Fashions Fifty Years Ago.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 440, 25 January 1890, Page 4

Fashions Fifty Years Ago.

Few ladies who ‘ follow the fa-hions,’ rr who consult the hundred and one fashion periodicals poured out from the press every month ar.d every y-ar, have any idea of the extreme s mplicity of the patterns ol female att. re which were in vogue fifty and even lorty yeais ago. lb is sufficient t • say that the bodice and skirt of tie dress were generally in one piece; that the gown fastened by hooks.and eyes beh ml ; that the skirts were never ’drapped,’ and that their sole ornamentatiun was nothing bub flounces. The o ly practical way in which a lady could show that she was in full dress was to show a low necked dress and bo bare her arms. Moreover, bodices were, when made low, universally cut horizontally instead of on the bms, and the 'emale novelists of the last generation found unfailing material of fun in depicting the toimenb.s of growing girl® qt evening parties in th ir endeavours to prevent their low necked frocks from slipping off their shoulders When a lady went to court she tlorified her-e!f with a train, a tall ‘panache’ of plumes and as many diamonds as fortune had favoured her with ; otherwise the cub of her gown did nob materially differ fr m that of ihe school girl s low necked muslin frock.