Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 245, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1917 — Clothes of Many Colors Are Offered [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Clothes of Many Colors Are Offered

New York.—These are stirring times in clothes. The manufacturers and shops have prepared for a rush season. It Is their own expression that they are actually scrambling for a supply to meet the demand. The French gowns are here. New American gowns are not only exploited, but tremendously admired ami approved. The effects of those who have taken the. French silhouette and built gowns in their own workrooms, made of American materials, should be commended in an entire chapter. Some of the best houses in this country have tried out, experienced designers and colorists In producing several hundred gowns that are first cousins to the French in that they express the adopted Paris lines. Each of the designers gives full tribute to the fact that Paris has laid down the laws for the season; but every designer boasts with honest pride that the clothes are the product of American study and workmanship. In every case, the houses that showed these American gowns called upon their experienced French workers to produce them, and the only ones that were successful were the gowns that had been given Into the .hands of those who had studied the Paris methods with reverence and earnestness. The result was that the clientele of these houses saw extraordinarily good drapgry, the combination of alluring colors and an excellence in tailored suits that we are led to believe is purely American. The Colors That Prevail. The silhouette has been established. Every woman now knows that her skirt is to be narrow 7 and her coat long or short, provided it clings to the figure. She knows that top coats are as important as frocks and that some of the. best tailors offer only sport suits and top coats to wear over thin one-piece gowns. She also knows that soft materials take precedence over stiff ones; but she has not exactly classified the various colors, fabrics and accessories .that she must accept or avoid. These are vastly important matters to the average shopper. True, there is a class of women who go to expensive houses that handle only a few of the most fashionable pieces of apparel and offer nothing that cap lead one into the wrong path; but this class remains an exclusive one, and what they do or do not do is not al-ways-a guide to the mass of women who must fight out the battle of clothes in their own way and to whom victory is vital. Take colors. Who does not feel perplexed and confused on entering a shop where hundreds of colors are dashed upon the vision and offered as the latest thing? One feels that a gigantic kaleidoscope has been run before the eyes'. The brain refuses

to work. The judgment is suspended. One goes out of -the shop with a fueling that it is futile to try to buy clothes and with a desire to let the season slide. » It is this discouragement that assails three-quarters of the women who go out to get their new apparel, so let them be guided by the fact that not many colors are really In fashion, and not many are available for the woman who has not many social opportunities to display a variety of clothes. To begin at the beginning of the color scheme: Midnight blue holds its own. ’. Black Is in demand by those who want to dress well In the afternoon and evening, but It does not hold a high place for street suits or frocks. Dark Green Rivals Blue. . J Dark green is a serious rival to dark blue, and the French dressmakers Who exploited it last year are now reaping a reward because the public

The material in thia evening gown la heavy brocaded satin, the odd bodice in dark blue with a girdle of pale gold dotted with jet beads. Skirt of pale gold with flowers in blue, gold and black.

is accepting it. Know yourself well, however, before touching any tone of green, if you’re picturesque, you can wear it in any one of the shades that are variously known as jade, Egyp» tian and lettuce. The woman who can wear jade clothes and jewelry has a successful season before her, for many of the best materials are woven In this alluring but difficult tone, and the Oriental shops are filled with bits of fine jade made into earrings, hair combs and necklaces. There are fans of peacock feathers sticks and also buckles of the Chinese quartz for slippers. Soft gold-tissue gowns are embroidered with jade beads, in the Byzantine fashion. Red flickers through the color scheme or bursts upon the vision like the flame from the artillery at the

front. It is against the accepted psychology that the colors of war should be exploited while war is on. It is better to be sane than foolish when one approaches the subject of red in clothes. The scarlet danger sign should be put over all the counters where red fabrics ate placed, and it should be worn by the mannequin who parades in a red gown. It is the color of conflict; it is not the color of peace. The woman who can wear it well is thrice blessed, sartorially speaking, and she. is apart from her neighbors, because she Is a rare type.

None of this applies to dark red. No danger sign is needed against the rich wine surface that brings out what is best in a woman’s complexion and eyes. These well-known burgundy shades are offered. They come in duvetyn, serge, satin, velvet and and Rodier’s weave of the so-called Bolivia cloth, which the American weavers are Imitating in a successful way. An Epidemic of Gray.

The world has gone, on for a century or two feeling that gray is the tone of sadness and that its Quakerish ugliness must be avoided. It has been •a difficult Color for decades. Women have adopted it only when the silver sheen on its surface made it possible. This season, however, all doubts are dispersed by the superior tones which the dyers have imparted to the various fabrics grouped under the elastic, name of gray. There is moonlight gray, which mtjy spell peace, but it is in close proximity to artillery gray, which stands for death. There is the gray of granite and the gray of London smoke. There is the gray of a New England sea mist, and there is the tone that one gets from the glitter of cut steel. These grays are not used alone this season. They are combined with horizon and Chinese blue, with jade and Egyptian green, with incendie red, Mandarin yellow and amethyst purple. The silver gray tissues are loaded with rhinestone, Jet, cut steel and periwinkle blue beads. An artistic dressmaker can do anything she pleases with gray today. She regards it as a neutral foundation for whatever color scheme, Florentine or Futuristic, that she cares to work out on its surface.

Serge is good, if it is soft; otherwise, it should be barred. The fundamental thing is to get the fabric that clings to the figure. All others must be put on the opposite side of the scale. Nothing must have any chance to flare. Even though the bustle is an accepted fashion —and by the way, it is an American production that has met with an unusual success —it must be arranged in a soft fabric that merely drapes itself over the end of the spine and does not show any ambition to project Itself into space. (Copyright, 1917, by the McClure Newspa. per Syndicate.)

Thia Helmet of Navarre is made of tete de negre velvet, with visor faced with white satin. It is trimmed with two large silver buckles.