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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1915)
8 " Spring Fashions Give Women Big Cho ice in Colors However Milady Need Not Worry for the Silent Shades Will Rule This Season as Predicted, By Anne Rittenhouse. (Copvrifjbt. 131D. t.y th McCImc Newspaper :rvicn. ) THE women who wore troubled about the oviT-brilliainy or col oring demanded for.tlieir clothes, may be at re.t. What Kodier h:is named silent colors have superseded tlie oriental ones that blazed a striking path through this planet since the cult of Poiret and Rakst began. J-n the hands of great masters like these,, gorgeous colors were put through their paces, but in the count lets hands of amateurs who piled red upon purple, blue upon green without knowledge or study, tie result was enough to make the people of Mars think we hail gone mad, if their tele , scopes are strong enough to see us tunning about the earth like multi eolored prints. .Whether or not such weavers and dyers as Rodier and Illanchlni liked Clio Indian and Slavic shades they were compelled, or rather persuaded. Into making by the wish of the de signers, no one knows. They cid the work beautifully, and if their art could have been repeated in all the mills that produce, fabrics, all would have been well: but rarely did their " copyists get the right shade, end so confusion was added to ignorance. A red and a green used in Paris by a designer wiis h'l.i'ded here as the latest fashion. 0 unless one had the opporttmitv my these col ors from headfiuai t . i s inl'aris, there was no way of getting them: nat urally, the masses of women had to accept what was given them, and they went about in what was a travesty of the original fashion. Even In the smart places in Amer ica, where one paid absurdly high prices, there was no guarantee that the one touch of marvelous color that Rave a frock distinction could be re peated when the gown was copied. Most of the dissatisfaction among women who have French models copied by their own dressmakers arose from that constant deficiency. Paris Monopolise Shades. The American dressmaker had her troubles on this score also. She bought the gowns in Paris and was compelled to buy each of the trjaterials there that went toward the building of them, for the American markets do not imitate the French colors any where near the mark, and, often make no attempt to do It, or even copy the weave. France has a monopoly on these shades at the beginning of each season, to judge by their exclusive nesR. Therefore, our dressmakers buy from the fabric people abroad as much of each material in Us proper color as they think will be needed over here. Judging by their usual trade in gowns. Sometimes they overbuy: again they underbuy. In the first instance they lose money unless they can put this surplus to some rood use, and in the other esse they are apt to lose a cus tomer or gain her dissatisfaction be cause the wrong shade was used on an expensive frock that depended on a certain shading to make it worth its valuation by the dressmaker. Maybe you are only an onlooker at this absorbing money-making and money-lohing" "game of buying clothes. If so, you must have wondered why It was that bo many women wore such hideous colors, and. of course, you put It down to French influence. "You ex claimed in horror and patriotism over this yielding of our women to the art of such colorists as the modern French i school had produced. and wandered when such perversion of good3 Amer ican taste would stop. V Had you been privileged to see the original offering as the French de- signer put It out you might have won dered why the average American woman who bought cheap clothes was Tot versed in the simplest rules of color schemes. The copy was no more like the original than the daubs of the student In the Louvre are like preat ; masters. When one knows the secrets ' of rare Color combinations then, in deed, does one mount high in the realm of art. Of course, the first trouble started in the trying to copy rare colors in cheap work. And the second trouble was In attempting to make bricks "without straw. In other words, to create a French frock without the aid of a. French dye pot. Silent Color Will Kale. Jt needs no color card to convince one that the tones that do not shriek will ., be .the ones insisted upon this spring and summer. Rodier's state ment that all his colors would be si- lent: ones brought the public atten tion, through the felicMxof a phrase, .to the -knowledge that this was not -the time for noisy colors. i One of the leading American houses had announced early In the year that It would feature soft tones that bad 8 WHAT WELL my 7 This bonnet is made of brown straw, trimmed with tiny pink flowers and flowered ribbon ends. been manufactured here, each of which bore American names, such as Palm Reach sand, Gettysburg gray, Oregon green, etc. These names would attract interest, but not pur chasers, if the tones had not merit in themselves, which, however, they have. All the gamut of glowing browns without ugliness are especially fea tured in this output, and as beige, twine and their sisters are already popular, this drifting toward u deeper shade is within the general color scheme for the incoming season. The new tone of brown is altogether lovely, and resembles the London smoke shades that were far more appreciated in fabrics than in reality. Gray will take on a new lease of life. ft is in silver, cloud, gunmetal, pearl, fog arid in a tone called moon light when the medium is sequins. The recrudescence of this shade brings cut steel back into fashion, and it is apt to go hand in hand with cut Jet throughout the season, and to tbe latter there is. apparently, no l.mif put this year. As opposed to the fashion for dead colors, s-ui-h as gray anil brown (no matter how living they appear by r ason of the wonderful dves 1 1 : t have been found for them), there is also to be a strong fashion of flow ered fabrics. So look in the trunk upstairs and see if you or your im mediate ancestors have saved floral silks and muslins from the gayeties of other days. Striped materials also are to be prominent. Muslin, lawn, linen, voile with thick or thin stripes in colors are to be made into blouses and frocks for morning and afternoon wear. Striped ginghams are coming back for everyday frocks for summer days. The smartest blouses are of white and blue, and white and pink lawn, made without tucks or pleats, with a square yoke and a front or side fastening. Frocks are to be built in these col orings with bands of plain blue which act as5 a frame, always a good idea when stripes are employed. One wants a frock to have a sharp sil houette, not drift away into vague ness, leaving the onlooker in doubt as to its designer's purpose. Gowns, like persons, must have some strong quality to give them character, to give them a certain solidity that you can get hold of. Grandmothers' Gowns Again. It is not easy to reason out whv we are apt to term all the quaint clothes of indefinite periods a grand mothers gowns, but women "and dress makers have a way of doing this When invitations come out for an old-fashioned party, one immediately seeks out some kind of ruffled flow ered frock with ribbons. And this is what the designers are giving us now to serve as modern costumes. The idea has been creeping in since No vember and possibly Mrs. Castle in her Lucille frock for dancing an 'old fashioned polka, gave added impetus to the project of modernizing what has passed for fancy dress clothes. We hae become so familiar with the appearance of all kinds of women at all kinds of occasions wearing what seemed to be fancy dress cos tumes, especially those "taken from the tales of the Arabian Nights, that anything bo demure as a flowered silk gown, beribboned, which is asso ciated with the polka, looks as quiet and home-made as a patchwork quilt. It is a leap from what is and what has been, to these flounced frocks but women probably will enjoy the Jump very much. It pleases their sense of contrast. They know that these frocks will take twice as much material as the gowns of yesterday, and this may give them cause to pause, but it Is such a distinct vic tory for the workers who profit by the sales of double the quantity for a frock, that they should apply the doctrine of higher economics to the purchase and not be disturbed by the lower ethics of personal economy that is what the social thinkers tell us and they rule public opinion In these socialistic days. The mill people, were wont to put the lack of work' and profit on the foolishness and vanity of women who wanted to be clothed scantilv; now, we are threatened with more material on our bodies than our diligently kept slenderness can stand, so let us hope that someone will profit. Surely, it is the reverse of the wheel of fash ion for which the weavers sighed, and it should remedy a part of the work ers conditions if not the whole. These grandmothers' gowns are made of flowered or striped silks, with flounces that extend from the waist to ankles. They are full, r scant, as one wishes. Each la edged THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY MORNING, Smart coat of white corduroy w orn with a band of satin or velvet ribbpn of moderate width. The bodice is cut off the shoulders, or it is square in the fashion of Janice Meredith's day, and built high at the back by a plain ly drawn scarf of tulle or chiffon. The waistline is normal, and, if one wishes to be quite in the picture of other days, then the bodice is pointed in the middle front and boned to stay in its place. Assembling Various Periods. Possibly we shall continue to look as though we were at a fancy dress party if we are assembled in Empire frocks, Colonial ones, those of 1880 and 1850, with a dash of Russian and Algerian, which it may be impossible to keep out. It is safe to assert that if 60 women were foregath ered each wearing a gown per fectly adapted to the new spring fash ions, the appearance would be that they had responded to an invitation to a costume ball representing a half dozen periods. As far as one can Judge from the meager information that the experts give, there will be as much laxity in choice of fashionable apparel from now until June as there has been since last June. If this condition is continued it might result in the elimination of that feish "the leading fashion" and give EMBROIDERED GOWN Spring costume of embroidered bine satin and pleated moussel ine trimmed with1 bands of fur. This is a 'Paris creation. DRESSED "with black and white check skirt. women and dressmakers a far better chance to display initiative. There are styles, however, that are not in the running any longer, wide as the choice remains. The skirt -that is narrow across the back at the knees, and pulled up and forward to the front with a sash from hem to knees, is among the things that are reckoned as dead. The long coat is another fashion with a taboo, unless it serves as an overcoat, and the wide elbow sleeves with a lowered armhole should be abandoned by those who still cling to it. Long skirts for any occasion are not reckoned in the spring styles, for even when there is train, it is not part of a hem that sweeps the floor all around, but a separate attachment. Coats that fasten below the waist line are abandoned for those whose buttons, always prominent, end above the waist, or merge into a girdle. The long waistline on jackets is meet ing with strong opposition, but no one can safely predict that its day Is done. The same leniency may be claimed for the high collar. True, it is the leading collar, but no one can deny that the. wide, rolling, low one has many adherents; the new white blouses that were offered this week have collars in this shape, and do not even compromise with the fashion that calls for a high buttoned stock. Over in Paris the women practically have abandoned the collar that closes up the front, but they show that they, bend to the demand for the high one by allowing the bones to keep it up in the back and at the sides, and, after going that far. the material is simply cut away from under the chin. This trick keeps down any semblance of a double roll of flesh at the spot where a woman detests it. The collar that buttons in a straight line around the neck always adds to a woman's age, therefore, why accept it? There are so many ways of getting around it. There is a tendency on all sides to lower the collar on coats also; "it is not reasonable to suppose that the coachman's collar of fur, which has been such a happy note in street cos tumes, will be repeated in cloth. It wouldn't go with the mild weather. Cheruit is making a bid for the re turn of the shawl revers, and Bernard and Drecoll are giving sorhe attention to the plain revers and collar of other days. These are not especially grace ful, and it is to be hoped that we shall get hold of something more enlivening to the coat when the new fashions come out in March. Duchess Must Pay Large War Tax Daughter of Cincinnati Capitalist Will Contribute Annually o to Great Britain's Army and Wavy Sxpenses. Cincinnati, Feb. 20. As long as the- war lasts the British government -will force from the Duchess of Manchester $150,000 a year as Income war tax. After the war her tax on Income will be about $75,000. This is based on the valuation of the estate of her father, the late Eu gene Zimmerman, at $10,000,000. Her Income will be about $600,000 a year. The British law has carefully pro vided for all contingencies, so even If the duchess' income Is from Amer ica it will make no difference. Being the wife of an Englishman, she must pay. A Horse Ijangh. Springfield Republican. Motorist (blocked byload of hay) "I say, there, pull out and let me by." Farmer "'Oh, I dunno ei I'm In any hurry." Motorist (angrily "You seemed in a hurry to let that other fellow's carriage get past." Farmer "That's cause his horse was eatin' my hay. There hain't no dan ger o' yew eatin' it, I reckon." WOMEN 7' dBF : I r " .' i it i , .i : i - - - w mjw vi s rr ri i hi sa"i sT a tmUIsT On the left is a summer frock of TSreathe all the fresh air you can get, night and day. That's what fresh air Is for. The fearsome legend about the baleful influences of "night air" is only another of the carefully nursed insanitary bequests from our ancestors, according to Senior Sur geon Banks, of the United States pub lic health service. Whence this superstition arose may only be surmised. Perhaps it is a survival of the primeval cult of sun worship, which led the ancients to classify anything outside the sphere of solar influence. Our forebears were wont to caution their offspring to "be careful about the night air," or children were ordered to "come in out of the night air." It is perhaps for tunate for the children living in the Arctic circle, where the nights are six months long, that the Eskimo mothers do not entertain this , crude notion about night air, else their progeny would spend half the year in doors. This idea is generally prevalent and even one of our well-known flowers is loaded down with the horrible name of "Deadly Nightshade," as a sort of verbal relic of thisf old notion. The low-lying mist or fog that sometimes gathers about the surface of the earth under certain atmospheric conditions, after sunset, was held, is held, to be "miasmatic" and pregnant with lethal possibilities. This is worthy of all the respect that should be put to any hoary superstition, , but its place Is in the specimen Jars of an archaeologi cal museum, not in the show room of modern, intelligent life. Wight Air Wo Different. The night air, minus the sun, isno different from the atmosphere' of a sunless day. The atmospheric en velope ofthe earth does not change from benign to malign in the twink ling of an eye after sundown. It is still composed of oxygen, nitrogen, argon and carbon dioxide in the nor mal proportions, for the given local ity. The open air treatment of tuber culosis and its kindred allies had first to combat this venerable Jargon about the deadliness of night air, and only the remarkable ,results of this hygien ic aid to its cure brought the super stitious to a realization of the silli ness of their ingrained noctophobia. This generation has witnessed the emancipation of human beings in re spect to. the value of fresh air, wheth er In bulk or In smaller "drafts." From being a people immersed in her metically sealed rooms at night, breathing our own bodily exhalations over and over again, a constantly in creasing number of persons are sleep ing In the open, or at least with pen windows, summer and winter, to their great benefit. In the morning they are refreshed with the pure oxygen of Breathe Fresh Air Night and Day Superstition Dispelled. FEBRUARY 21, 1915. WILLWEmBH white batiste, with a little jacket pf blue silk and a pink vest. On -with pink and blue bead trimming. the air breathed during sleep, not "stewed" nor "seedy" after eight hours spent In respiring and re-resplring-second hand and shop worn air in a closed bedroom. A story from the trenches In France is that a soldier wrote borne to his wife to open her windows at night as he had found that the night air "didn't hurt one bit." That is the experience of all the advocates of this sensible custom once tried the old custom of sealing one's self In an airtight bed room is never renewed. Diseases which involve the lungs can usually be traced to their beginning in poorly ventilated sleeping apartments, inside rooms that do not have a share of the atmosphere Nothing can live well or long without oxygen in the air, and it was given to us for breathing, night and day. not to be taken in sparingly, as if it were a dangerous potion. Some people are actually afraid of ordinary, common air. Those emancipated persons who open their windows at night will tell you, unanimously, that they cannot breathe in a chamber unless the window Is raised. Their sense of comfort and vigor demands the life giving Quali ties of fresh air. No greater prophy lactic advice can be promulgated than to breathe all the fresh atmospheric air you can get, nigbt and day. RICE DESSERTS Rice is one of the most nutritious desserts and can be offered in a vari ety of combinations, in addition to the more commonly known pudding. To boil the rice and secure large separate .'grains, use the following directions: Wash a cupful of rice in - several waters, and in the meantime have not less than a quart of water boiling briskly on the stove. Sprinkle the rice in so slowly that it will not stop the boiling, and, without covering the pot, boll rapidly for 30 minutes. Turn tbe rice Into a colander and pour over it a quart fo cold water. Carry the colander on a plate to tbe oven door and toss the rice lightly with a fork while the heat passes through, it, being careful not -to break the grains. If the rice is to be served in molds, tetter results will be secured by cook ing one cupful of rice In a double boiler 'with a quart of sweet milk and a dash of salt. This will require an hour more and the rice, when finished, should look like a thick blanc mange, the kernels having lost their shape entirely. To make a nutritious and tasteful dessert from rice cooked in this fash-' ion, pour the rice while hot into a deep mold which has been dipped into cold water. When chilled, turn the rice on a plate, fill the hollow with fresh fruit thickjy powdered with pul verized sugar, and let tbe fruit' rise above the rice mold in pyramid form. Serve with whipped cream. The hol low may also be filled with a simple boiled custard, rather stiff and cov ered with a meringue baked to a deli cate golden brown. Eugenics and the War Brides By Rev. Mabel Irwin. The heart of many a woman, work ing for the uplift of her sex, is filled with bitterness when she reads of the encouragement given to soldiers by the prelates of England and Germany to hastily marry before going to war. They cry out that the European war has set back the woman's cause two thousand years; that the world of men is again regarding woman simply as a "breeder of food for cannon;" and on the face of It, it does look like a turning back of the clock for wo man's advancement. But for woman to win out In this battle for her- rights her faith must be so strong that nothing not even war, with all its horrors can shake it. The woman's hour is here not to be turned back and she should begirt to see that as mother the destiny of nations lies primarily In her hands, not in man's; that since it is she that bears and brings to birth all the war riors that shall ever be it lies with her to say whether these sons of hers shall go forth to battle with other sons in a fratricidal war or wheth er they shall - learn at the mother's knee that "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." The War Brides. And again: Whatever may be the purpose of the prelates who thus en courage marriag- under such circum stances, the probability is thato the lovers themselves, the soldier lad and his lassie, this encouragement comes as a'Vspecial boon. If so, it may not result in so dire a thing as prophe sied. . Should little children be born to these girl-wives left behind, would they not rather nave it so, rather than to separate with no bond between them to comfort them in thetr wait ing and possible bereavement? Dreadful a Is war in its effect upon future generations, and from a eugenic point cf view, because of th unfit left behind to propagate the race is it not possible that the chil dren born from these hasty unions may be of a particularly fine order? Not yet had the cruelty and lust of war. which is incited by carnage, taken possession of the soldier lal. onlyhe spirit of patriotism and the willingness to sacrifice his ". need be. to his country s call. the quick pulsing of his blood as in Im agination he marches on to victory. While in the heart of the woman who loves him. and would gladly have married him under any circumstan ces, there is a pride in being s spl dier's bride. There is a welllng-up of tenderness toward him who . now goes to battle for home and native land. j ;' These conditions of mind and -heart -. - K . v : - the right Is a soft pink taffeta would be conducive to the begetting and beaiing of not a generation of warriors eager to get at each other's throats, but a generation of lovers, , strong and tender a race of men and women who, working together in free- . i dom, might Inaugurate Instead of f u- : ture wars- h reign of peace that should be without end. - And Ih, this instance if thee has tily arranged marriages should prove to be hut the craft of warlike men, may we not believe that the craft, like . "The wrath of man," nhallbe made to- praise Him? : Says a Good Cook Can Make Fortune Chicago Education Urges Womea to Turn to the Kitchen and Become "a Pearl Without Price." ' Chicago. Feb. 20. "The woman who can cook better than other women can make her fortune these days." Miss Dora Wells, principal of the Lucy Flower Technical school, paused Impressively as she voiced this opinion before 20-1 or more well gowned fern- , Inine representatives of the education-, al world in the Hotel LaHalle. Thejr were attending the first annual con- . vention of the Vocational Education , association of the middle went, and i - Miss Wellr was discussing "Tbe NeeJa of Women." "The woman who can cook, and eopk well, is a pearl alove priee," lss con tinued. "She need not worry about her Job. Her services always will be"h demand. "I am looking forward to the day when household work will be so highly ternrded that a woman can take a po sition in a kitchen with no more loss of . dignity thsn if she were a nurse or dressmaker. "The trouble . with domestic service j Is that It is not utanaarnuea. House wives think they are buying a girl's time. What they are buying is her-J-bor. Ttshould be .possible for the maid to keep as regular hours as the steno rapher. Housewives say this cannot be done. It can be done. .- , "Women must learn to specialists In housework as men learn to specialise in law or in medicine. The sooner they do tnt" tne oonr will they be recog nized as ccpartners with men on a foot, ing of perfect equality: the sooner they do this the sooner will divorce and oth er grave social problems be solved. The question of organizing the home efficiently is one of the biggest ques tions of the day.' Another Atrocity. -Punch. Shopkeeper Candles are up ; In price today, y'know, Jdrs. O'FJynn on account of the war. . . Mrs. O'Klynn Och! Bad cemm to them Germans! Why can't they ba fighting by daylight? !
