Evening Star Newspaper, September 8, 1929, Page 98

10 THE SUNDAY STAR. WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 8, 1929, ——— e — - ——— - — - e ———— More Freedom Adovocated in Dress for Men- Kilties, “Shorts” and Pajamas for Father _ s : May Be the logue for 1930, Judging From Widespread Demand for Reform in Men’s Conventional Wearing Apparel—Cool, Tailor-Made Paper Suits at $2 Each. BY JOHN LEO COONTZ. EN are declaring for more free- ] dom in dress. The signs are un- / mistakable. Nineteen-thirty may see pajama suits in vogue, shorts and possibly paper suits. The fashions will range from the bedroom to the beach via the Boy Scout route.- If this is doubted, study the trend of 1929 and the ex- pressions of men strongly before the public eye. Study, for instance, the actions of W. O. Saunders, Elizabeth City (N. C.) editor. Mr, Saunders appeared in the streets of his home city this Summer attired in gaudy night gear. He thought it proper and right that men should dress comfortably if women do. Why should man be denied the pleasure of meeting hot weather halfway when the fair sex is so privi- leged? And Mr. Saunders got away with it. He was haled into court by the “dress funda- mentalists,” but little did it avail them. The judge before whom the case came found no violation of the dress code in the action of Mr. Saunders. Instead, according to the press, he rendered a decision that is likely to set a prece- dent. He found no “improper exposure of the person” in the dress of Mr. Saunders and com- mended him for having the strength of charac- ter to carry out an idea in dress that would give him relief from the heat. And that was that. Pajamas won; no denying it, though editors elsewhere scoffed and poked fun at Mr. Saunders and asked all sorts of questions rela- tive to pocketbook spaceé in his new street attire, cigar receptable and other personal matters. IN England there is a Men’s Dress Reform party. Recently this party held a meeting at King George's Hall, Tottenham Court road. Some 150 persons were present, clothed in short trousers, tennis shirts, woolen stockings and Jounge jackets. No less a personage than Dean Inge, the “gloomy dean” of St. Paul's, is a re- ported backer of this movement. He is credited with praising woman for her revolt against the feminine styles of 40 and 50 years ago and the activity of the Sunlight League in carrying on further reforms in the matter of milady's clothes. And Dean Inge would do no more for women than he would for men. Did he not recently appear at a private showing of the z«l)tyal Academy wearing a sleeveless shirt and ? Just a few weeks ago, when the matter of dress reform for men was absorbing the in- terest of America, when Old Sol was beaming down on grubbing mortals in his most en- thusiastic manner, a veritable bombshell in the matter of men’s dress was let loose in Wash- ington. The bombshell was in the form of & local interview with Dr. Warren F. Draper, of the United States Public Health Bervice. Said Dr. Draper: “Certainly the clothing which men are forced to wear today is all wrong. Think of it. Here we are preaching about the beneficial rays of the sun, but men, when conventionally dressed, ex- pose only their heads and faces. “The pajama man is wrong. What we need isa new type of clothing which will expose at least our arms and necks and, if possible, our shoul- ders to some extent. Dressed more normally and comfortably, men’s dispositions would cer- tainly be better. The dress of today is not even becoming. Sometimes I suspect these wretched clothes have been forced upon us by men whose physical appearance is not what it ought to be. The sympathetic co-operation of women would help a lot. We wear these eeollars and coats partly because it is not sup- 'pl:ed to be courteous to women to go without Thus we have expressions of medical, clerical and public opinion in favor of dress reforms for men by men of standing. To the indi- yiduals quoted, advocating new Summer toggery for man, can be added the opinion of Waldemar Kaempfert, director of the Rosenwald Industrial Museum, Chicago. Mr. Kaempfert is of the mind that man’s enslavement to modern dress will be broken by the adoption of paper suits. These suits, he believes, will cost about $2 apiece and will be discarded when no longer service- able. Speaking of them, he says: “The fibers will be made of paper and will be spun like cotton or wool, then woven into attractive pat- terns. Instead of being sewn together, the woven paper will be glued. A man will step into a clothes shop, where an expert tailor will, in a few minutes, drape strips of paper about his form and then fasten them with fish glue. “Such a suit—unlike a paper towel—will be unaffected by rain and hold its shape for two ‘weeks, afier which it can be thrown away and opinion. Not since the days of ancient Greece, when Atlantis raced with Paris for the golden apple, has womankind enjoyed such physical well-being. Frea from heavy garment's, she feels freer mentally, and that mental freedom, conducive to the banishment of sex-conscious- ness, has led her to enter into sports with abandon. Today women of all ages motor, swim, play golf and tennis. The pigment of the wallflower has been exchanged for the tan of the sun. If woman can buy health and beauty at the expense of clothes, why cannot man? Woman herself, as one astute psychologist has analyzed the situation, has brought about the idea of dress reform for men. For what healthy, full- blooded American girl of today wants to be wooed by an enaemic, non-sport-loving man? Not one! So it's up to man to catch up with his sister of the short skirt, bobbed hair and minimum apparel. Is the emancipation of woman to be fol- lowed by the emancipation of man? That's the big question of the hour in this flurry about dress reform for men. Why should not men cut out some of the weight that they are daily carrying around with them? “A foolish male,” says one enterprising editor who has entered into the fray grandiloquently, “car- ries 8 pounds 6 ounces of clothing, while the female of the species goes about coolly in 2 pounds 10 ounces of clothing. The weight of men'’s clothes is thus about three times that of women. The man of brains is grossly over- clad.” THING is a product of civilization. The ; first man and the first woman wore no clothing. Throughout the world today there may be found peoples to whom clothing is anathema. This is not to say that the twen- tieth century man or woman wishes to discard all clothing. It is only to bring home the fact that such clothing as we do wear today is the product of evolution, and that any step that may be taken in the matter of dress reform for men should not be held to be more revo- lutionary than the discarding by both men and women in the times of Charles I and after of Elizabethan costumes. The idea of covering the body was adopted by the primitive man for protection. It was cold in his cave and on the hunt, and the brambles tore his body. To meet the situa- tion, he evolved a garment of skins to cover his nakedness. Personal adornment may have en- tered into his decision to some extent, but surely not the question of modesty. The dress of man as we know it today, curi- These men find shorts cooler and better suited to Summer golf. ous as it may seem, was born of war. Cen- turies before the birth of Christ the Assyrians, scourge of the world at that time, found upon the addition of horse troops to their armies that the skirt, then worn by men, was impos- sible. They split it. The divided skirt then and there came into existence. Within a hundred years or more this split skirt became a double-legged skirt—a pair of trousers. The advantage of these trousers soon became ap- parent to the laboring classes, and as a con- sequence were adopted. Popular, however, as became the divided skirt and two-legged skirt of the Assyrians, the men of Greece never took to them. The earliest dress of the Greeks consisted of a rectangular piece of cloth, called the “himation.” Later the “chiton,” a close-fitting, sleeveless shirt reaching slightly below the knees, came to be worn under the “himation.” The Romans, who drew their civilization from the Greeks, followed them closely in the matter of dress. But even when Rome was rising to the height of her power, when the tunic and the toga were ultra-fashionable garments, trousers slowly were winning their place as an article of ap- parel for men through the influence of the far-flung Roman legions, who began to wear them as a matter of convenience in the field. The Roman armies, as they began their north- ern invasions, found the flowing garment too cumbersome. As a consequence, there was adopted, as appropriate for warfare, in ‘addi- tion to the tunic, tight-fitting trousers that reached to the calf of the leg. These were borrowed from the Phoenicians and other Eastern peoples with whom the Romans came in contact as their ships traded along the Medi- terranean and fouched at Roman ports. When Julius Caesar invaded England in 55 B.C, he found the natives there wearing a tunic coat that fitted the body closely and short pantaloons. The Phoenicians and trad- ers from the East had carried their styles to this bit of land hard by the gates of Ultima Thule. So the trousers and coats of men today have an ancient and honorable background. But before they arrived at their present status there were many modifications which showed man up as a vain and decorous strutter. From the East, along with spices, fine linens, silks and other luxuries, brilliant colors and ornamenta- tion came to the West. As a result, through the Middle Ages we glimpse man decked out with all the glory of a peacock. By the fifteenth century this feppishness and conceit of dress had reached heights too ridiculous for words. Costumes were so elaborate and so burden- some that they entirely concealed the human figure. As a result of this, reaction in the matter of dress set in. The Renaissance brought changes. The characteristic dress of the man of this period became the doublet, hose and cape. Silk stockings became the vogue; they reached from the hips to the toe. The doublet came in, the forerunner of the present-day waistcoat, ‘The cape, relic of the days of ancient civiliza- tion, clung to the shoulders. Ruffs for the neck became popular in England and we have the gentlemen of the court of “Good Queen Bess” padded to any configuration. @ new one purchased. : “There is no question,” continues Mr. Kaemp- ti fert, “about present-day clothes being quite b mad. But we are slaves of convention. Al- o« though 1,000 men marching to work in paja- hy mas would liberate us from the present style P ©of tyranny, it is impossible to find 1,000 ac Buch men. The paper suit is our only hope.” is WOMEN are at last free. They have dis- ,’,',‘j carded those heavy garments which, well ha, within the memory of man, revealed not their a ge\{lly floflf?m‘gfmcmfimgfifm‘mfi Chicago, too, has been hit by the pajama fad, as is cvidenced by this inormal prrcde down Michigan avenue of men who have bre Better health, unquestionably, says medical revolted against the traditional coat, vest and trous-rs.