Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1918 — VOGUE IN AMERICA [ARTICLE]

VOGUE IN AMERICA

New York Could Not Rule Styles, Fashion Writer Asserts. Jealousies, Climatic Variation, Difference,in Mode of Living, and Many Other Reasons. The theater guides fashion In France, to be sure, but there is little prospect of its playing such a commanding role in this country, even if America should declare sartorial independence of France, as a result of the war, observes a New York fashion correspondent France, though she occupies such a large place in our hearts, is a small country, as we Americans understand size. It has been a comparatively easy matter for Paris to set the standard for the entire population interested in the mode. For New York to attempt to do the same thing, in the same degree, would be to foredoom the effort to failure. New York might influence fashions, probably would play a greater part in their determination and selection than any other place in the. western hemisphere; but that New York should control the dress of the country, down to the last detail of the length of the sleeve, the placing of a ribbon, as Paris does would be an impossibility. America is too big. By the time New York had succeeded in distributing its models to the last demanding woman, something else would be In vogue. And then there Is the natural jealousy in one section of the vast continent of another section; the tremendous climatic variation; the difference in the mode of living; and a thousand other less striking reasons. The style influence launched in New York would spread and widen itself out of existence, as the rings made by a pebble dropped in a pond lose themselves as they spread from the point of contact. If the theater guided fashion in our country as it does in Paris, we might see an untimely revival of Watteau fashions, judging by the reception accorded to the Louis XV gowns worn by Billie Burke in Henry Miller's revival of “The Marriage of Convenience.” The town has gone mad over her hoop-skirts, and her powdered tresses. Every woman who sees them longs to try them on.

way, they are lovely to look at and many of us will have to be broadminded enough to be content with looking. It is very seldom that one sees one of these ribbon sweaters that is. made entirely of the plain knitting stitch; while part of the sweater may be plain, the design is varied by a border done in plain and purl at the shoulders and the lower part or at the waistline. There is one of these which has been very popular with the entire sweater made by knitting four and purling four. This rule of varying the design of the sweater also holds good for those made of wool.