Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 177, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1919 — ONLY FEW COLORS [ARTICLE]

ONLY FEW COLORS

Women Must Use Shades That ' Are Picked for Them. Wearers of Garments Have Little or No Chance to Exercise Own Taste, Says Writer. Launching a new color nowadays is attended with as much ceremony as the launching of a battleship, Amy E. Hogeboom writes in the New York Herald. Not that there is such a thing as a new color, nor that colors are scarce. Neither has it anything to do with the dye situation, but the fact is that the manufacturers assemble each season and decide to allow certain shades to be placed on the market at that season. If you should wish for any shade which they have decided is not to be you may as well give up in the beginning. This does not happen as often as it might were the majority of the well-dressed women not cleverly cajoled into wanting the shade that the manufacturers have decided they shall want. Allowing only a few Colors out of the bag at one time has its advantages, for when the popularity of one has worn off a bit there are plenty of others left from which to select the next one for the center of the stage. The disadvantage is that as far as the woman herself is concerned she has little or no opportunity to exercise her own taste; she is almost as helpless in the matter as she would be had she no color sense at all. She may find a dressmaker williiig to cut her gown somewhat as she wishes or a tailor who may humor her in a like manner, but unless she has special dyeing done for her she must select from the colors set before her. Last fall some one hit upon a shade which he called henna as an especial attraction. It might have been inspired by some canon of art or it might have been suggested by the Russian dressing of the business man’s luncheon, but the women wore it, and that is all they had to say about it. For the greater part the women are willing sheep in matters of dress, be it color or line, and if not naturally thus inclined they show good sense not to try to stray too far away. Having purchased one article in a color not approved by the color censor, for really we have censors for everything nowadays, it will be found impossible to match the color In anything else and an utterly hopeless task.