Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 140, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1918 — Are Economizing On Dressmaking [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Are Economizing On Dressmaking

New York. —A man who likes statistics has given out a statement that more spools of thread have been sold since America went into war than ever before in its history. This is taken to indicate that there is an important revival of home dressmaking. It is difficult to prove this condition of affairs, a prominent fashion correspondent writes, but the spools of thread are good enough evidence that the women on this continent are employing seamstresses to make new gowns for them or to alter old Ones. And they are also doing their own sewing. On the other hand, the shops insist that the sale of ready-to-wear garments has been immensely stimulated by the war. Women who are giving their time to war relief work are willing and anxious to get costumes with the least possible expenditure of vitality to themselves, and this Can be achieved through the ready-to-wear departments. Those who keep Shops also claim that women of small means are buying better materials and paying more for their clothes than they have ever done in the history of American commerce in apparel. Those who think out the situation say that thills due to the employment of thousands of women in new ways. Instead of these women purchasing cheap, tawdry things, they add $lO or sls to the price of a costume and buy a gown that gives steady service. America Has Done Her Part. The one outstanding episode In the Interesting and important movement of spring clothes, is the Immense stride in designing that America has taken. All that has gone before was experimental, but this spring the clothes are good. .They make no pfetentlon of changing the silhouette as laid down by the Paris designers; the only drastic revolution in silhouette which has been attempted by this country, took place last summer, when the nar-

row skirt which pulled upward from the knees to the back and finished with a bustle effect at the end of the spine, was thrown into the arena of clothes. It not only won out, although it was the work of one designer, but it coincides entirely with the clothes that Paris sent over last month. This season the two countries go hand in hand. The silhouette is the same —narrow, with floating draperies. Take that one condition as the foundation stone and then build as you please is the slogen given to every woman. American Designs Preferred. One is immensely proud of American clothes this spring. Our designers have had the courage to show them in connection with the French gowns, and it is easily proved that in several important houses the American woman chooses her entire spring wardrobe from designs, rather than French ones. One of the reasons for this is that Paris has not laid unusual stress upon the tailored costume, and the Ameri» can woman had reverted to it. She wants to appear in a simple but distinguished costume when she is in the

street. The American tailoring is ths best In the world, and the American designer contrives to get the best effeet out of tailored material, whether he is making a frock or a coat suit. France does not care for such clothes, her women wear them only under protest, and there is always' a sash, or a piece of embroidery, or an unusual addition of lingerie, or a

bizarre splash of something that changes the mannish severity of the American national costume into some** thing with coquetry that melts into the personality of the French women. Seeing their opportunity and grasping it as they have never done before, the American tailoring establishments have worked wonders. They have kept to the government’s request for the elimination of wool as far as possible, and they have achieved costumes that are eminently fitting and distinguished on the American figure, and for the personality of the American woman. More power to them! The New French Draperies. The severity that America lays down for us in the morning is easily changed into a floating gracefulness as laid down, by France for the late afternoon and evening. It is yet to be seen whether America will go in extensively for afternoon, gowns, according to the French custom, but there is one thing of which we are quite certain; if the American woman likes an afternoon gown, she will wear it through the evening, unless some formality of entertainment demands a more ornamental frock. France has cut her silhouette- as slim as the American designer has cut it for tailored costumes, but France grves' a note Of the First Empire in the seductive way in which she drapes ’thia narrow foundation with floating, transparent material. The trick is not confined to house costumes; it plays a good role in sheet gowns also, in a modified and demure manner. A tunic of Georgette crepe, for example, will be dropped over a slim underslip of silk or satin, and the sleeves will float away from the arms and come back suddenly to the wrists, where they are tightly caught in. But this gown will not be accepted by the American woman for the street. There is a strong note of, economy struck in these new French clothes, which is heard by the woman who is hiring a seamstress to build up her spring wardrobe at home. It shows the way to alter old gowns into neve h ones. The majority of wqmen own evening frocks That have good foundations, the skirts a trifle too full, ft is true, but otherwise ready to serve, aa the beginning of a new frock. The alteration in the skirt is a simple one. It consists of straightening out all the seams, so that there is no flare from the hips down. (Copyright. 1918, by the McClure Newspl - per Syndicate.)

Doeuillet of Paris builds a black satin evening gown into something extraordinary by using tinkling strings of jet from shoulder to knees. The Egyptian girdle is of velvet.

Bias tunic is a chosen drapery. It i» shown In this gown by Premet of Paris, in biscuit-colored gaberdine with deep collar of brown faille. It is soutached with brown braid.