to a kimono sleeve.
(Metropolitan Museum.)

[Illustration: _Metropolitan Museum of Art_
_Woman in Greek Art about 400 B.C._]

That was some years back. We are a match for England to-day, in the
open, but have a long way to go before we wear with equal conviction,
and therefore easy grace, tea-gown and evening dress. Both _how_ and
_when_ still annoy us as a nation. On the street we are supreme when
_tailleur_. In carriage attire the French woman is supreme, by reason of
that innate Latin coquetry which makes her _feel_ line and its
significance. The ideal pose for any hat is a French secret.

The average woman is partially aware that if she would be a decorative
being, she must grasp conclusively two points: first, the limitations of
her natural outline; secondly, a knowledge of how nearly she can
approach the outline demanded by fashion without appearing a
caricature, which is another way of saying that each woman should learn
to recognise her own type. The discussion of silhouette has become a
popular theme. In fact it would be difficult to find a maker of women's
costumes so remote and unread as not to have seized and imbedded deep in
her vocabulary that mystic word.

To make our points clear, constant reference to the stage is necessary;
for from stage effects we are one and all free to enjoy and learn.
Nowhere else can the woman see so clearly presented the value of having
what she wears harmonise with the room she wears it in, and the occasion
for which it is worn.

Not all plays depicting contemporary life are plays of social life,
staged and costumed in a chic manner. What is taught by the modern
stage, as shown by Bakst, Reinhardt, Barker, Urban, Jones, the
Portmanteau Theatre and Washington Square Players, is _values_, as the
artist uses the term--not fashions; the relative importance of
background, outline, colour, texture of material and how to produce
harmonious effects by the judicious combination of furnishings and
costumes.

To-day, when we want to say that a costume or the interior decoration of
a house is the last word in modern line and colour, we are apt to call
it a la Bakst, meaning of course Leon Bakst, whose American "poster" was
the Russian Ballet. If you have not done so already, buy or borrow the
wonderful Bakst book, showing reproductions in their colours of his
extraordinary drawings, the originals of which are owned by private
individuals or museums, in Paris, Petrogra