The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 1, 1901, Page 4

Here are the latest frills and fashions for Holiday attire and some of the rich gowns of New Ycrk’s and Washington’s swellest set are fully described. What Miss Alice Roosevelt, Miss Van Alen, Mrs. Henry Clews and others will wear. A _..i. HEY are cutting and shipping, shap- ing and stitching uponr the gown that is to be worn Christmas time. To make a Christmas gown is now as much a custom with the modern woman as to have an Easter hat and {t 1s sure that she spends more time plan- ning it The Christmas gown 1is a house gown, or one that is to be worn indoors. It is designed for one of many occasions and in selecting It a woman takes her chofce, Either she will have a new frock for a Christmas dinner party, or, forgetting the dinoner, she will Indulge in one for an evening’'s entertainment, whether it be a dance, a reception, a “party,” as the card affairs are called, or for mere emergency. No matter what the gown may be, nor the occasion for which it 18 Intended, it must be a picture gown. Without this qualification it will not answer any of the requirements of the Yule. Gowns grow, instead of less pleture-like, more and more so, and it really begins to look as though the “ picture’” came first and the gown afterward, For the Christmas dinner, which 1s rare- ly a very stately affalr, there may be a d’lnner gown with dressy attributes, with- out actual elegance, but it must have some characteristic distinction, if it be no more than old lace. SBome difference exists in the time of gerving of the Christmas dinner. In New York it is almost universally set forth at 6 o'clock. In other parts of the country it comes at noon and In many familles it is served at a between hours, that is, at 3 o'clock. ¥or the day dinner the dark silk {s now the proper gown. It 1s a season of silk gowns and very demure and subdued the silk looks, made up intoe a demi-train and bodice, In yellow brown there are many pretty gowns. One had a trimming of black lace around the skirt with white chiffon pulled through the lace under- neath, so that it showed through the lace. Above it there was a little black velvet tritnming. Black velvet was put on In little rosettes, not one larger than a dime, It took dozens to go around the skirt. All the browns are in for dress pur poses, and in Lhe glace taffetas there ia & wide varlety of tones., Bome one do- clares that there are forly desirable shades, running from a deep tan brown to the Invisible seal. Tabacco {8 the fa- vorite, with autumn lcaf brown and tte o;own of the buttéernut coming close after, For all these brown silks there is the black lace trimming, or the trimming of white lace, and there are the passemente- ries, which in some form or other look so well upon the skirts of the year. - For the early dinner there should be no attempt at the low neck, the dress ex- perts tell us, and not even the square neck should be attemypted. But there is something so attractive about the square neck, so positively homelike, that at such a formal affair as the Christmas dinner many ladies are willing to walve ques- tions of ceremony and etiquette and don the costume that {8 prettiest and the one in which they would be remembered the whole year, If the dining-room be dark- ened and lighted artificially then the mod- ified square neck I8 appropriate, even in the middle of the day. For Ceremonious Dinners. The late Christmas dinner |s one that calls for all the ceremony of the most ceremonious of dinners., It is a dinner for grown people and the chlldren are ban- ished therefrom. At this dinner the moat beautiful creations are worn, ands it is for Just such an occasion that the modistes are exerting themselves to the utmost, A Christmas dinner gown to be worn by Mrs, Henry Clews 18 a delightful thing in black and blue. The two colorsg are mfxml and mingled and combined in a Frenchy way that is most eatehing. It is difMecult In these days of entre cdeux of emplece- ments or applications, of insertions and underlays, to atcurately describe a gown, but in looking at this dress of blue and black one gets the idea that the black ifs made up falls over it. The black acts as a drop skirt and, where there are openings ir-the blue, the black shows through. Each opening Is covered by its patch of lace. Around the lace there is the most delicate little trim- ming of pale blue ribbon. The French knot plays an Important art in all ceremonious dinner gowng. ere is a way of making these knofy so that they will stand out and form a trimming. They give the effect of thdt essential to all good gowning, embrold- ery, ard the French knot diversifies the surface of some of the handsomest of silks, brocaded and plain. The brocaded crepe de chines are cre- ating somewhat of a sensation. The groundwork is a crepe de chine, but the brocaded figure is In silk and it creates an “atmosphere,” as the French artists ln_g',‘ which is elegant In the extreme. e new fabrics, while undeniably beau- tiful, are not necessarily expensive, and for a little one can create a Christmas gown that would in former seasons-have cost much more, yet the effect will be quite the same, The Uses of Lace. For dinner gowns there are the lace re- sults; they can be called by no other name. Lace of not too elegant a quality Is appliqued with lace figures, cut bodily out of very pretty pieces of Jace, and around these lace figures there are chas- ings of passementerie, or of ribbon, or of mock jeweled brald, All flowers seem In some mysterious way to have an outline and, from the brocaded silk which has its brocade defined with threads of sil- ver, to the lace which needs something, if no more than a bit of colored silk un- derneath, to bring it out, figures are made prominent, Dinner gowns, thus elaborated and made beautiful with handiwork, become actual creations and one must be pardoned for dwelling upon them, The pompadour silks come Iin for thelr share of pralse. They are gally flowered and some of the newest ones show the flowers In tiny sprays that do not make one look so Immense as the big bouquets were' prone- to do, The little corn colored backgrounds, with very small bouquets of flowers scat- tered over them, can be made up into Iit- tle dinner gowns that are positively un- rivaled for daintiness. Nor is it the youth- ful only who can wear them, but upon those who have arrived at the vears of discretion, who have usually demanded dark colors, they look well, for there is something quaint and plcturesque about them which recommends them to all. A pompadour slik will be worn at a din- ner soon by Miss Van Alen, the helress daughter of J. J. Van Alen, the young woman to whom all the titled of ¥urope have been reported engaged, including Prince Henrl d'Orleans, iss Van Alen's gown wlll have a background of sky blue sllk, while upon it will be the dalntiest Httle nosegays In dwarf roses with green leaves and lttle cowslips scattered through, The flowers will be much smaller than underneath the blue, which