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members of the 'strong' sex who have ever tried any other costume, to be the most disagreeable and uncomfortable of all known inventions in clothing, but which they have been weak enough to endure for just a hundred years.

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When the classic follies subsided, the waists grew longer again, and the result arrived at is sketched above. The habitual bare shoulders and arms, with 'gigot' sleeves, long tight waist, short scanty skirts, flat shoes, with ribbons, still retaining the name of 'sandals,' and mighty bonnets, may be seen in the woodcuts of any old magazine or other work of the beginning of our century.

Dresses of Our Day.

Bodices.--In speaking of dress it is impossible to go too much into details. I will begin with the gown, viewed in its several parts.

As to the cut of the bodice, there are many forms, good and bad. The worst is, perhaps, the ordinary tight bodice, which we may christen the Pincushion style, from its hardness and stuffiness, and which follows the form of the stays, and never that of the body. But you may say, 'Why is this "neat" bodice ugly? It is a pity to conceal a pretty figure for ever in loose folds. Why may we never see a clear outline?'

Certainly, if we did but see the outline of the body, and not the French milliner's idea of what the body should be! Nothing can be more beautiful than a closefitting garment, such as that worn in the time of the Plantagenets, before the modern stays had come into being. But a box that stiffens the whole figure unnaturally, draws the waist into the shape of a V, when the female figure is much more like an H, is a detestable invention, and, indeed, only a kind of coffin; while, as for the bodice fitting it, any garment containing so many unnecessary seams and wrong lines must always be an unpicturesque one. The sketches, given on p. 68, of the ordinary tight bodice, I submit to my readers, that they

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may decide this question for themselves. (See figs. I and 2.)

As for the skirt (which ought to be, if it is not, a portion and a continuation of the bodice), it must partake of the character of the bodice-that is to say, if the bodice be cut tightly and formally to the figure, the skirt should be so. For instance, none but the plain gored skirt, without a single plait, can properly go with a tight bodice. But if the bodice be full at the waist the skirt must contain plaits-for this form must signify a full and folded garment closed to the waist by a girdle. Nothing can be in worse (artistic) taste than to wear a loose bodice, such as a Garibaldi, with a tight gored skirt, which we have seen done, or a gathered skirt with a close bodice-no dress could be naturally cut in either way. It at once betrays that the skirt and bodice do not belong to each other, and are not cut together; or as the artists say, 'not all painted with the same palette.'

As a glove that ends exactly at the wrist-bone, or a boot at the ankle, with a straight line, is always ugly, so are the necks of dresses when cut in a circle close up to the throat. They have an incomplete look invariably, and seem to require some sort of ornament like the collar we have sketched in fig. 3 (fourteenth century); this is not a natural form, and, besides, it gives the head a decapitated look. The corners (see fig. 1) taken

off (fig. 4) at once give us a natural form.

The V may

fairly be carried down to the waist-but in this case let me beg my fair countrywomen to wear a chemise. The fashion in vogue a few seasons ago of wearing the chest bare to the waist while the dress was high behind and on the shoulders, was inexpressibly odious. We have seen these V-shaped bodices at evening parties, where the V was only stopped by the girdle! As to the picturesqueness of the dress, it was lost by the hard edge of the V upon the chest. A dress ought never to end upon the skin-there should always be a tucker, firstly for cleanliness, and, secondly, for softening the line of contrast.

Seams ought never to have been introduced into the backs of close bodices. Surely the human back would be easy enough to fit without these lines, sometimes contradicting so flatly the natural ones of the figure. What can be more ugly than the forms of the spaces sketched in figs. I and 2? What can be a more needless break in the line of the arm and shoulder than the seam that chops off the arm just beneath the joint, or the square seam that crosses the bladebone? There is another seam which is just as ugly and just as needless, which goes straight from the arm-pit to the waist. If a tight bodice demands a seam down the back it cannot need the side seams nor the seam under the arm. If the

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