Dressing a la Mode
The Humorous Note in Modern Fashions
(From Everylady's Journal, January 1920)

It was quite natural that after the sombre and stiff fashions of war-time there should be a revulsion, and a swing of the pendulum was naturally to be expected. In Paris it has apparently swung so far that priests and people - that is, the best people - alike have raised their voices in protest. One gathers from the cables that the priests have gone so far in the other direction as to decree that no woman shall come to church unless her gown covers her neck and extends below her ankles. The result may be the striking of a happy medium.

A correspondent of one of the English papers has pointed out that the only word that can possibly describe the modern style in women's attire is the word amusing. "The humorous note," she writes, "has entered the realm of feminine dress. There are amusing parasols and amusing capes, amusing hats and amusing fal-lals of all kinds."

"In her 'fashionable' attire the young daughter of Eve is proving charmingly and most delightfully that Madame Mode can be humorous. And that in her new and 'amusing' phase she is far more irresistible than in her former mood of sheer audacity."

"There is a subtlety in the fresh vogue. To make it too patent would be to spoil it utterly. But is this not delicious? A little frock which bears the name of a most distinguished designer has the side seams of the corsage slit and nearly all the back cut away to show - nothing more audacious than glimpses of foamy lingerie, the slyest of sly hits at a vogue justly wiped off the slates of the fastidiously well dressed."

"For her feet the specialist in amusing fashion chooses one-strap shoes; just the shoes of nursery days, though high-heeled. She wears mushroom-tinted silk stockings, which at first look shockingly like the bare-leg vogue, of which London has heard, and happily only heard, very much of late. Then, to point a moral and to match her stockings, she flings over her headgear a mushroom-coloured veil, which hangs beyond the drooping brim just as far as the bridge of her nose, shading modestly her mischievous eyes."

"Feathers are very useful in this new game of endowing the festive clothes with amusing attributes. One hat sprouts little plumes all over it; another has a couple of fluttering fronds placed acutely forward, like a lobster's feelers, in the front of a hat's brim, and a third feather, half glycerined and half fluffy, falls so far down from the hat that it literally veils the eyes. Then there are foolishly long, unnecessary velvet hat-strings, which, like pennons of joy, flutter in the breeze, and in still moments fall even below the hem of the short frock's skirt."

"Ascot Sunday saw the zenith of amusing fashions in the new Chinese parasols and frocks of voile and cretonne patterned with scenery and figures of dashing brightness. Across the dome of the sunshade and many times repeated on the dress an acrobat dizzily picks his way along a tight rope, balancing himself with his fan. Or we see a mandarin walking sedately towards a pagoda across a battlemented bridge. These 'tell-a-tale' cottons are strikingly uncommon and are follow-ons of the big bird and blossom cretonnes and voiles which appeared earlier in the season, tentatively heralding a return to frivolity."

"At night, when they dance, making up for the paucity of their frocks by the size of their fans, women will see that there is a long train to their frocks, wisp-like, and in its latest and most amusing presentation falling from beneath the skirt, instead of above it, after the manner of a train prosaic. This type of train, or tail, is the maddest, merriest thing, yet it bears the sign-manual of a designer whose name is synonymous with dignity, justifying its foolish prettiness by being a reply to the prevailing cry for amusing fashions."

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