deep knowledge of the pictorial records of
periods in dress, and to crown all, that conviction of the real artist,
which gives both courage and discretion in moulding textiles,--the
output of modern genius, to the purest classic lines. For example, one
reads in every current fashion sheet that beads are in vogue as
garniture for dresses. So they are, but note how your French woman
treats them. Whether they are of jet, steel, pearl or crystal, she
presses them into service as so much _colour_, massing them so that one
is conscious only of a shimmering, clinging, wrapped-toga effect, a la
Grecque, beneath the skirt and bodice of which every line and curve of
the woman's form is seen. Evidently some, at least, are to be gleaming
Tanagras. Even a dark-blue serge, for the motor, shopping or train, had
from hips to the bust parallel lines of very small tube-like jet beads,
sewn so close together that the effect was that of a shirt of mail.

The use of notes of vivid colour caught the eye. In one case, on a black
satin afternoon gown, a tiny nosegay of forget-me-not blue, rose-pink
and jessamine-white, was made to decorate the one large patch-pocket on
the skirt and a lapel of the sleeveless satin coat. Again on a
dinner-dress of black Chantilly lace, over white chiffon (Empire lines),
a very small, deep pinkish-red rose had a white rose-bud bound close to
it with a bit of blue ribbon. This was placed under the bertha of cobweb
lace, and demurely in the middle of the short-waisted bodice. Again a
robe d'interior of white satin charmeuse, had a sleeveless coat of blue,
reaching to knees, and a dashing bias sash of pinkish-red, twice round
the waist, with its long ends reaching to skirt hem and heavily
weighted.

Not at once, but only gradually, did it dawn upon us that most of the
gowns bore, in some shade or form, the tricolour of France!

CHAPTER XXVIII

WOMAN COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB

Every now and then a sex war is predicted, and sometimes started,
usually by woman, though some predicted that when the present European
war is over and the men come home to their civilian tasks, now being
carried on by women, man is going to take the initiative, in the sex
conflict. We doubt it. Without deliberate design to prove this
point,--that a complete collaboration of the sexes has always made the
wheels of the universe revolve, many of the illustrations studied showed
woman with man as decoration, in Ancient Egypt, Greece