UNDERLYING ALL COSTUMING OF WOMAN

That every costume is either right or wrong is not a matter of general
knowledge. "It will do," or "It is near enough" are verdicts responsible
for beauty hidden and interest destroyed. Who has not witnessed the mad
mental confusion of women and men put to it to decide upon costumes for
some fancy-dress ball, and the appalling ignorance displayed when, at
the costumer's, they vaguely grope among battered-looking garments,
accepting those proffered, not really knowing how the costume they ask
for should look?

Absurd mistakes in period costumes are to be taken more or less
seriously according to temperament. But where is the fair woman who will
say that a failure to emerge from a dressmaker's hands in a successful
costume is not a tragedy? Yet we know that the average woman, more
often than not, stands stupefied before the infinite variety of
materials and colours of our twentieth century, and unless guided by an
expert, rarely presents the figure, _chez-elle_, or when on view in
public places, which she would or could, if in possession of the few
rules underlying all successful dressing, whatever the century or
circumstances.

Six salient points are to be borne in mind when planning a costume,
whether for a fancy-dress ball or to be worn as one goes about one's
daily life:

* * * * *

First, appropriateness to occasion, station and age;

Second, character of background you are to appear against (your
setting);

Third, what outline you wish to present to observers (the period of
costume);

Fourth, what materials of those in use during period selected you will
choose;

Fifth, what colours of those characteristic of period you will use;

Sixth, the distinction between those details which are obvious
contributions to the costume, and those which are superfluous, because
meaningless or line-destroying.

* * * * *

Let us remind our reader that the woman who dresses in perfect taste
often spends far less money than she who has contracted the habit of
indefiniteness as to what she wants, what she should want, and how to
wear what she gets.

Where one woman has used her mind and learned beyond all wavering what
she can and what she cannot wear, thousands fill the streets by day and
places of amusement by night, who blithely carry upon their persons
costumes which hide their good points and accentuate their bad o