Women are indebted to that gentle genius, La Duse, for the suggestion that a veiled throat and bust may charmingly fulfil the requirements of evening dress, and also satisfy that sense of delicacy peculiar to some women who have not inherited from their great-great-grandmothers the certain knowledge that a low-necked gown is absolutely decorous.
The women who does not possess delicate personal charms commends herself to the beauty-loving by forbearing to expose her physical deficiencies. Unless it is because they are enslaved by custom, it is quite incomprehensible why some women will glaringly display gaunt proportions that signally lack the exquisite lines of firm and solid flesh.
A throat like a ten-stringed instrument, surmounting square shoulders that end in knobs that obtrude above unfilled hollows, is an unpleasing vision that looms up conspicuously too often in opera-box and drawing-room.
The unattractive exhibition 61, is a familiar sight in the social world. How insufferably ugly such uncovered anatomy appears in the scenery of a rich and dainty music-room may be readily imagined by those who have been spared the unpleasing display. It is so obvious that shoulders like these should always be covered that it seems superfluous to remark that this type should never wear any sleeve that falls below the shoulder-line.
The sleeve falling off the shoulder was invented for the classic contour, set forth in No. 62. Nor ribbons, nor lace, nor jewel are needed to enhance the perfect beauty of a fine, slender, white throat, and the felicitous curves of sloping shoulders.
One whose individual endowments are as meagre as are those presented in No. 61 may improve her defects by adopting either style of corsage, shown in sketches Nos. 63 and 64.
A woman's throat may lack a certain desirable roundness, and her shoulders may recede in awkward lines, and yet between these defective features the curves may have a not unpleasing daintiness and delicacy in modelling that can be advantageously revealed. A modish velvet throat-band, such as is shown by No. 63, is one of the most graceful conceits of fashion. The too slim throat encircled by velvet or ornamented with a jewelled buckle or brooch is effectively framed. The unsightly lines of the shoulders are covered, and just enough individual robustness is disclosed to suggest with becoming propriety the conventional décolleté corsage. The Princess of Wales is as constant to her velvet or pearl neck-band, as to her especial style of coiffure. Her throat, in evening dress, never appears unadorned by one or the other of these beautiful bands that so cleverly conceal defects and seem to bring out more richly the texture and coloring of handsome bare shoulders.