February, with its few mild days, is still to be reckoned as one of the winter months by dress as well as the calendar. The shop windows themselves present very few novelties, and the side-walk none at all. The endless varieties of cloaks and mantillas—the Hungarian, the Galeta, the Nabob, the Victoria, the Norma—are still in season, and the winter bonnets, with their profusion of trimming inside and out, will be worn until April. We particularly notice for the benefit of those having a large or expensive stock on hand, the edict of a late foreign fashion journal: although large collars are the fashion, it must not be supposed that small ones are altogether laid aside. They are still worn with cloth and merino dresses, and for the street, as large ones do not set well over cloaks and mantillas. Plain linen collars and undersleeves are still worn for the street, and travelling, and for the morning.
For making dresses, there are every variety of sleeves. For morning-dresses, the fulness at the wrist is gathered into a wide cuff turned over. It is a mistake to copy the full-puffed or slashed sleeve of Charles V.'s costume with any other style of waist. Such fanciful costumes should not be copied piecemeal; they lose all their effect. Better be a little behind the fashion. Costumes invented for rich materials expressly cut a very shabby figure in mousselines or chintzes.
Basques are as much in fashion as ever, the favorite style being renamed "Odette Bodies." The basque, or lappets, being of the same piece as the body—not attached to it, but gored out, as it were, over the hips. For slender waists, the Parisian dress-makers have used gathered bodies, with the lappets sewed on, as the Odette body, being quite plain, is not considered becoming.
We conclude our chat by an article upon mourning, copied from a valuable little publication, to which we would call the attention of our lady readers. The title is significant—"How to Make a Dress: a Help to those who wish to Help themselves." The American edition is altered and enlarged by our own editress, from whom we quote the following chapter:—
"MOURNING.
"Some guiding hints as to the choice of mourning goods, and the general effect of close and half mourning, may not be amiss.
"Close mourning, more commonly called deep mourning, is usually worn only for the nearest relations—a husband, parents, child, brother, or sister. A widow's mourning, called 'weeds' in England, is not so distinct in this country. There the close tarleton or muslin cap, with its crimped border, is its accompaniment for a year at least. The fashion has of late years been adopted in this country, particularly in New York, where it is so common as not longer to excite the curiosity it called out at first, when worn by young persons. Bombazine, trimmed with folds of crape (the dress, mantilla, and bonnet), with a veil of double Italian or heavy English crape, is considered the deepest mourning. Nothing white, as collar, cuffs, or undersleeves, is worn by those who thus follow the dictates of fashion, even in their sorrow, through the first six months or year.
"Another style—also considered deep, and usually worn for parents or children—allows of a variety of material, as black cashmere, mousseline, Tamese cloth, alpaca, etc. etc., trimmed with silk or ribbon, even plain braids and galloons. Undersleeves and collars of Swiss muslin, tarleton, or linen, relieve the sombre shade, and add a neatness to the dress which it can never have where black crape is used for the purpose. This is the most general style.
"A lighter mourning is black silk trimmed lightly with crape, mode bonnet, etc. etc.
"Again, half mourning admits of as great a variety in shade and material as colors; lead and stone colors being considered appropriate; lavender, and even deep purple, are often used. What is thus denominated 'dressy black,' or, by the witty author of 'How to get Married,' 'mitigated grief,' seems to us to lose the sacredness with which sorrow usually invests the dress of a mourner.