SUMMER WASHING DRESSES.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1781, 5 November 1879, Page 4

SUMMER WASHING DRESSES.

I" Milliner and Dressmaker." | The great difficulty about summer washing dresses, is the washing of them. Cotton and linen materials are infinitely varied, and almost infinitely charming when made up in the pretty designs which modern tadte has created, but the very essence and beauty of these same designs is the graceful arrangement of a certain amount of drapery, and how to have this launrlried, and its good effect preserved without annihilating cost or the expenditure of more t'me and trouble than can be bestowed upon it, is the problem. There are ladies who have little to do which soils their dresses, and who oan, therefore, afford to have an occasional cos'.ume sent away from home, and carefully done up by a French blanchissevse : bnt the majority, while desirous of utilising tho lovely faulard cambrics, the new chintz Eatines, are in despair over the question of how they can have them made. It seems a pity to take such exquisite materials, and make them up as plain morning wrappers, or like common prints. Yet to select the design for an elaborate costume is to live in perpetual dread of the day when it will need washing, or to require the possession of time and taste in taking its intricacies apart, and putting them together again when tbe laundring operation is over. The pleating of ruffles ii another obstacle to the making of a pretty washing dress. To iron them propsrly requires a long time, and considerable patience on the part of the most skilful laundress. It is, therefore, hardly to b 3 expected of one who has but a little time at her disposal, and a great deal of work of a rough and dirty sort to put into it. The modern method of laying the flounces of skirts on fine delicate pleats has added infinitely to the burdens of ironing day, which are in reality much more serious than those of washing day. The only way to solve the question for those to whom time and coat are of supreme importance, is to use a simple overskirt instead of a trimmed skirt or draped polonaise for washing; fabrics, and gathered instead of pleated flounces. Upon fine or white dresses the flounces may be made full and fluted, the most effective finish for them, while for dark cotton street or home suits the gathered flounce and plain overskirt, trimmed with a fold and draped by means of strings which are tied underneath, will be found quite sufficiently dressy. For the light figured satines there is nothing so pretty as the flounce skirt, and simplest form of draped polonaise with ribbon belt, and ribbon bows in mixed colours down the front. But the shades must be well chosen, and the bows made and firmly pinned on, so that they can be easily removed; the small safety pins being the best for the purpose. For lawns two Bkirts or a simply draped polonaise may be used, and for washing materials, either thick or thin, there is no style more suitable for an overskirt than the laaveuse, becanse it can be so readily arranged, and re-arranged, excepting _of course, the plain straight overskirt which requires no arranging, only tying and untying,