MEN'S UGLY CLOTHES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 775, 26 March 1910, Page 11

MEN'S UGLY CLOTHES.

How she brought it' in, ami can hardly guess, i! bnt it was when address-, ing the New York League for Political Education-v that. Miss ' May Morris, daughter of: William' Morris, apostle.of the beautiful, said:—"Men really would be Very•.- good-looking if they : dressed better," and she proceeded 1 to discburse oh ; that text. - . .'••■"-,, The nether garients'bf sex she described, quoting L her' father ', as -two 'cylinders ■' joined ' together," and their upper ones as having "backs without , fronts ; and - fronts without taots.V;'-.- ; .■;■:■.'.'..•■ ■ : :--/;W-;:y-p-^:- : '- Going back a couple'of centuries,' she found things ho better. - The woman of the'early eighteenth'century wore, she saidy ,"a thousand ' dear frivolities." Their;absurdities were "charming," but the; absurdities of the men were "inexcusable." The. courtiers of Queen Elizabeth's time were' dismissed with contempt, which,- judging from the specimens cthrown upon the .'screen, was wholly deserved,' but retreating still further through; tho aisles of time, the lecturer came to something that pleasedher. Air old merchant of Lubeck was thrown upon the screen in a sumptuous ankle-length garment'bordered with fur. It was much'"nicer, "Miss Morris thought, than the trunk-hose of the Hizabethans,/and .the old men of Lubeck she opined must have been "great dears.' ■' Going back still further, the audience WM.introdubed to Geoffrey Plantagenet m skirts and Henry HI in handsome adorned, as the lecturer , out, , with ■_ many ] pretty

And .yet," she: added, ."they were Don't, imagine,", she continued, ■Tftat I am advocating draperies for mem, but I do.wish that their dress had evolved on less dispiriting lines."rv 01 women's dress Misslioiris did not rk with much enthusiasm, - either «. i °9 esnot the "saucepan bats'.'' that they, set. upon. their ,'fuzzy hair," nor, the. 'dead animals that hang like , jar trophMß from their shoulders" Tto motor bonnet she considers the only artistic head-covering that the time has evolved. , But. she has nothing to propose :m. the way of reform except the cultivation of individuality indoors. Elsewhere she admitted;it is necessary to conform to the custom of the time'' "My mother has toldme," she said! /that in the days, of: the crinoline it was-impossible to go on the street dressed in any other way. You would have, been hooted, at." Miss Morris's - own- gown waß of soft brown silk, lightened with somo Oriental looking -.trimming; Around her shoulders waa a gauzy black and gold shawl, and her black hair, parted in the middle and dressed low, was confined by a jewelled comb. .Her gown was cut with a round neck, which was outlined, by a silver necklace. This is a phasing picture of the lady who sat "J* model tp Dante Rossetti for one of the ladies: holding up the canopy in his beautiful picture, "The Dream of Dante.'!; -.'•-.. ...