ON THE LAWN
Music is a pleasing feature at the garden party. A pretty custom, now enjoying vogue among the most fashionable, is to have the orchestra hidden by a clump of trees or shrubbery, but near enough to be heard distinctly. In the outdoors music is never too loud to interfere with conversation, and it is always a source of keen enjoyment to the guests. Also, it adds a solemn charm to the natural beauties of the occasion.
In planning a garden party, it is best to hire all the glass, silver and china from the caterer, as there is always considerable breakage no matter how careful the servants may be. If the hostess does use her own china and glassware, she must never use her best unless she is willing to take the risk of having it broken. Undoubtedly, the garden party is troublesome, but it offers possibilities of tremendous enjoyment and amusement, and when properly arranged is always a success.
The correct time for a garden party is between three and six in the afternoon. Sometimes it lasts until seven if the day is long and the guests are congenial. It rarely lasts into the evening, however, unless it is in celebration of some special event. Sometimes evening lawn receptions are held, and they are remarkably pretty. An appropriate time to hold an evening garden party is in celebration of a summer wedding anniversary. The grounds are brilliantly lighted with many-hued Japanese lanterns or tiny colored electric lights twining in and out among the trees. Benches and chairs are set in groups or pairs underneath the trees. Music is usually on the porch instead of on the grounds. The house is open, and the younger guests may dance if they wish. Supper is served either outdoors or indoors as convenient. Altogether the garden party, whether held in the afternoon or evening, is a picturesque, charming and delightful affair and deserves the wide popularity it is enjoying both in America and England.
DRESS FOR GARDEN PARTIES AND LAWN FESTIVALS
Summer frocks, in their airy flimsiness and gay colors are ideally fitted for the colorful background of a garden or lawn party. And the lady's escort, in his white trousers and dark sack coat adds still further a note of festivity.
For the garden party, the woman wears her prettiest light-colored frock and flower-trimmed hat. Gay parasols may be carried if they match, or harmonize with, the rest of the costume. Light shoes are more attractive than dark ones with light frocks.
A garden party might be compared with a drama, the costumes of the guests deciding whether or not it would be termed pure romance or light comedy. Here, amidst summer flowers, woman's natural beauty is heightened, and the wrong color schemes in dress, the wrong costumes for the setting, jar as badly as a streak of black paint across the hazy canvas of a landscape painting by an impressionist.
WOMAN'S GARDEN COSTUME
Organdie seems to be the material best suited for the garden-party frock. For the younger person there could be no prettier frock for garden or lawn party, or indeed for any outdoor afternoon occasion.