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About The illustrated west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1891-1891 | View Entire Issue (April 4, 1891)
THE WEST SHORE. A WOMAN'S HEAD. New York, March :8, 1891. The country is full of blossoms and the town overflows with milliner)-, and for beauty, variety and general gorgeousness the latter is way ahead. A perfect riot of color began a few weeks ago in the bonnet shops, and now it has spread to the streets, the park, the churches and the theatres. Women who used to go about in sober-hued raiment and low-toned head gear now look as though a rainbow had dripped on them, and they must have titled a horticultural exhibition to get the flowery crowns with which they are decked. This sounds gaudy and conglomerate, but it isn't it is only lavish, sweet, sumptuous. There is an element of novelty and a leaven of quaintness in this spring's fashions, and as everything we designate as " new " is veritably old so old that in most cases it has been forgotten, so that the " novelest " de vices seen have been borrowed from, or suggested by, the tricks and manners of ancient Egyptian life. Of course, Madama Sara is responsible for a good deal in this direction. Cleopatra held the town in thrall, and, departing, left the trail of the serpent over feminine fashions. The very inoffensive little garter snake, which was cast for " the asp," seems to have brought on a perfect plague of crawling worms and insects, They swarm over the big hats and the little bonnets coil on crowns, squirm over brims, and look wicked lying at the heart of red roses and while lilies. They are variously the product of nature and art the latter fashions in gold, silver, steel and jet, and many are jeweled. A favorite pose for one of these wriggly reptiles (that alive would send every woman in sight into violent hysterics) is to have it apparently clinging to the middle of the brim in front, as if watching a favorable moment to drop into the wearer's mouth. Probably the fun niest manifestation of the entomo logical craze, as applied to hats, was made by three small turtles mud turtles the size of a silver quarter. This chaste ornamentation appeared on the wide brim of a Cafe an tail lace straw garden hat. The animals were holding in place the puckers of a cream chiffon scarf folded about the crown, and from a cluster of bluet and yellow wheat several little light green worms were spinning down on invisible fibres. Ugh ! After this a cluster of single briar roses, pre sided over by several little yellow butterfles, becomes a treat, and drag on flics and spiders, even, are ac ceptable. The "feather societies" can now take a rest, for the lips, plumes and quills, which are nearly all of a bird that is seen on the hats of the pe riod, are reft from him when he is alive, and "that is another story" which appeals to the P. C. A. Thistles and cacli are among the " quantities " on hats. The former of lovely purplish pink, with silvery-green foliage, set on a light-gray, open-patterned straw, with a scarf of chiffon like a smoke wreath. The brim is pin ned up behind with a silver cobweb, bearing an ugly black-and-yellow enam eled spider upon its meshes. The scarlet and pink cacti look splendid and dangerous on a hat of shirred lace with jet and lace butterfly indeed jet fairly darkens the millinery horizon, or would but for its shiny quality. It glitters everywhere that the least pretense exists for employing it. Il is seen in all the old forms and countless new ones, and can not be taken amiss in any shape. An odd fancy is strings of graduated balls looped over hats as fragile as flower petals, that fairly stagger under the weight of the black, gleaming globes which tinkle and clash with every movement of the head. Heads are in great favor. Ropes of them edge hats, coils of them con stitute bonnets. This may not sound true, but it is. Two coils of cut jet beads, arranged on narrow, wired, velvet bands, were bent to the head j one smaller than the others was set inside 1 they met at the back 1 a jet aigrette rose up from a thou of jetted black lace, which was carried out in long, wide " strings" of the same, to be brought forward and fastened to the left of the throat by a spray ol jet maidenhair. The pretty fashion of putting a wreath of flowers under the edge of hat brims to frame the face has been modified to suit occasions where flowers are too dressy, and for such wear a roll of velvet is substituted with very pleas ing efl'ect, while for some faces, to which it seems specially becoming, a quill ing of lace is used. The angle at which the headgear is now poised admits of wearing the hair arranged high up on the head a great gain in the way of coolness and clean collars. Veils are more than ever in vogue. They are everything bad for the eyesight, but are extremely coquettish, and that accounts for their prevalence. When one of becoming black mesh is draped from the wide brim of a big hat, it becomes the most flattering of screens. This filmy drapery isn't strained tight across like a drum head, but gets itself into dtlici--ous folds and graceful curves before it is tucked away under a dimpled chin, or gathered up and pinned over upon the left shoulder, or drawn quite to the waist and secured there, A problem which presents itself alresh to ever)' woman each year is how on earth she can best pack her summer finery so it may be well preserved on her various " Killings." And the hat is ever the biggest part of the puzzle. It has now been satisfactorily solved by a New York woman who has, she claims, invented the ideal trunk. It isn't on the market, and it isn't going to be patented. I saw one in her dressing room this week. Il is exactly c:gh teen inches wide, forty inches long, and fully three feet in height. Several lll'KNT RANCH, JOHN DAY VALLEY. ORKCON.-Hiolo. hy M. M. Iliiidtlne, lUrr C ity. Orison. very light trays scarate the contents, so that one can easily " go to the bot tom" without displacing everything on the way down. The length does away with cross folds in the skirts of frocks, and the narrowness keeps them from being too much (burned or from sliding. The top tray is boxed, and holds hats and bonnets. The advantage ol this upright trunk will commend it to women who know the bitterness of standing on the bed to dress in a Unify hotel room because the floor sace is taken up by the young cottages yclept " Saratoga trunks." Jl'I.IA Hayks I'kkcy. BURNT RANCH. To every erson who has " staged it " anywhere in tlie west the accom panying engraving of a stage station, known as llumt Ranch, in John Day valley, Oregon, will present many familiar and characteristic features, The low-roofed house, with its covered porch, the large barn with Murk corral and ample stacks of hay, the stage barn and shed, the long, dusty road, with ill parallel but winding lines where the wheels have worn deep into the toil, the fringe of willows and cotlonwiHxIs that speaks of the presence of a stream whose waters are the wine of life to the thirsty soil, and the tent of the cainier, all call to mind the sights so familiar along the stage roads that lead mile upon dusty mile away from the steel-bound paths of commerce. Within the hos pitable doors of the stage nation a cheery fire will be found blazing and crack-