Dress and Look Slender

by Jane Warren Wells

Take time to put this figured dress on so that you won’t get red in the face doing it. Yes, you will find it is too short waisted; the sleeves are too short, the neck is too high, the skirt too full. You hated to admit that you needed a 44 pattern so used a 42 and allowed a little extra room across the hips. (I know just how you felt, for I have done the same thing myself).

Now survey yourself in front of the mirror.

You haven’t any goods like the dress, so you must add something to it. For a figured dress of Georgette or silk, plain color Georgette is suggested. See on page [73] how the sleeves are lengthened by a deep cuff, the collar effect lowered by a scarf, the waist let down and made looser by means of the excess material in the skirt.

Here is a large-figured dress remodeled to give it length lines and a more slender appearance. The neckline has been changed, the heavy prominent girdle removed and a narrow belt substituted, the waistline dropped, the sleeves lengthened and a scarf of plain material added.

Next, try on that plain tailored dress that you have been planning to rip up or give away. If it has an out of style waistline or heavily braided revers, make up your mind to sacrifice them now—to rip apart and to take off the revers. Consider some black satin if the dress is dark blue, or some white piqué if white is becoming, and think of the improvement some long, slim revers and some dainty turn-back cuffs will make.

Take the belts or waistlines off the separate skirts that you own and visualize how some plain boyish form brassieres as camisole tops for these skirts will improve them, joined as shown on page [75] in either one of the ways suggested. Your blouses may be worn over these. By this method you may not be able to camouflage the size so readily but you can decrease the appearance of years by a considerable amount. Isn’t it easy to see that on page [77] the silhouette on the right is years younger than that on the left?

Try on all the dresses you have. Consider the tightness of the waist and the length of it. Look once again at the little figures in Chapter II that illustrate so well the laws of optical illusion. Remember that if you are fat in the back your dress must have some kind of a neckline trimming or scarf collar, long and slim as on page [79]. This makes a lovely addition to any dress.

Camisole tops are advantageous and will allow a skirt to appear easy on the figure.
For wrap-around skirts always allow fulness by panels or concealed plaits so that your skirt will not stretch unshapely when you sit.