LONG SKIRT VOGUE

NZ Truth, Issue 1263, 13 February 1930, Page 21

LONG SKIRT VOGUE

Raising Standard of Revolt WHEN fashion prophets were forecasting the trend of the 1930 sfcyle?s they wfere» unanimous that skirts would be longer. "Knees are out," was the cry, and few people were sorry, for feminine beauty .is generally rather weak at the knees. Then came, the uneven hemline, and after a few suspicious experiments, women adopted it eagerly. That was the beginning of the end, and now skirts are dropping steadily, and we are faced with a dreadful future, too dowdy to contemplate. Dresses sweeping the dust, moulded closely to the figure, are not the ideal of Miss 1930. Corsets will become a necessity, m order to achieve the old hour-glass figure our mothers once boasted of, and now look back on with horror. The "foundation garment" Is the modern term for these old implements of torture, but they are certainly more scientifically planned now. Who knows, however, what will happen m the future if styles go; to extremes again? The princess silhouette is the present ideal, but few women have such well-moulded figures that they can achieve it without artificial aid. A comparison of skirt lengths m the December and January numbers of a well-known Amerioan fashion journal shows a decided drop m one month, and this drop will probably Increase till all skirts are ankle length. One of America's most popular novelists, Fanny Hurst,, has instituted a campaign against this surrendering of freedom. Under the heading of "Lets Not Wear Them," she wrote a fiery challenge to her fellow sufferers to; resist the new styles, and refuse to be victimised. "Slowly, surely, subtly," she said, "over a period of three years, forces have been at work to pry from women's grasp, without causing too loud an outcry, those fashions of the past decade, which she has' found so sane and comfortable." Never have changes m style come more gradually than recently. No crude methods which might, perchance, awaken women to the impending calamity have been employed. Slyly, for the last few seasons, Paris has been dropping 1 the hemline, inch by inch. Subtly, woman's eye has been trained towards the skirt of more yardage and increased length. Slowly the propaganda of the "natural waistline" has gone on. And then overnight, as it were, fashion, emboldened by the signs of success, suddenly trumpets her triumph. Long swirts, trains, corsets, larger hats, eleven yards to the gown instead of four, long gloves, long hair! Hefe is one of the most important emancipations of women m the past twelve years going for naught! "Down with the corset and up with the hemline," should be the slogan of every woman who doesn't want , to be bullied into doing something as undesirable as it is .unwelcome.