632 
'1'1-IfcC 1< UK. A. Iv NBW-YOKKER 
April ‘_M, 1 «)3A. 
Seasonable Dress for Women 
G llil/S COAT.—The. coat in Figure 
3 is of Copenhagen blue cheviot with 
a brown leather collar and belt, the lat¬ 
ter being trimmed in the back with three 
strips <>f black patent leather. The but¬ 
tons are of black enamel. The hat is of 
fine blue straw; the same shade as the 
coat, and is trimmed with tan and brown 
ribbon, the latter matching the leather 
on the coat, being tied in a small bow 
at the back, (he ends hanging down to 
Girl's Coat. Fig. 1. 
(lie shoulders. There is a small bunch 
of brown and yellow berries with green 
leaves and brown stems at the left side of 
the hat. The extra fullness at the waist 
is laid in two loose plaits at both back 
and front, being held in place by the belt. 
Girl’s Corduroy Dress. —The dress 
on the figure (o the left in illustrations 3 
and 4 is for a young girl, and is of a 
bright, dark blue corduroy with black 
satin sleeves, buttons and binding of 
jacket, neck, armholes, front and bottom, 
girdle and pockets. 
The skirt is a four-piece circular, open¬ 
ing in the front under a plait. A white 
crepe de chine vestee is worn in the il¬ 
lustration, but one of fine lawn or batiste 
would be equally pretty. The collar is 
high with a turnover effect. 
Women’s Dresses. —The dress on the 
middle figure is of the dark blue foulard 
with a small figure in peacock blue and 
tan. The collar, rovers and cording on 
the waist and edging sleeves is of tan 
satin, and tan velvet ribbon is used for 
the bow with long ends hanging down to 
the knees, as well as the strip at the base 
of the neck, which holds the collar in 
place. At the left where this velvet rib¬ 
bon joins the collar is a blue aster with 
deep pink on the back of the petals and 
a sprig of blue berries (about the shade 
of real blueberries). Single flowers are 
also sewed flat on to the ends of the 
Hack or Girl's Coat. Fig. 2. 
velvet ribbon, and they certainly look 
very pretty with their yellow centers. 
This fashion of using artificial flowers 
is still with us. and it certainly is a very 
pretty fashion as well as a most ar¬ 
tistic one when handled right, and in the 
majority of cases it seems to be. They 
are always of some contrasting shade and 
are worn wherever seems the best place 
on the dress. Roses are particularly pop¬ 
ular and are used profusely on skirts as 
well as the waists of some of the fancy 
afternoon and evening dresses. 
However, to return to the foulard 
dress—the girdle is of the foulard shirred 
very full, three rows, with a double frill 
one inch wide at top and bottom. It is 
made by simply tacking a straight piece 
of the silk a trifle over twice the length 
of waist measure, and seven inches wide. 
Fold over and baste on each side a one 
and a half inch hem. Then put the three 
rows of shirring in. allowing the inch 
beading on each side. 
All these dresses are made with either 
a very soft, thin lawn or net lining and 
the wide belting is used on the inside to 
lit the waist snugly, and the waist is 
sewed firmly to the belting, which holds 
it in place. In this case the belting used 
was about 4*4 inches wide, so that it 
would be wide enough to sew the girdle 
on to. The skirt is a four-piece circular 
model opening under a plait down the 
back. There is a seam down the middle 
of the front, as tin* foulard was a nar¬ 
row width. 
The dress on figure to the right is of 
dark gray silk crepe with chiffon cloth 
sleeves and underwaist, the vestee being 
of cream color shadow lace with a pale 
blue panne velvet collar, which has the 
strap across under .the chin and turn- 
Womex's Dresses. Fig. .”>. 
down effect behind. The waist is made 
with the bolero effect in the front, but 
not in the back. The armhole and front 
and bottom of jacket are finished with a 
cord covered with the crepe. The skirt is 
a two-piece circular with seams on the 
sides (it opens on the left side) and is 
finished at the waist with two rows of 
corded shirring (shirred on cords) with 
a double frill above. 
Yellow Taffeta Ani> Gray Serge.— 
Illustrations 5 and <i show Judy and 
Betsy out in the backyard, as the front 
yard was full of snow and Betsy wanted 
to try to get where the wind would not 
blow so; but you can see that just as the 
picture was taken a gust of wind came 
and blew Judy's skirt, so that you really 
cannot tell that there is a deep yolk 
with a double plaited front panel. This 
dress is a pale yellow taffeta with small 
bunches of flowers in green and old rose 
and was made over this year. It is an 
evening dress, and Betsy got it fo wear 
to a large dinner and dance last year that 
her husband had to go to for business 
reasons. It was made with a pannier ef¬ 
fect and draped skirt. Fortunately Betsy 
had about a yard and a half of new ma¬ 
terial left over, so that by getting all- 
over lace to make the underwaist and the 
bead trimming for a finish at the neck 
she could have practically a new dress. 
The yoke of the skirt is made in three 
pieces and opens in the back. The skirt 
pattern used was a four-piece circular, 
but the front seam was done away with 
by tin* front panel with plaits under 
which two seams were hidden. The plaits 
were well pressed, consequently held their 
shapcx The crush girdle is of sage green 
plain silk to match one of the flowers. 
< hi the front of the waist is a large rose 
with sprays of leaves each side made from 
tiny glass beads in pink, green, white 
and black, and there are strings of the 
white and black beads which hang from 
the bottom of the rose. The sleeves are 
finished with a double frill of the lace 
like the waist, the edges being bound with 
narrow bias folds of the taffeta. The 
dress that Betsy is wearing is made of 
dull, grayish blue serge and is trimmed 
with string color braid with a touch of 
old blue and red and gold thread and 
black in a Japanese effect. The skirt is 
a three-piece circular and opens under a 
plait in the front. The waist is made 
with a circular peplum and circular cuffs 
and is short-waisted. 
The Rubber Dress Form. —Now as 
to who Judy is. I may say that she is 
one of the best friends that Betsy has 
had for the last eight years. She is one 
of those rubber dress forms on top of a 
brass rod that is fastened to a square box 
which is placed on the floor. She has 
one of Betsy's French dress linings, made 
from white drilling hooked on to the bot¬ 
tom of the form and then the form is 
blown up and there Betsy has an exact 
reproduction of her own figure which 
makes it possible for her to make all of 
her own clothes, even tin* fanciest ones. 
To be sure, the form was rather expen¬ 
sive in the beginning. $13.50, but Betsy 
took some Christmas and birthday money 
to buy it with, and feels that she has ha 1 
much more than that amount of service 
from it. She bought size 44 (bust meas¬ 
ure) so that any number of women could 
use the same form, provided they had a 
waist lining that exactly fitted them, for 
you put the lining on the form before 
you blow it up and then it just fills the 
lining out. 
A Made-Over Suit.—I saw a very 
cleverly made-over suit recently, which 
idea may be of use to someone else. The 
coat was a bolero, and as they are more 
stylish this year than last was only made 
a little larger by letting out seams and 
putting a vest in the front of silk to 
match the cloth (this was necessary be¬ 
cause the woman who wore it had grown 
stouter). The skirt was of the narrow 
two-piece variety, so all that was done 
was to rip and trim the seams (side) 
making them straight instead of curved 
over the hips, and then a gore of half 
inch plaits of the silk was introduced 
over each hip, the doth being stitched 
down on to the silk. There were three 
three-quarter-inch bands of the silk (taf- 
Back View Women’s Dresses. Fig. 4. 
feta ) stitched across and holding the 
plaits down over the hips, as the plaits 
are not stitched but only pressed into 
place. The dress was made of russet 
brown fine serge and taffeta to match, 
and the collar of the silk had a spray of 
heliotrope flowers painted on each corner. 
Fashion Notes. 
Bolero effects in dresses are increasing¬ 
ly popular. 
Hand embroidery of all kinds seems to 
be coming back into favor, as nearly all 
the imported, as well as the high class 
models made in this country have em¬ 
broidery. on them. 
Frills of all sorts are used again on 
shirtwaists as well as dresses. 
The majority of the skirts, except in 
woolen materials, are trimmed with cords, 
pleatings, ruffles, tucks or bands, and 
most of the woolen skirts have plaits of 
some kind or other. 
One of the striking features of some 
of the new coats (as well as some shirt¬ 
waists) is the closing with link buttons. 
A great many skirts are made in grad¬ 
uated sections, each section being a lit¬ 
tle fuller than the one above and they are 
generally jointed t ther with a cord. 
Some of the bodices are laced down 
the front with silk ebrd run through em¬ 
broidered eyelets. 
Leather of all kinds is used for collars, 
cuffs and belts on suits and coats. A 
great many of the belts have two or more 
kinds of colored leather used on them and 
some of them have cute little envelope 
pockets attached. 
A popular finish for skirts of silk, sat¬ 
in and other light weight materials are 
the scallops cut in square, round or 
pointed effects. 
All kinds of fancy shoes and pumps 
are now in vogue—bronze with buttons to 
match or white with black patent leather 
trimmings: black patent or dull leather 
vamps with uppers of cloth, buckskin or 
kid in pearl gray, fawn, castor and 
brown, the shoes carrying out the general 
color scheme of the dress or suit. 
There are two city fashions for chil¬ 
dren that country mothers could well 
adopt, for they are both practical and 
economical, and yet for some reason they 
seem to rouse the ire of the farmer father, 
though why I cannot imagine. The first 
is the custom of wearing socks from the 
time they are about three years old until 
twelve during warm weather, which in 
this section is about the first of May un¬ 
til October or November. The children 
like them, as they are cooler, and they 
do not have .to be constantly remembering 
not to get holes in the knees of their 
stockings. Then from the mother’s ota..d- 
point think of the joy of not having to 
darn any stockings for practically all Sum¬ 
mer long! Then, too, you can get them 
generally cheaper than you can stockings. 
The second item is the custom of boys 
wearing white linen or duck trousers 
with a woolen coat for “best” or for 
dress occasions. Now this is very eeo 
nomical indeed, for you can get a pair 
of white duck trousers for OS cents or 
$1.25 that will outlast any two pair of 
good woolen trousers, and they do look 
so nice every time they come out of the 
wash, and of course a coat will do duty 
much longer this way than any other and 
look dressy. A corduroy suit for every 
day and the other for best is the most 
economical way that you can dress a boy 
and have him look well dressed and up- 
Ba< k of Taffeta And Serge Dresses. 
Fig. (>. 
to-date. I have heard some farmers rail 
about how immodest were the bare legs 
of children who wore socks, and little 
girls who wore low neck and short sleeves 
and yet those same men thought nothin ». 
of it when the children went barefoote I 
and the boys and men themselves went 
around without any collars on and some¬ 
times their shirts open in front down ti¬ 
the middle of their chests. 
MRS. BELLE BEARDSLEY. 
