Woman as Decoration | Page 8

steel or jet; lace, chiffon--what you will--provided the fact be kept in mind that your outline be striking and the colour an agreeable contrast against the lining of the box. Here, outline is of chief importance, the silhouette must be definite; hair, ornaments, fan, cut of gown, calculated to register against the background. In the stalls, colour and outline of any single costume become a part of the mass of colour and black and white of the audience. It is difficult to be a decorative factor under these conditions, yet we can all recall women of every age, who so costume themselves as to make an artistic, memorable impression, not only when entering opera, theatre or concert hall, but when seated. These are the women who understand the value of elimination, restraint, colour harmony and that chic which results in part from faultless grooming. To-day it is not enough to possess hair which curls ideally: it must, willy nilly, curl conventionally!
If it is necessary, prudent or wise that your purchases for each season include not more than six new gowns, take the advice of an actress of international reputation, who is famous for her good dressing in private life, and make a point of adding one new gown to each of the six departments of your wardrobe. Then have the cleverness to appear in these costumes whenever on view, making what you have fill in between times.
To be clear, we would say, try always to begin a season with one distinguished evening gown, one smart tailor suit, one charming house gown, one tea gown, one negligée and one sport suit. If you are needing many dancing frocks, which have hard wear, get a simple, becoming model, which your little dressmaker, seamstress or maid can copy in inexpensive but becoming colours. You can do this in Summer and Winter alike, and with dancing frocks, tea gowns, negligées and even sport suits. That is, if you have smart, up-to-date models to copy.
One woman we know bought the finest quality jersey cloth by the yard, and had a little dressmaker copy exactly a very expensive skirt and sweater. It seems incredible, but she saved on a ready made suit exactly like it forty dollars, and on one made to measure by an exclusive house, one hundred dollars! Remember, however, that there was an artist back of it all and someone had to pay for that perfect model, to start with. In the case we cite, the woman had herself bought the original sport suit from an importer who is always in advance with Paris models.
If you cannot buy the designs and workmanship of artists, take advantage of all opportunities to see them; hats and gowns shown at openings, or when your richer friends are ordering. In this way you will get ideas to make use of and you will avoid looking home-made, than which, no more damning phrase can be applied to any costume. As a matter of fact it implies a hat or gown lacking an artist's touch and describes many a one turned out by long-established and largely patronised firms.
PLATE III
A Greek vase. Dionysiac scenes about 460 B.C. Interesting costumes. (Metropolitan Museum.)
[Illustration: Metropolitan Museum of Art Woman on Greek Vase]
The only satisfactory copy of a Fortuny tea gown we have ever seen accomplished away from the supervision of Fortuny himself, was the exquisite hand-work of a young American woman who lives in New York, and makes her own gowns and hats, because her interest and talent happen to be in that direction. She told a group of friends the other day, to whom she was showing a dainty chiffon gown, posed on a form, that to her, the planning and making of a lovely costume had the same thrilling excitement that the painting of a picture had for the artist in the field of paint and canvas. This same young woman has worked constantly since the European war began, both in London and New York, on the shapeless surgical shirts used by the wounded soldiers. In this, does she outrank her less accomplished sisters? Yes, for the technique she has achieved by making her own costumes makes her swift and economical, both in the cutting of her material and in the actual sewing and she is invaluable as a buyer of materials.
CHAPTER II
THE LAWS UNDERLYING ALL COSTUMING OF WOMAN
That every costume is either right or wrong is not a matter of general knowledge. "It will do," or "It is near enough" are verdicts responsible for beauty hidden and interest destroyed. Who has not witnessed the mad mental confusion of women and men put to it to decide upon costumes for some fancy-dress ball, and the appalling ignorance displayed when, at the costumer's, they vaguely grope among battered-looking garments, accepting those proffered,