers’ ends to make the fashion becoming to them. Naturally, when the hips are extended, the jackets are short; and in the spring of 1916, their very shortness will be used as a way of distending the hip line. Not one of them hangs straight down to the waist; they are all fluted out to give the appearance of ruffs —a trick which allows the skirt drapery to expand, as it is meant to do. Here is Another important feature of the majority of the new coats; they hang open in front in order to show a great splash of barbaric color, placed beneath the front of the blouse at the waist line. When separate blouses are worn — not wash ones, but ornate ones —this effect is obtained through a wide belt that has this brilliant ornamentation in front. It is difficult to say whether this work is Asiatic, American, Indian or Russian. It is usually made of glass beads in barbaric colors with splashes of Chinese embroidery. Sometimes the entire ornament is Chinese. Some of these belts might have been worn by Genghis Khan.