The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 5, 1904, Page 10

THE SAZZY O, THZE D AAADE 2 s 7860 ro 7O Sz, 5 1830 girl is a bit out of date. 4 to take her place, the girl of 1860 has stepped to the fore. hey call her the wartime girl, girl of 1860. And they study her how closely she has les of the Lincoln fashions before the see the st lovely have studied the fashions st century will tell you that a time when the styles were This was during the ten 1 exactly preceded the Clvil 1850 to 1860 American had a wonderful fashion es which were created too beautiful ever to go en- t of memory. ¥ old photograph albums aves to where mother ood forth in her best taken.” There were no photographs in those result was that each h exceeding care. hed until it had kle nor fold, and the falr sitter portrait which was a correct iy of herseif, but of her From e the fashions which are to-day.. These are the styles being worn and will continue orn the following summer. On rd walk you will see the 1860 i u will find her in the draw- and in the baliroom. e best istes are studying girl, and all the best designers of London and Paris are paving the y for her to come and make a long This girl, who deserves the name of the wartime girl, has a style that is quite her own. It is distinet and in many respects creative. It is different from any other style and it is a style which belongs to her exclusively from the crown of her head to the tip of her tos. You cannot mix her up with the 1830 girl. She is too prettily feminine, too trim, tho perfect. The 1830 girl, it must be remarked, is all right. She is dainty and pretty, but she is a bit extreme. She came in & year ago and flounced her queerly cut gown before you. But she could not make herself quite popular. She was mot distinctive. You were never sure whether she was an 1830 girl or of the Josephine era. The styles of 1830 ‘were too mixed. They were composed of the styles of all the other fashion epochs, grouped and bunched. And the effect was not good enough to be last- ing. . And this is what paved the way for the wartime girl, the girl of 1860. Over in Paris this girl has quite taken the Paris world by storm. Pa- quin has studied her and is delighted. “I am adopting the styles of the Con- federacy,” he says, “and I am every day finding in them more and more that is beautiful.” ‘The Southern women of the 1860 days were wonderfully well gowned.. They were famous then, and were quoted in Paris, and they were also renowned in their own land. No great soclal func- tion was complete unless a Southern belle could be coaxed from Old Vir- ginia to grace the occasion. And now it is the revival of the Southern girl, a revival of the gowns of the Confederacy, a revival of the dresses that were worn in the 1860 days. This period also brings in the Eu- genie gowns, for the ex-Empress was very much alive and very dressy in that period. But the Empress Eugenie was just the least trifle extréme, -her gowns were too extravagant and her fashions a little too marvelous to be- come popular. Women could not af- ford them. And those who could afford them were not always willing to dress a la mode. But with the gowns of the Confed- racy it was different. They.were ut- charming. And they were not so very extravagant, either. ‘Though the Southern women of those days were wealthy, they were economical and never in the 1860 days was there as much spent upon goWns as Now. The revival of the wartime girl brings in at once the funl skirt. ‘This skirt can be cut in one of three or four ways. It can be a stralght gored af- fair, made by cutting so many lengths ece of goods and sewing them her, or it can be a skirt some- sloped toward the belt line, or it can be a skirt that is lald in side plaits all the way around the hips: In any case, it is shirred or tucked, gathered or, ih one way or another, brought In to serve the purpuse of making the hips trim. The women of 1860 dic not think it in good taste to outline the hips so sharply and the gowns were gathered upon the belt. If they were made of thin wash goods, the gathers were “scratched”” to make them lie evenly in place. But the modern wartime girl will not consent to ldse her most desirable point, namely, her hip line, so she has her skirt laid in side plaits, or tucked, or gathered, and, while doing this, she surreptitiously throws a little of the fullpess toward-the back. It is more becoming so. The skirt 1s a full skirt, but there is just a little more fullness in the back than in tne rront—though not much. In only one thing is the wartime girl of 1904 absolutely true to the wartime girl of 1860, and this is in the matter of length of skirt. The 1860 girl would as soon have cut off her own daintily shod feet as go out witn a short skirt. And so it is with the wartime girl of 1904. Her skirt must be long, or, if not long, it must be what is known as a round length. The round length, as generally ac- cepted, is the skirt which just touches the floor, Maybe it a little more than touches. Tt is precisely the same length front and back and all the way around. The round length usually lies upon the floor an inch when one is standing still. But in walking it escapes pret- tily, though it requires holding up in the street. There is, of course, the pedestrian skirt and the walking skirt, the trot- ting skirt, the instep length and the skirt which escapes and discloses the feet. But this skirt is of a different brand and is bred of a different fashion. It has nothing to do with the war time styles of 1904. It is in every ward- robe, but it is not the keynote to the fashions by any means. The day has gone by when the trotting skirt ruled the fashions. The trimming of the 1860 skirt is not always the same, The skirts of forty years ago were ruffled with two deep ruffles, with a piping or shirring or a band of lace above.the ruffles. But in these revival days a greater variety is allowed. There is a strong resemblance to these 1860 trimmings, yet there is a difference. Ruffles are not actually obligatory, though it is a wise woman who wears them if she can. Ruffies are by far the most attracte ive and the most effective trimming of the summer. They are light and float- ing and they give the gown an air of grace which it can get in no other way. Ruffles of the same material, upon a gown of sheer stuff are en- chanting and they set off a gown of any light material in a most marvel- ©Ous manner. Those who can recall the ruffled belles of 1860.and of the years fol- lowing will assure you that the woman of those days was all that grace and beauty could make her; and they will tell you that her gowns, instead of being bulit to severely hug her fig- ure, were of the floating varlety, the airy fairy Lilllan type, the type which enchanted, even though it did not convince, Of course there is no need to tell you that this alry flonln‘t:r,-lz re of 1904, this war time girl. is the most admirable girl of recent years, for she is nothing of the sort. Her gowns. are far too long and far too thin to be admirable, and she is not hygienic in her style of dress. She wears too many floating ribbons. She is too much betrimmed with garlands, she is far too deeply flounced and laced to be strictly admirable. But, oh, she is B0 pretty! X The healthiest and strongest and most sensible girl of all was the tailor- made girl of 1890. But she was too severe. Nobody liked her. The world could not stand her. And so she died ' 7% CHANTLLLY For THE GrrLZ o ST REVZY - LG AR zeE oy TIVLES out. And now have comé the reaction days. The tailored gowns have lost every iota of their simplicity. The war time girl of 1904, if she does net trim her skirt with ruffles, htflnmsummwxdlm She Is glldnl at bands of very fine old- joned lace upon her skirt and is bordering them top and bottom with narrow bands of black velvet. This, by the way, is a very popular ring it top and bottam is “r{.:hlc. .Every old-fashioned dress- ma) will tell you how it s done. You sew the lace flat to the skirt, run- ning in & band all the way around. Then you take a roll of narrow black velvet and apply it by hand to the lace, first to the upper side, then to the lower. You put it on with a blind stitch and every particle must be done -by hand. If you prefer, and if your gown will allow, you edge the lace insertion with claret colored velvet no more: than a quarter of an inch wide; and, In that case, you will want a little of this same narrow velvet upon your wide sleeves and upon your waist, Your sleeves can be tied with It and your waist can have a few rows of it, laid in between the rows of shirring, or laid along the rows of tucks. Narrow velvet is one of the revival trimmings. It is used a great deal and usu v in connection with lace, though there are gowns that are trimmed with row after row of the velvet, all put on by hand and sewed along the upper edge. The lower edge is left free, as it is found that the velvet sets better when it is not sewed tight!ly aiong both edges. There is & trimming which is much in favor with the 1860 girl and this, too, is a revival trimming. Everybody re- members the days when ribbon was box plaited and stitched along the middle. This trimming was used to trim skirts and waists and even to trim silk coats. Well, it is this same box plaited ribbon which is in style again ard it is used just as it used to be. above a band of lace gr above a ruffle. Very many of the new skirts have a wide box plaiting around the foot, perhaps eight inches wide. Then comes a band of lace and then a nar- row box plaiting stitched through the middle. In the materials there is a great deal to be said, for they, too, are to a great extent the materials which were worn forty years ago. Many of them mas- querade under new and fancy names, yet in them will be recognized all the old favorttes. Grenadine is to be a great deal worn as & summer material and it will be prettily figured and trimmed with bands of taffeta or with bands of vel- vet and of lace. Or there will be ruf- fles of grenadine set around the foot of the gown and these will be light, fluffy ruffles calculated to bestow a witching grace upon the young woman ‘who wears them. Poplin is lovelier than ever this year and, whether one chooses poplin, Si- cllienne or mohair, it is all the same as far as the gloss is concerned. And even so with brilliantine, which now comes of exquisite luster even in the cheaper grades. The discovery of the process of mer- cerizing goods has added greatly to the number of lustrous fabrics and it is possible now to obtain a very bril- liant material for only a fraction of what such a gown cost forty years ago. In those days poplin was poplin and it was never cheap. Satin, too, is In style, and there are satins in the old.ashes-of-roses shade and in the curious shade called London smoke. There was a time when ashes- of-roses, London smoke, elephant’s breath and Irish poplin gray were the shades of the season. And they come mighty near beink the shades of the present year. You would be amazed to note how many fashionable recep- tion and calling gowns and nice gowns for church and other occasions are con- structed of material in these colors. 80 in the new materials one finds the old stuffs and she who has pre- served a gown of the long ago can bring It out and run a good chance of finding it in vogue, not only in general characteristics, but in color and ma- terial as well. They even combine 10 THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. Ay 2860 Gonr OF FLOomEEED CREN A2, % = HITE roszers AODIFTCA T O S For 7HE zpzge- TIME Gres ar 79 - tints, just as they once did, and you see pink and gray and blue ahd gray and red and blue and pink and biue and all the old time combinations en- Joying as great a popularity as they ever had in the long ago. But particularly in the necks of gowns does one note the revival re- semblances. The new necks are cv to a point and are either fllled in w & chemisette or left open and slightly tapering down to a point. Both ways are good. For day wear the woman of the present day does not go in for the low neck. And so, during the day, she ad- justs a high-neck bertha in her gowns. Or she puts on a chemisette with a high stock. Or she may wear one of those arrangements which have a high neck and long, full puffed sleeves, but which are ngt finished off around the belt line. There are many ways of filling In a low neck. Or, if her neck be very pretty, she will have her gown made with & slightly pointed effect and will wear it that way. But for evening the woman of the times likes to have her neck pointed and rather low. She likes to cut the neck of her gown down to & V in the middle of the front and a V in the back. And then she finishes it in a new way. She takes deep lace ana gathers it and sews it around the neck of her gown. The girl who does not understand the art of shirring a piece of lace In her neck should get busy at once. She must learn how to take it and turn over the edge and how to run a stout shirr string in the doubled-over edge. This makes a full heading for the lace. The prettiest lace necks are trimmead with lace which comes down In points, a long point and a short one, with a string running through the heading. This lace is then sewed around the neck, which takes a very pretty shape. Right in the middle of the front the points of lace should be arranged to hang down to the beit line. And there is the very old-fashioned way of running a piece of lace with ribbons and setting it around the neck of the gown. There can be three or four rows of the ribbon, and the ends are then tied in pretty little bows right in the middle of the front. It will be noted from a study of the fashions that they are extremely fem- inine. There is nothing severe about them, and the woman who needs little softening touches—and most women do—can easily find them in the gowns of the summer. Now, in mentioning the fashionable features, one must not neglect to say that there will be a revival of the pol- onaise. Indeed, it is already pretty well revived, for one sees many a gown trimmed so that one cannot tell whether there is a tunic or not, whether there is a semi-skirt or only one skirt, nor whether there is a pol- onaise or merely a simulated over- dress. When such Is the case, then it is not out of the way to predict that the overskirt and the polonaise are not far off. But in one way the wartime girl of 1904 rebels from the ideas of her pre- decessor, the wartime girl of 1860. And this is in the hoop-skirt; for the war- time girl of to-day absolutely refuses to don such an article. “1 take th which 1s comfortable and practical, she says. “But I discard that which is disfiguring and that which is un- comfortable.” The girl of to-day stiffens her skirts with sil{ linings and, under the dress skirt, she wears petticoats of silk with many ruffles upon them. She also wears a drop silk lining, for many of the skirts are both lined and furnished with a silk drop skirt. But it is upon her marvelous silk pet- ticoat that the girl of the period relies. This is lopg and is trimmed with a ruf- fle which will make any dress stand out and which answers all the pur- poses of a hoop skirt, without its ag- gressiveness. The silk skirt gives the comfortable rustle and is prettier far than the old hoop of bones and steel. There is no sign that the bustle will return, but this was a feature of later days—not of 1860. The bustle was much more fashionable in 1570 than in 1860, while in 1380 there was no gown worn without its bustle.