Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment / Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad; Containing Rules of Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.

by Maud C. Cooke

Common-Sense Sleeves.

A very stout or a very thin woman should never wear extremely light sleeves, no matter what the style may be. The stout woman should also avoid an elbow sleeve with loosely falling ruffles, and the trimming, if possible, should run in lengthwise folds or bands. This precaution tends to decrease the apparent size of the arm. The slender woman, on the contrary, is much improved by the puffed elbow sleeve ending with a fall of lace.

Let women learn to put on belts so that they will slip downward in front and up in the back. This does everything for the waist in making it look slender and graceful. If yokes are worn, it is well to remember that a deep yoke is more becoming than a narrow one. If it is short in front, it looks awkward, and if it is short behind, it gives a round shouldered effect.

Where a rich toilet is worn for any occasion, be sure that everything is in keeping. If the gown be of velvet do not wear with it a linen collar or cheap lace. If real lace is beyond the means there are always the filmy tulles and crepe lisse. If jewelry is worn, it should be of the best, be it much or little. The fan, also, for such a costume should carry out the idea of luxury.

Cheap, fanciful, pretty things have their place in connection with soft wool, or pretty cotton costumes, but “lightness or grace is one thing; magnificence or luxury, another.”

A very young girl should never wear rich, heavy fabrics; they are unsuited to her youthful face and ways.

The evils of tight lacing are so pronounced that it would seem almost unnecessary to remonstrate against them in this age of enlightenment, were they not so continually forced upon our view. Nothing could be more unbecoming to the women fair, fat and forty, who are usually the ones to adopt this custom; an inch less in waist is hardly gained at the price of an unbecoming flush, a labored breathing, and a serious injury to the health, besides the lack of grace that comes from binding and constricting any portion of the human form divine.