ABOUT THE FASHIONS. A Word to the Ladies.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 102, 14 June 1902, Page 8

ABOUT THE FASHIONS. A Word to the Ladies.

AN esteemed correspondent who lives in Wellington is greatly exercised in soul over certain feminine fashions now in vogue, which he thinks are at variance with the canons of health. He is well declined into the vale of life, the frosts of many winters have blanched such locks as he has left, but his heart is still young, and his eye follows with unabated interest the movements of the fairer half of humanity. Yielding to his prayer, we offer him opportunity to lift up his voice in the marketplace. He wishes to indict the ladies on four distinct counts. * * • In the first place, he points out there is a City Council by-law which seeks to prohibit the pavement expectorant. As a consequence there is a cessation of the old practice of bespattering the footpath with saliva. But, he says, this does not justify the continuance of those long skirts which still are seen to sweep the pavements, and swirl into the undergarments the unfragrant dust blown from the trafficladen streets with all its offensive combinations. It is true the skirts are frequently held up with one hand, which rests on the hip, with the elbow at an acute angle swinging to and fro like the "fin" of a penguin, and not adding to the gracefulness of the figure in walking. There are ladies who hate the long skirts, but who, in effect, say, "I do hate them, but while they are fashionable what am I to do ? " Have the courage of your opinions is, of course, the natural answer of the masculine gender. * •+ * Then the next thing our correspondent notes is the tight-lacing to obtain the slim waist, so sylph-like, but so productive of a train of evils, internal and external. It " maketh red the nose," and otherwise is detrimental to good digestion and a healthy enjoyment of life. Doctors and high anatomists for generations ha^e condemned the practice ; but still it goes on, and the fashion-plates from London and Paris still " exaggeiate " (it's the only word) the jimpy slimness of sand-glass waist, to the evident displacement of what nature purposed should be the true proportions of the human form dn inc. Is it useless preaching further on this theme "> If the Queen and the Princess of Wales would but set the fashion in the proper direction what an amount ot benefit would accrue to the future mothers of our race ! * • • Veils is the next subject of reproach with our fashion reformer. Even the plain net \eils worn by women are, according to the dictum of the medical faculty, injurious to the sight, and also detrimental to free breathing, as they intercept the vitiated air expired from the lungs. But the spotted ones • Black spots and white, red spots and pink spots. Just watch them. A pink spot on the tip of the nose, beaming in the sunshine like a wondrous birth-mark ; an ugly white mark over the eye, or on the ruddy hp ; or a black patch on a pearly tooth, destroying a pleasant smile, and making a sweet mouth resemble Dick Deadeye's artificially obliterated tooth in "Pinafore." Also, what about the brown gauze veil which hides the face altogether, and makes a woman look like a Hindoo? Why not give these things up altogether, and let admiring mankind behold what {Continued on page 16.)