Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1874 — Plain Dresses. [ARTICLE]

Plain Dresses.

At this season of the year plain wool dresses are objects of desire to housewives, other busy women, and schoolgirls. With pure wool merinoes selling for sixty-five cents a yard, empress cloths at the’ same price, and English serges ol single width for forty cents, women of moderate means can afford to have a good supply of these plain and serviceable dresses. That they are also in good taste depends upon the colors selected, the fine fit, manner of making, and the simple trimming. The choice this winter is for the darkest shades of positive colors; thus, seal and nut browns are preferred to those with yellow or red tints; blue is the pure deep Madonna shades without any purple; gray is clear and dark, or else of the slate hues tinged with blue; the deepest shades of rich cardinal red are worn in the house by both blondes and brunettes; green is in great favor when it has no olive tints, and is so dark as to be scarcely distinguishable from black; while black is worn more than all these colors together. As wool dresses serve for both house and street, it is well to have them complete costumes, and it is best to trim them with themselves rather than with fringe, braid, velvet, or silk that will not change color precisely as the wool fabric does. The skirt should just touch the floor in the house, but should be provided with a string and rings at the top for drawing it up in the street. Modistes object to lining the skirts of such dresses, but experience proves that they wear better if lined. A practical dressmaker suggests that a facing of skirt-braid should always edge the lowest flounce in dress-skirts to prevent the flounce from fraying. These wool skirts should be trimmed alike all around, or else left without any trimming save that of laying the back breadths in box-pleats. A stylish trimming for woolen skirts is two very full puffs, shirred between, yet drooping slightly, and a close side-pleat-ing below; when completed, this cluster of trimming should cover at least ten inches of the skirt. Another plan is to have two shirred bias ruffles, with a pleating o£_j the same width between them. The long deep apron is pretty> with such suits, and should be edged with a knife pleating. The basque for such dresses is the cuirass shape, or else the pleated waist so becoming to slender ladies. This pleated waist has become so popular that ladies are using it for plain black silk dresses. The sleeves should have three bias bands piped around them below the elbow, or a cuff that turns both ways, ox a single widn band with many rows of shirring quite close together, or else a knifepleating turned toward the wrist. The flaring standing collar is universally worn. The dress waist has no trimming, but a piping or pleating on the edge oi the basque. With high short shoulder seams, neatly worked button-holes, and a belt, this corsage is not without style, and completes tiie pretty suit. A better class of dresses is made of the black cashmeres that are now selling in very good qualities for $1.25 a yard. Some silk pipings and bows are added for trimming, and a sloped piece of silk trims the back and front of the basque down the middle. Modistes now import from London ready-made skirts of blgick poplins and fine empress cloths trimmed with many shirred ruffles and knifepleatings. These serve various purposes; some ladies use them to complete black silk suits that have grown rusty around the bottom of the skirt, others wear them on rainy days, or alternate them with better black skirts, and still others use them as Balmorals. They cost $25.00 and are of walking length, or else with draw-strings and loops behind for drawing them up in the street. Pirn’s Irish poplins are also being used for second-best dresses, now that they are reduced to $1 .25 a yard. A basque and single skirt of sueh dresses are suitable for the house. The trimming is a single velvet fold around the skirt (which has a box-pleating behind), velvet pockets, cuffs, collar and belt. The prettiest black beaver mohairs and alpacas seen this season are almost without trimming. The skirt and cuirass are absolutely plain, but fit admirably. The long apron has a knife-pleating on the edge and a sash bow of gros grain behind. The lowpriced plaid goods already are qged for polonaises and basques with long, simply shaped over-skirts, and worn over black silk skirts.— Harper's Bazar.