INDIVIDUALITY AND FASHION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 251, 16 July 1908, Page 5

INDIVIDUALITY AND FASHION.

Nowadays it: is often.considered that wo- . men's,whole duty isinot to lie in the fashion tut out of it '.(writes "Argus") . To develop onels own individuality, : and to be so ; far unlike everybno else, 1 is.the doctrine urged on all sides by thos.o who'profess to regard frocks and gowns as objects of high art. But after all, the . first instinct of a woman is that when sho sees somebno in a pretty gown . or 'hat there arises a desire to get one a! nearly, like it as possible,for herself. This, of course, has its absurdity, for tho fact that . .a dress looks well om.'Ethel, who is tall and fair,, is.:a special -rcaspp why it will looli , : hideous on Mabel, who is dark and plump. Still,-all tho new books say: that to succeed ih the world women need distinct'personality Thus, if they have lipt a special individuality .of their, .'own, _ ifc_ is .plain that they simplj Want clothes unliko'o'ther people's, so thai . /. the ' "one' alono" viriiplressioii v may be mad( somehow. Of course,'if this wero generally recognised and mado a rule, the streets wouk be'OS-.variegated -as 'a, flower-bed; but one is moved to pity when'tliought is given to dross makers and the conditions of their existence As wo aro at present, the great majority o women yield their own opinions to thosi whose business it.is to make gowns.. Th< '! mere thought of a-world without any idea o ".what is being wdi!n at' present" brings ti the imagination shop-windows without an; shoddy imitations and cheap and cruel re productions of a "dernier en.",., And,' abov all,' there would be endless fo freo criticism of our .neighbours' frocks, ii addition to the wonderful uncertainty of wha we would see nest. \