The evening dress is of all the most experimental, and it is perhhaps the only one in which con-tresting fashions are seen together.
dificult to imagine the sports suit with the, skirt of a Spanish Infanta, or the bathing dross with a train. Yet evening frocks have skirts that are full or narrow, long or short, of velvet or of tulle, with Inickerbockers or without, "They may be straight or fitting, and they may adopt all the features of the sports frock and the afternoon frock' while rem unmistakably under the heading "evening." This freedom has the defects of its qualities, and at the moment a great many evening frocks look untidy, with stray pieces hung all over them, less. to add to their beauty than to defeat the copyist. When, therefore, a really good line jconies' into being which remains more or less within. the mode it serves as a fixed point round which liberty of taste and not licence may revolve.
The Champcommunal evening frock is very characteristic of this designer, who invariably uses very. beautiful stuffs in the interests of dresses that are always wearable. The dress is of rose crepe satin, used on both sides and having no other decoration. It maintains the straight line so becoming to the majority of figures, and yet assumes the advantages of the w: by means of the very simple broad sash. The bias Tine is seen quite naturally in the bodice, and' the sash gives equally naturally the long draperies at the side. A suggestion of a train is made, but, while there are unevennesses in the skirt the whole effect is gracefully compact, and the dress has none of the rags and jags of beggars coming to town. "Champeommunal. is particularly clever in her use of Satin, and. she chooses beautiful colourings in the parchment and Ivory tones, and then relies upon them and the quality of the material for all her superficial effects, Lace While this is a typical modern frock, lines vary to a considerable degree, and there may be soon at the same time dresses with the higher waist, having a straight Sodice and very long skirts reaching quite to the ankles and slightly farther at the back. These skirts are full, but being made of lace, chiffon, georgette, and tulle they hang in straight lines and give very little suggestion of fullness. Very tall figures might find them trying, as being quite too lank and dank, but this effect is sometime fwuteod creed i Men patch breaks up the long line. Black lace appears in whole dresses having Tong, straight bodices, broken perhaps by a deep shoulder-yoke and having a hip-yoke to perform the same office for the full, trailing skirt. For the longer, lanker: dresses some such clinching device is almost a necessity to make them smart.
Another line is something like that of the old fish-tail. Evening frocks are made with deep yokes and with long, fittings bodies almost to the knees. These suddenly emerge into fullness, as do the fins of the fish-tail. The long, close fit is generally relieved by conspicuous. embroidery or beading down one side. 'The Louis Quinze cut and its derivatives is found chiefly in taft fetes and faille. These are most be coming to all figures. They supplement a thinness which is too marked, and they give grace to figures' which err in the other direction. Beautiful black faille dresses are made with the long V neck, with a more or less fitting waist, and with a pannier-like spring at the waist. As a rule there is drapery on palmier lines over a narrower skirt, which also may fall into points at the side. It is the Little Bo-peep silhouette, and it makes one realize that the small-waisted effect can be charming if it be made to depend solely on the cut of the frock—that is to say, upon the widening of the frock suddenly at a given point instead of the contrasting of the waist.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.