MR RUSKIN ON FEMALE ATTIRE.

Evening Star, Issue 4294, 30 November 1876, Page 4

MR RUSKIN ON FEMALE ATTIRE.

In a late number of 1 Fors Clavigera,’ Mr Buskin advises his gill readers as follows :—“ Dress as plainly as your parents will allow you, but in bright colors (if they become you) and in the best materials—that is to say, in those which wear longest. When you are really in want of a new dress, buy it (or make it) in the fashion \ but never quit an old one merely because it has become unfashionable, and if the fashion be costly you must not follow it. You may wear broad stripes or narrow, bright colors or dark, short petticoats or long (in moderation), as the public wish you ; but you must not buy yards of useless stuff to make a knot or a flounce of, nor drag them behind over the ground ] and your walking dress must never touch the ground at all. I have lost much of the faith I once had in the common sense and even in the personal 'delicacy of the present race of average English women, by seeing how they will allow their dresses to sweep the streets, as it is the fashion to be scavengers. If you can afford it, get your dresses made by a good dressmaker, with the most attainable precision and perfection ; but let this good dressmaker be a poor person living in the country, not a rich person living in a large house in London. Learn dressmaking yourself, with pains and time, and use a part of every day in needlework, making as pretty dresses as you can for poor people who have nob time nor taste to make them nicely for themselves. You are to show them in your own wearing what is most right and graceful, and help them to choose what will be prettiest and most becoming in their own station. If they see you never try to dress yours, they will not try to dx*ess above theirs.”