Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1920 — Skirt Length Is Topic of Season [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Skirt Length Is Topic of Season

There’s a new war on! Hostilities are being waged between the ately short skirt advocated by AmEncan designers and the excessively abbreviated frocks insisted upon by the French couturiers, writes a prominent creator of fashions. The short skirt reaching barely below the knees made its appearance tn Paris last year and many stories came across to us concerning the display of ■ silken hosiery observed at the leading French hotels where the fashionable Parisiennes gather for luncheon, tea and evening parties. This fashion of displaying French calves with a frankness that outfranked even the French was not confined to bizarre extremists, but was adopted by the upper the descendants of the old regime, . who still constitute the aristocracy of France that dwells in the neigborhood of St. Germain. When the races at Auteuille Long Champs corroborated the evidence that .the short skirt was an established fact, American designers hesitated and waited to hear the death knell of this fashion vibrate across the Atlantic. Instead of dying young, it continued to grow in favor.

The short skirt on this side of the ocean, which came into prominence several years ago,' when a certain theatrical manager dressed his far famed beauty chorus In the short-long skirts reaching eight or ten Inches from the floor, had been carried to such vulgar excess by any women lacking both in artistic taste and good breeding, that an attempt to feature the long graceful afternoon gown was made with a large measure of success. Last season I made my street and afternoon gowns quite long. This year I concede nothing to the French fashion and continue to advocate the long or moderately long skirt. Few women have sufficiently well-shaped legs and ankles to display them In this manner. That Is the aesthetic argument against the short skirt, into the moral question I enter not. The American woman of good taste is capable of judging that for herself. You all know how many actually bow-legged women the short skirt has brought to notice. The woman with such unfortunate physical defects should certainly avoid the short skirj- Thu older woman who has put on weight looks her worst in short skirts. Youth should possess attractive, slender ankles, yet many young girls show a thickness in their ankles which is far from symmetrically lovely, and very unattractive in a short skirt. The well modeled physique of the American woman is similar to the Greek ideal. It shows a gradual increase in the fullness of the leg beginning at the ankle and rounding into the calf. The French woman possesses a higher placed calf. Her legs are more like those of the professional dancer, which shows the biceps muscle rising more abruptly from the long slenderness of the ankle. The. thinness of French legs makes the women of that country more adapted to wear the excessive short skirt than her American Uster. For these various reasons I am not riaking my gowns too short. My street dresses and tailored suits are eight Inches from the floor and my after——P— - ■

* t — — tha Houru

materials designed for debutantes and the younger matrons are about eight . inches from the floor, add they may be even a trifle shorter. The draped brocades and velvets are invariably much more graceful when given a long sweep of line that accents the height. ■ Crepe chiffon alto lends itself more effectively to long, graceful drapery. Before adopting the short skirt -a woman should remember that what may appear.chic in Paris, a city of extremists in style, may took ridiculous in a small American city. Even

things that are moderately striking where the eye grows accustomed to clothes that are startling and “near freakish*” may look quite absurd on the main street of a less cosmopolitan city than New York. , A variety of gowns show the grace of the moderately long skirt. They are offered as an argument against the L adoption of the exaggerated skirt by the woman who values the effect of the “tout ensemble” as opposed to the unthinking woman who wants to be in style at any price, even unto sacrificing the gracd Of her figure. Many figures appear quite charming in the longer lines which would be displayed to a disadvantage tn an excessively short skirt. ’ The gown of black crepe meteor gives slenderness anti grace to the fullfigured woman and ts also becoming to the Slender build. The skirt Is draped in beautiful lines that cross In front and produce the effect of a bias tunic In the back. The kimono blouse Is cut with short sleeves and the opening in ’ the front Is filled in with a surplice of sliver lace and flesh chiffon that shows a deligthful smack of color in “binds’’ dr folds of red, violet and hyacinth blue taffeta. The girdle of black chanheupe displays a new sash treatment that appears to be a continuation of the lines of the skirt drapery. These sash ends emerge from the side front and are carried toward the back, where they are thfoWri one over the other briow the waistline. Worn with a b<gd black velvet hat trimmed with graceful sweeps of black paradise, this gbtvn Is an expression of grace and gives to almost any woman a distinguished. silhouette. Would you choose a skirt a few inches below your knees In preference to the long Uries of this model? The evening gown of geranium and stiver brocade casts another vote for the long skirt. This gown Is apparently unsupported over the shoulders except by the unusual straps, apparently oblivious of their object in life. In straps and are attached to the back of the gown on either side of the center-

. drapery, cry out gainst and stows a clSinJ flattering to the figure. It runs cross-

Gown of Gray Charmeuse Satin Combined With Gray Chiffon.

Charming Evening Gown of Brocade in Geranium Pink and Gold.