THE STREET GOWN
The most important gown to be taken into account is the street gown, the garb in which one appears every day and before the largest number of people. That one should look well all the days of the week is more important and convincing than that one should look well for the particular and infrequent occasion. If one must choose between a good day-in-and-day-out gown and one of a more elaborate and decorative description, the preference should be given to the tailor or street gown. One would better invest in a cloth costume of good material and cut, and wear this unchanged through more than one season than indulge in two or three of cheaper mold that reflect unsteadily the passing mode. This gown may serve not only for street but, with various waists, may develop other uses than that of outdoor wear. The changes possible in accessories will make it available for calls, teas, afternoon receptions and the theater.
BETWEEN SEASONS
Many women who dress fairly well in summer and in winter, fail to provide themselves with suitable attire for the intervening seasons. Spring finds them with only a fur-trimmed cloak, and in early fall they are still wearing thin midsummer frocks. In our changeable climate, clothing of various weights is absolutely necessary to make a good appearance. All fur coats are seldom suitable, and for this reason should be left for those who can buy as many garments as they choose. Good separate furs are a much wiser investment for a woman of limited means. White kid gloves for marketing and shopping, even if one can afford them, are out of taste because out of place.
For a woman who goes to balls and dinners, however infrequently, a good low-cut gown of some description is indispensable. Women who have lived quiet provincial lives and are called upon to grace a wider social sphere are not always aware of this. They provide themselves with appropriate gowns of other descriptions, but they feel afraid of the gown made especially for evening wear. They have a foolish fear sometimes of trying, by this means, to look younger than they are or of making themselves conspicuous in the wearing of such a frock. Conspicuousness lies in the other direction. Full dress is the proper wear for metropolitan entertainments after six o’clock in the evening, and full dress means a dress coat for a man and a low-cut frock of appropriate material for a woman. Avoidance of embarrassment means the adoption of this conventional wear. A woman who has reached an age when her neck has begun to wither in front is not, however, an object of beauty when décolleté. She will do well to wear a jeweled collar or a band of velvet or tulle.
WHAT IS FULL DRESS
To the indispensable items just mentioned may be added theater gowns, dinner gowns, ball gowns, outing costumes, tea gowns, negligees,—a bewildering variety of attire suited not only to every feminine need but answering to every feminine caprice. Few words are necessary to those women whose purse is equal to the purchase of all the feminine fripperies dear to a woman’s heart. Dealers and experienced modistes are always at hand to offer serviceable advice to those who have the wherewithal to pay for it, though one should not take, without weighing it, even the best advice of this sort. Try to be intelligent about your clothes and to show a little individuality. Only this bit of counsel is perhaps in season to those who may have measurably what they choose in the way of wearing apparel. Preserve some sort of equality between the different items of your toilet. Do not have a splendid theater gown and a shabby negligee. Do not wear fine furs over an inferior street gown. Do not wear heavy street boots with a velvet evening gown. Arrange the articles of your wardrobe so that they bear some sort of happy relation to one another, so that one article may not be ashamed to be found in the company of any other, so that your clothes may seem to be the harmonious possession of one person, not the happen-so belongings of a half-dozen varying temperaments.
THE GOWN AND ITS WEARER