or
confining your clothes in such a way as to clearly outline the figure.
Take a chance from your size. Aim at long lines, and what dressmakers
call an "easy fit," and the use of solid colours. Stripes, checks,
plaids, spots and figures of any kind draw attention to dimensions; a
very fat woman looks larger if her surface is marked off into many
spaces. Likewise a very thin woman looks thinner if her body on the
imagination of the public _subtracting_ is marked off into spaces
absurdly few in number. A beautifully proportioned and rounded figure
is the one to indulge in striped, checked, spotted or flowered materials
or any parti-coloured costumes.

* * * * *

Never try to make a thin woman look anything but thin. Often by
accentuating her thinness, a woman can make an effect as _type_, which
gives her distinction. If she were foolish enough to try to look fatter,
her lines would be lost without attaining the contour of the rounded
type. There are of course fashions in types; pale ash blonds, red-haired
types (auburn or golden red with shell pink complexions), dark haired
types with pale white skin, etc., and fashions in figures are as many
and as fleeting.

Artists are sometimes responsible for these vogues. One hears of the
Rubens type, or the Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hauptner, Burne-Jones, Greuse,
Henner, Zuloaga, and others. The artist selects the type and paints it,
the attention of the public is attracted to it and thereafter singles it
out. We may prefer soft, round blonds with dimpled smiles, but that does
not mean that such indisputable loveliness can challenge the
attractions of a slender serpentine tragedy-queen, if the latter has
established the vogue of her type through the medium of the stage or
painter's brush.

A woman well known in the world of fashion both sides of the Atlantic,
slender and very tall, has at times deliberately increased that height
with a small high-crowned hat, surmounted by a still higher feather. She
attained distinction without becoming a caricature, by reason of her
obvious breeding and reserve. Here is an important point. A woman of
quiet and what we call conservative type, can afford to wear conspicuous
clothes if she wishes, whereas a conspicuous type _must_ be reserved in
her dress. By following this rule the overblown rose often makes herself
beautiful. Study all types of woman. Beauty is a wonderful and precious
thing, and not so fleeting eit