Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1911 — FASHINGS of the MOMENT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FASHINGS of the MOMENT

NEW YORK. Rich material, beautiful color and superb trimmings characterize the season’s modes as a whole; but it is in the province of the evening frock that the Qualities are most impressively in evidence. There the artist In dress is least hampered by limitations, can give bis fancy freest rein. Women will take longer chances on an evening frock than upon a costume for daytime wear. Artificial light is kind. .One can wear the trying, the gorgeous, the audacious more successfully under its friendly rays than in the glare of day and. too. it brings out effects of color, of luster, of brilliancy which do not respond to daylight. Afternoon toilettes will be handsome enough in all conscience, but a study of the evening frocks and cloaks brought over by the importers Bets the feminine mind adrift among vague reminiscences of old Egyptihn splendor, of Arabian Nights tales, of Venetian and Genoese glories. And yet Cleopatra or Scheherazade or any one of the Venetian or Genoese ladies would find this season’s growns as surprising as do modern women, for this Is a very fin de siecle Orientalism Poiret has produced and the Egyptian mummy silhouette isn’t the real thing and the Genoese velvet and Venetian brocade effects are wedded to that silhouette in a fashion that would amaze any Titian great lady. At their extreme the new modes are weird to the point of wild fantasy, but even at their weirdest they are interesting and if one can divest oneself of conservative and accidental preju-

dices, they have elements of beauty And then the extremes are after all the exceptions The average woman is extravagant, has perhaps an overdeveloped love of the vanities, but is conservative rather than daring in matters of dress. She will be as superb as she can afford to me, but she will not attempt the original, and this conservatism influencing and chastening the vaulting fancy of the Parisian designer has brought about a satisfactory state of things in the matter of smart evening clothes. To be sure, there is Poiret. No agreement of feminine opinion or prejudice can put bit and bridle upon his hourly haunted brain, but Poiret models are for the few and though he has influenced all the world of fashion few there be with money and conviction to follow unhesitatingly where he leads. It is interesting, this Poiret cult. It will be treated at some other time, but now for a discussion of evening

frocks of the possible sort —frocks that are enormously chic, yet far enough from the extremes to- please the woman of conservative fastidiousness. The models sketched , for this page are all, of this class, all turned out fcjr. piaster artists, all charming; yet even !a elegant of the frocks there is nothing of. the bizarre or the spectacular. Many of the new evening frocks are exceedingly simple in line. A straight falling or slightly draped tunic surmounts a clinging narrow under robe and some sort of fichu drapery softehs

the bodice. Beyond that, color scheme and material furnish originality and charm and the completed whole is extremely likeable if not dazzling or striking.

There are Ibvely things in white as well "as in color—mose attractive white evening frocks than people, have been accustomd to see in recent seasons. There are quantities of white and black or black and white, too, though black and silver seems to have been substituted largely for the more hackneyed black and white.

Of this last combination one finds innumerable examples, not all successful to be sure, but In the main admirable. Two of the frocks in the large sketch are illustrative of the possibilities in this line, and both-are really artistic and admirable gowns of pronounced distinction without blare of trumpeting color. One has for its foundation a supple cloth of silver which gleams softly through a veiling of net embroidered exquisitely ail over in fine silver touched lightly with jet —one of the marvelous cobwebby embroidered nets which are among the wonders of the new materials. This net falls smooth ly over the silver cloth in straight, narrow, unbroken lines; but over it 1s a drapery of exquisite black Chan-

tilly lace held at the bust by a great bow of black tulle and drawn loosely back at each* side to fall in a gradually narrowing pointed train at the back. The short sleeves, too. are of the black lace. Only a skillful artist can handle drapery successfully and many of the ; evening models that have a simple air owe their cachet to unerring certainly in the management of drapery. One tunic is perhaps superposed upon another and another upon that, yet the lines and tones are Mended into a harmonious whole, with no effect of patchwork. The disastrous results of an attempt at such effects by a bungling hand may be seen wherever cheap, pretentious models are gathered together, but the great Frenchmen are reueling in an opportunity of handling such wonderful fabrics as this generation has not before known. Silver lace of all kinds, silver embroideries of all kinds are used In the black and silver combinations. For instance the breadth of silver lace swathing tunic fashion a black satin frock from a great Parisian house is a curious open design of silver net and cording of • silver cloth, dull in tone, superb in workmanship, extraordinarily effective, bordered on one edge by deep fringe. It forms or covers the entire left side of the decollette bodice and the right side of the bodice is entirely of pale pink chiffon draped fichuwise over the shoulder and bordered by very narrow fringe corresponding with the wide fringe of the tunic. All of the famous makers have a liking for a touch of pale pink chiffon or t#ile about the bodice of the black evening frock and indeed with bodices other than black. Frequently this chair, or flesh pink, is so used that it gives from a distance a rather startling effect of extreme decolletage to a frock which is in. reality discreetly high; but this is not always the case and there is no denying that the soft delicate pin’: softens the pronounced color tone of the frock where it nears the face more subtly and quite as becomingly as the white or Cream to which women have been more accustomed.

There was exhibited the other day a Worth! evening frock in b T ack velvet of exquisite quality, which despite the fact that, the model was not more than five minutes out of the packing case showed not a sign of crushing or wrinkling, so supple and beautiful was it. Success in this case was largely a matter of rmaterial and line, for the clinging velvet skirt was devoid of trimming save where It rose to meet the flesh tint tulle of the bodice just below the bust line. There it was handsomely embroidered in large .brilliants and brilliants gleamed in single lines along the edges of the decolletage and sleeve draperies. * The train of this frock toward the bottom fell quite separate from the frock, as is so often the case this season, and was square and rather narrow, the edge being softened by. a full ruche-like frill of what looked like Bilk mousseline.

Charming Simplicity.

Chiffon on Velvet.