Even in negligee and in night clothes consider every article, because habit is as big a factor as fat and quite as difficult to reckon with. In making your night dresses, you can panel them by means of tucks and make V yokes instead of round, or broad square ones. You may also have them sleeveless and tailored, all of which will help in making for slenderness. Soft crêpe night dresses with a woven stripe in self color are attractive. Stiff materials will never do. Materials that are too sheer show the body outline too much, and if your material is “bumpy” of course it, too, is taboo.
Use short shoulders in your negligees and have definite length lines. If you must have pockets, point them down so that they won’t square the figure across the hips. And choose soft, easy colors that are becoming. Changeable taffetas are to be shunned like the measles. Soft crêpes and small figured silks and stripes are all suitable. In this campaign, even the bedroom slippers should be of inconspicuous color so as not to take from the height.
Work for trimness, neatness, preciseness at all times. They all go with a tailored effect and must be observed to the letter if you wish to achieve the illusion of slenderness in dress.
CHAPTER X
THE SMART LINE OF DIGNITY
There comes a time with all of us when we have to admit that we are no longer youthful, but we never need admit nor should we ever feel that we are no longer young. Young hearts, young eyes, and young interests can always keep within us the fountain of youth, and that is our right in life—to enjoy to the last day our heritage, which means interest in living, expressing beauty, tenderness, and true womanliness.
When you have reached this stage of development you should be just as proud and happy about it as when you made your debut thirty years ago. Your vision can behold much more now than it could then, for you can now look both forward and backward, and then you could only look forward.
A wise educator says that every woman should have three careers: The first, of youth and education; the second, of marriage and motherhood; the third, of activity in business, or in advanced motherhood, or in social or civic life. So it is for the third career that I want to write these pages—to you who have a real incentive to be attractive yet have a definite problem of too much weight.
DRESS SMARTLY, NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU ARE
There is nothing more discouraging than to see a woman become careless of her appearance as she grows older. Indeed, nowadays no woman with proper self-respect would be guilty of such a crime, for although dignity and womanliness are much to be admired in the mature woman, there is certainly no excuse for a woman to allow herself to look old or dowdy, no matter what her age may be. On the contrary, the older you grow, the more urgent is your need for clothes that will make you look smart and attractive, especially if you are even one pound overweight. Let your watchword be to dress more smartly each year and to pay more attention with each succeeding season to the demands of fashion. Dress to suit your circumstances and needs, of course, but never forget to dress appropriately to the occasion as well as to your figure and always with a keen appreciation of youth.
