Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1902 — The Passing of the Athletic Girl [ARTICLE]

The Passing of the Athletic Girl

By Belle M. Sherman.

ECJTJHE day of the athletic girl la over. 1 can hear my golf friend tTcT say, “What nonsense!” But it is not nonsense. Even the most sceptical, If they will take the trouble to go through the shops or jjLjjl turn the leaves of the fashion magazines, will soon become m convinced. The girl who, in her common-sense shoes and microbe-proof tJo shirt, has held the centre of the stage so long, to the delight of the physical culturist and dress reformer, is fading into the flies and a Creature of laces and chiffons, ruffles and furbelows, is advancing to the footlights. The only wonder is that the athletic girl lasted as long as she did. She stood ber ground bravely in spite of the powerful opposition of the shopkeeper and the prospective husband. Weary of the struggle, she now gracefully retires like a politic woman, conscious of, yet not acknowledging her defeat, and gives place to the summer girl of 1902. i The girl we have with us this year is the antipode of her predecessor. To be in the fashion, to wear the costumes designed for this season, no girl can afford to be an athlete. It was all well, when a short skirt and tailor made shirt waist in the evening at the summer resort was the hallmark of smartness, .for a girl to have a healthy coat of tan on face, throat and forearms; but to-day, when Dame Fashion, who is a tyrannical Jade at her best, steps in and commands the sheerest of laces, the most diaphanous of materials, tan or sunburn is an Impossibility. What need had the merchant to stock his shops with all the fripperies supposed to be so dear to the feminine heart, if these same dear girls never gave the tempting display a second glance? The athletic fad was not good for trade. The woman’s tailor, skirtmaker and shoemaker were the only ones benefited. In the course of events the merchant was sure to rebel. Then the modiste had a cause for grievance. Where was her living to come from if this athletic craze continued? Of what use was it to design •‘dreams” for non-appreciative customers? The “new woman” was her bugbear and she was driven to distraction. The whole army of purveyors to women, in Paris, London and Berlin, iwere in despair. They would be bankrupt if the girl of the period continued to be satisfied with tweed skirts, heavy shoes and shirt waists. Something gnust be done. To the relief of the shopkeeper came the “Du Barry” and “Dolly Varden” Craze. No sooner had these two plays caught popular fancy than the shops twere filled with Du Barry scarfs and hats and Dolly Yarden foulards and brgandles. Sunburn and tan, short skirts and heavy shoes lost their attractions, end the girls lost their hearts to the frivolities (as far as gowning was jconcemed) of these two stage heroines. Of course no girl could dress as Du Barry or Dolly Varden were she a fright with freckles and sunburn. So, after many visits to the complexion poctorß, the twentieth century summer girl has emerged from her chrysalis p veritable butterfly. Nothing 60 completely shows the trend of fashion as the radical changes Which have taken place in shoes and shirt waists. From the' low, commonheel and roudd toe shoe we have returned to the pointed toe and uis XV. heel. Fancy has run riot in the fashion of heels. This return }o the unhealthy Louis XV. heel is to be regretted by people of commonkense. Even the show windows of the haberdasher shops that cater to women llsplay a most elaborate collection of the once severely made shirt waist. IThese bodices are works of art, made as they are of the sheerest lawns and tgandies and profusely trimmed with fine laces. Perhaps nothing so indites the decline of the athletic fad as this new departure in shirt waists. The athletic girl is not the creature of mystery and romance that her lister of chiffons and ruffles, ribbons and laces is. She would be out of jflaoe on a veranda, lying in a hammock of a summer’s evening, or out in a jrowboat on the lake under the moon’s rays, and therefore to-day, under the bew regime, she is relegated to the shelf and in a short time will be forgotten. A wall has been sent up from landlords of summer hotels that they could get no men. This dearth was blamed on the athletic girl. It was said pat there was nothing to attract a man to a summer hotel where there Were no pretty girls to fall in love with. A man is never, so happy as when he is miserably in love. The athletic girl had no time for love-making, therefore there was no attraction for the men.—Collier’s Weekly.