The Oregon daily journal., June 28, 1908, Page 32, Image 32

THE -OREGON- SUNDAY' JOURNAL, PORTLAND,- SUNDAY HORNING, ' JUNE 23, 1933
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The New Directoire
Gown a Problem for
Womankind '
' AS ever woman by such a prob-
W
lent faced? fras she ever so
tantalizinrly driven between
jthe Scylla of fashion and the Ckdrybdis of
modesty and doubt f.
To wear it, or not to wear'itf Such
is the season's most pressing question that
follow in the wake of the new Directoire
gown the garment of the aggravating
problem.
A few weeks ago it lay buried under
the gray tombs of the Parts cemeteries, a
winding - sheet for the vanished forms
more than a hundred years ago.
t . Today, like a, beautiful butterfly
sprung from its forgotten chrysalis, it hov
ers over the women of America, fascinat-
I ing their gaze and startling their souls
with the thrilling question:
Are we all to wear itt.
SOME hare already taken this bull 01 fash
ion.' boldly by the - horns; they , have
adopted the Directoire,' or, at least, a
somewhat modified form of the daring
new garment. A number of others," perhaps,
are casting .more favorable eyes uponit than
they did at first. ' ' ;
But among the great majority of women
of this country the question is still buzzing its
perplexing rounds: Shall we wear it, or not I 1
Upon them the answer still waits. . '
And still above her it hovers, charming her
astonished eyes, frightening her anxious spirit.
A glance at this disconcerting Directoire
gown, with all its allurements and all its draw
backsand the drawback of a skirt weighted
above the knees and of a tape that ties the
front to the rear, so that every step becomes a!
flashing outline of contour, is one of its most
noticeable features reveals traces of the most '
slender, and most beautiful, apologies fr gar
ments ttat have appeared since Eve was" sat
isfied with her fig leaf. -.
. 7 Yet, again, it reveals the quaintest idiosyn-v
eraaies that have ever delivered lithe and grace
ful women over to. the doubtful mercies of the
tailor's shears. If it be made with that Grecian
effect, of drapery exquisitely clinging, it does '
not premise a union suit of silk fleshings and
nothing more, as one economical report ex
plained it.
The normal linen undergarments are there '
but made so close in their fit that they afford '
no "bungling", creases to mar the smooth un
dulations of the figure they clothe. - And the
stockings are mere, in any color your gown
-7 m w ,.
miracle; -for, as its , wearer walks, ier skirt
draping the foot, the weight and the tape draw
down and backward the yielding skirt and re
veal the outlines of the limbs. . '
, In the daytime, the new Directoire girl can
be as "proper? as she ever, was if she chooses
to don the erratic coat of the "incrovable" to
conceal any indiscreet display: of her throat and ,
- If. ever woman found herself compelled to.
quote Shakespeare, if ever Sarah Bernhardt had
millions of imitators among her own sex in the
declamation of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, "To
be, or not to be," tha is, indeed, the question
, for which the answer most be found this year.
Never did butterfly of fashion undertake a
greater enterprise than this of the Directoire .
gown. It is not one detail alone of dressThe
enormous hat tackled woman's head with the
blithe impudence of the stage, and settled thytre
with the merry assurance of a front-row chorus "
girl. But the Directoire gown attacks modern
woman all over, from head to foot, from under
wear to flaring coat lapel morning and even-,
xng, ifi front and in back. V ; v.
Her . great-grandmothers : were the scandal .
of Europe and the admiration of America. . ; '
Before their day, in the time' of handsome '
Marie. Antoinette, the mothers of those great
grandmothers wore such, enormously discreet '
dresses that their panniers and their hoopskirts -were
all that was required, with the help of a
little modesty,' to keep the longest armed lover
" at a more than respectful distance she was a
sort of central paradise, entirely surrounded by
. barbed wit and woven wire. . i , -
,( , But, after France cut off the heads "of all
those dignified,' vast-skirted, rose-embroidered
beauties, after the bloody frenzy of the Terror
abated to the license-of the Directory, after the
restoration-to the children of the properties of
, the. Slaughtered "parents, Paris felt cdnvinced '
that morality had perished with reliirion. l- !-
xo tnose who remember the crinoline of the r
4 ill T '
iv-tes : ( rrr-l ,
r-tV r - 1 1 -
! ' - .3 ' '
" I -ft- ' ;
. i- .' vv-- -
P ) -.: '
!' i' ' t '
i - ;.l -'
-1:
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( W MA
ized the ultra fashionable Bal dea.YIctimes, at
the Hotel" Richelieu, where, they set the -styles '
for the children - of . their parents'; murderers,
yet reserved to themselves the prerogatives"; of
the bow a la victime, in imitation of the : con
vulsive twitch-df the 3 falling bodie of "their
f or bjB ar a ' the coiffure a la victime, which cut
their hai as if in readiness for' the grisly,
slanting knife; the very shawl of red that com
memorated the eiecntioner's mercy to. the mod
esty of iharlotte Corday and Mesdames de St.
Am ar ante before they, mounted the dreadful
scaffold. ,...y;
They danCed there, those rejoicing nymphs,
in . Laconian tunics, in chlamys with waving
lines of color, chemises of finest cambric, gowns
of gauze and lawn, alluring buskins with dainty
ribbons ascending from instep to calf.
lAvalette. . aide-de-camn . to the brilliant '
Junot, wrote to a friend of the public recep?.' ,
tions: 't--f',': . '
"1 have seenwith Mons. de Talleyrand in .
wine-colored silk pantaloons at Barraa' feet
while General Bonaparte ate up bis master's
dinner, fifty singers and , musicians from the ,'
opera on a raised platform to the right, and on
another to the left a couple of hundred ladies,
in all the glory of their youth and freshness
and nakedness. All these, ladies were habited in ,
white muslin tunics over ? tight-fitting' silk .
dancers, and most of thepa sported rings .on
their toes." ' . . ' . . )
"The, Nymph and the MerveUeuse.'ob- .
serves Uzanne, in his review of the fashions, of' '
Paris, "those types of a period of deep corrup-' '
tion and open libertinage, were the accepted
deities', worshiped on every holiday and at every
Pagan" festival if the republic. . - s. ;
v "Mere plastio beauty' theirs, these priest-,
esses of nudity and of the God of. Pleasure, so
in love with their own bodies that their souls
"had forsaken them, their wits gone all astray in'
the wilds of a sham mythology, aping Greece ', . '
for the , sake of its antique beauty,, so as to
liken themselves to the sculptor's Venus or the '
fabled heroines of ancient history.'' ; . ,
The woman of the Directory, in ber morn-;:
ing walk, cast off all superfluous draperies. j ,
Hot only must the dress-show the -linesi ..
but the fabric must be transparent. The doo-i
tors wasted - overworked lungs, in cautioning
their 'patients that the climate of 'France was .
-. not the climate of .classic Greece. In vain. A.
V famous' authority stated. that more young girls.
i Derished of exposure during that- reign ox .
nakedness veiled in gauze than had died during v
the two preceding generations. . ; . -
v"Jfarisian women are encnannngiy aressea.
past,i the mpetoil ol-i Wr 'i-,
; or want -to..- . . .-X -
'.." To those 'who recall the saddla akirfc-ajit -1 J..
year's, photographs wifl showjome. still desper-v,: perciliously, as impertinently; indifferent to the
may choose and in any shade the occult hSf 'hest-"njch m7 attend the distinctive Direc- in the merlnaid outlines of their-bathing garb, , : ; But classic custonu worked but
fashion allows; but whether the adniirimr world .v"? 5 . and t0" hold the diVlded P-of the , , it suggests the mufflings of the jealous harem. ,Vv thorouglly, as the classic costumes;
klnall Imnv :)-'.. oillr " XOgeUier,
rends -wholly on your purseand vnn VjkJI . -But n, with herform encased,
n. A..v V i maieriaia tnat clinir ag closely as the summer
tion.
ceo
eok to the W carried itim . ?.arm c e summer girl's waist, and;
vidd into pantalettes and reaching a little be- ' v -Trt V ler? T"6 .' mor!
low the knee. In the middle of the skirt juS ffi 0ngin1 tlon. 'i -
.below mid-thigh, an ounce weight h-rnTi SS. utto TeATns
Si frSSSI rC? J8?1 the limuU - ter .figure. And thence sUrtah, Ss?I
from front to rear of the skirt Ihey workhe gcstion-tool '
"Sleeves reach only to .within five or six inches)
of the elbow.' V The short-waists add extraor
dinarily : to the height -, even of , the -. shortest
women. ' -1 . , "". "r ,
Almost everybody . goes on foot ; many,
decked out " like nymphs, ; lift their pettiooats '
and gowns at one side, the gathered folds hang
ing gracefully over the arm, the leg uncovered r
to the knee in front, showing rather, more than
the; calf .. behind.' " Shoes are;, worn' low and
stockings are, white silk, with embroidered col-
Ored satin clocksi pink, or; lilac. ' I assure you 't
' that any one I who desires to look like them must
-see their attire? and copy it." -
Let us admit it This beautifuL acnWaHnfl- iruf tnr 'vtVin wan milad lr Ilia, tirifj) ' 'Tint A ; The.i short-waisted, . soft, clinging srowns ' ,
insistently- chngine YDirw-tft1r thatremain in all the simnlicitv of their form.
nating to our modern Jault-finding eyes. so sud-T ' short of the classic .excellence for babies were -'.'if 4iot in" the pristine, sheen of their color, bear
denly dear to our, modern, beauty-loving hearts . ; then, as nowr the-fault of jacciflent or the whim , witness to fashion's imperious sway in repub-
comcs. ot .-a 'very, wicked family the little' sin-: of fashion.:". ;t .pt. :irut'v(
Mr' m ' - ,.,.(.. ., t They suddenly, enriched heirs of those who
The; capital-tf-yictoriou3 Fiance,-whose, had been.. decapitated 4hyegTiiUotine .organ-
: : ; '.. -v. ': '.V ',;-; -'-.
atejycunging .is propriety's personificatioik achievements of its heroe afield M it wafab
oTo 'Uiose who recall thewinter's translucenf ? jectly abased loathe distafs of its Omphalos at '
sl.it'isOMieatreineotpro&ryrto
whobserve the present hmit of- the peekaboo beheld "decsdent France ruled, by its rapacious
tSaTtu?'tt.i$ toe'v'''vA.':-r;vf.i Contractors; and ' their strictures were .true
.Ana to inose wno emerge from the. waters enough. .
almost as
Ah. DUt It haS SUCh S bad rmmf; .nrpl : m'.K ,iil0 mU nnti Viia KoKv Vulail Vil'a nnnn..
there must be something to these outcries of try, because his baby ruled his wife nd his wife
pained morality. ; . t . -j , : ruled him.' was paralleled bv the. French con-
lican America).
, ?:, A shameless ahdvery . shameful ancestry,
.this of the wicked Directoire gown. . .