Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1876 — French Costumes. [ARTICLE]

French Costumes.

Unique combinations of color and some contrasts are found in newly-imported Parisian costumes. There is a fancy for arranging brown and blue together. Thus, a new French dress has a skirt of nutbrown velvet, with a long over-dress of pale blue cashmere. Another rich suit has a long apron and sleeves of very dark leaf brown cashmere, with a cuirass and lower skirt of striped brown and blue silk. The trouts of the cuirass have but one dart, and are cut bias, with the stripes meeting in the center. The long side forms are of cashmere. The high English collar—atl'east two inches broadis of silk lined with cashmere, and is turned back in front to show the lining. The flat mother-of-pearl buttons have dragons engraved on them, and are sewed on through eyes. The deep apron is edged with brown silk fringe tied with " * qlriyf fru>ma a nnrnn /wmt ah 4 I •"* - •

It is more particularly in the attention paid to small details that the beauty of French dreases consW. Different materials used in the same costume are nicely matched in shade, and the trimming is of the most appropriate kind. Among pretty and new arrangements of flounces are those with groups of side pleats, three in a cluster, fastened down two inches below the top, then turned backward and fastened again. This is done on straight woolen flounces, and the lower edge is finished with a narrow, side-pleated frill of silk. Another plan has first a tfoxpleated flounce at the foot, then a side pleating, then a gathered bias flounce above. There is a special fancy for a single box-pleated flounce around the bottom of the skirt; in these box-pleats are made to stand out very ftilly, like a ruche. Square trains of three straight breadths are very popular when made of velvet, while the front breadths of the skirt are of silk. The train is scalloped on the sides and across the bottom, or perhaps it is finished by loops of the silk cut out, lined with another shade or contrasting color and turned upward to the edge of the skirt, so that the lining is seen. Other trains have a broad band of bias velvet on theedge. < .

One large pocket is more stylish than two on the over-skirt. There are various designs for pockets. Some are deep, slender pouches, drawn up like reticules near the top, others have four or five straight rows of side-pleating crossing them, while still others are pleated from top to bottom and trimmed with a bow. Cuffs cannot be of too simple shape for stylishness; in fact, the favorite fashion dispenses with them altogether, and merely has the sleeve cut to flare over the wrist and remain open in the side seams. Piping folds and pleating are the trimmings for cuffs. Lady Washington sleeves, with full ruffles at the elbow, are worn with evening dresses. Transparent sleeves of net or figured lace are also worn with thick silk or velvet cuirasses. —Harper’t Batar.