THAT SKIRT—AL HAREEM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1124, 11 May 1911, Page 9

THAT SKIRT—AL HAREEM.

AXD WHY NOT IT? HONOUR TO TnOSB WHO DAEE.

A few weeks ago (says Evelyn Sharp in the "Manchester Guardian") two women walked across the Place de I'Opera in what Paris calls the "jupe culotte." They were instantly mobbed, and had to be rescued by the police. Something similar occurred "in Manchester. This kind of thing sets every pioneer in any enterprise thinking. ■' Knowing that ridicule never kills or seeks to kill anything that can be accurately termed ridiculous, sensible people have begun to wonder whether there is anything absurd in the so-called harem skirt beyond-its absurd name.. If ridicule has not troubled to kill the mountainous hats and hobble skirts of the last year or so, it cannot be-trying to kill the new Turkish costumo on the assumption that it makes its wearer look grotesque. Aor can outraged propriety have much to do with it. "Propriety has not been outraged by the tight-fitting Magyar blouse, or~the sheath skirt, or the newest draped tea-gon-n, which is designed especially to ily epen in front for about eighteen inches fiom. the ground in order to display tho foot and ankle; so I think propriety has forfeited its right to be an arbiter i/i the matter. Yet the probability is that some perverted sense of propriety is at the root of tho whole disturbance. Convention, which encourages women to indicate tho lines of their fignie as plainly as possible in tlieir dress, is shocked at tho notion of their - indicating the existence of limbs with which, in common with tho other half of the human race, they get over the ground. It was this perverted sense 'of propriety that not long ago led a preacher to denounce a certain Iwdy of women agitators as bipeds, and caused a little boy, when seeiiv his mother for the first time in a bathing-dress, to exclaim in shocked amazement, "Why, mummy, you've got your legs on!" The hypocrite, of all the ages speakft sometimes through tho mouths of babea and sucklings; aud it is supposed to be the business of the really nice woman to combine the activity of the biped with the appearance of a mummy case. In England, where courage in the face of ridicule lias been perforce cultivated by women during the'last few years rather more than in other countries perhaps, an interesting development in the situation liax been reached. The feu houses and individuals who have considered the idea at all appear to have done -so seriously, l'or some little time a "comfort skirt" has been advertised for tho use of sporting women; it is made in tweed and is dividetMn'froiit only, so that it-looks like an ordinary short skirt except in a head wind, when the front view pi its definite division into two portions is far more pleasing than the clinging appearance of the usual scanty tweed skirt: Tho Turkish skirt shows signs of being developed in this country along the lines of the "comfort skirt." The best example I have- seen was in fine blue serge strapped with black satin; the caftan'or overskirt was cut in straight panels of an ordinary short walking length, and looked exactly liko aiiy other well-cut short skirt; underneath were the full trousers of black satin, ending in a gathered elastic band where the under-skirt would normally cud, slightly above the hem of the overskirt and well above the - ankle. The panels formed a united skirt all round except at the side- seams, which were slit up for about half a yard. A woman, defying rain and mud, could walk with absolute freedom and grace in this skirt; and the onlooker would only discover the existence of unusual undcr-skirta if ths wind blew apart the side panels or if the wearer stepped into a motor or omnibus. Even this contingency could bo averted by crossing the side seams with straps of satin or cloth, though (he only objection of the sensible pe"si>n to the discovery of the full trousers would be that the costume as a whole is both prettier and more practical when these are short and unseen than when they are long and prominent. Made with a coat and bodice to match, this is as charming and comfortablo a dress as any woman could wish to wear; and it is typical cf the better sort of harem skirt now being made, timorously, but -with growing courage, in this country.

It is impossible to say at this juncture whether reason and good tasto are going to win in this matter. If they do, it will bo for the first time in what I have hear.l a real fashion expert call "modistic history." At present most' London dressmakers are on the fence. On the one hand we have the modern establishment that attracts seiueltss crowds by its display of exaggerated Turkish evening gowns that no woman of taste would ever wear; and on the other the old-fashioned house that holds aloof for fear of being identified with tho sensational side of the movement. Most of us aro on the same fence probably. But at least let us refuse to be compelled by ridicule and false propriety to pretend to be mummy cases when modern life insists that we are bipeds. And it is useful to remember that it will Iμ easier to climb this or any other fence as a biped than as a mummy case.

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