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 Duessn^akeus. 
 
 X 
 
 TAI. "You bid me make it orderly and well, 
 
 According to the fashion and the time." 
 
 PET. "Marry, and did; but if you be remember'd, 
 I did not bid you mar it to the time." 
 
 The Ta7ning of the Shrew, Act IV. Sc. III. 
 
 3 East I9tl? Street, 
 
 (bet. B'WAY. & 6TH AVE.) 
 
 f/eu; Yor^. 
 
 \.^ \\ ^AH 1418961 
 
<>1 
 
 COPVRieHT. ies6 by the MORSK-SROUaMTON oo. 
 
To tl?e Dressmakers of p^Qriea. 
 
 THIS UTTLK BOOK IS DEDICATED TO YOU WITH THE 
 PERMISSION OF SO MANY OF YOUR NUMBER, THAT 
 THE AUTHOR IS ENCOURAGED TO HOPE, THAT ALh MAY 
 DISCOVER WITHIN ITS PAGES, SUCH ASSISTANCE IN 
 THEIR PROFESSION, AS WII,!, AT LEAST, GUARANTEE 
 THE WISDOM OF ATTEMPTING TO SUPPLY WHAT HAS 
 HITHERTO BEEN DECLARED AN IMPRACTICABILITY, 
 NAMELY— A TEXT BOOK FOR DRESSMAKERS. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING PAGES MAKE NO PRETENSIONS TO 
 COVER THE GROUND. THEY ARE DESIGNED MERELY 
 TO SURVEY IT AND TO REGISTER THE CONVICTIONS 
 OF THOSE WHO HAVE THE INTERESTS OF DRESS- 
 MAKERS AT HEART, THAT THERE IS NO VALID REASON 
 WHY THEY SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO TURN IN MANY 
 DIRECTIONS AND FIND INSPIRATION AND HELP, INSTEAD 
 OF, AS NOW, FINDING EVERY HAND ARRAYED AGAINST 
 THEM; FROM THAT OF THE WOMAN WHO EMPLOYS 
 THEM, TO THE SHOPKEEPER WHO SELLS READY-MADE 
 GARMENTS, AND, MOST DISHEARTENING FACT OF ALL, 
 THE HAND OF EVERY MEMBER OF THEIR OWN PRO- 
 FESSION. 
 
 DRESSMAKERS ARE AN INTEGRAL PART OF MODERN 
 LIFE. CIVILIZATION CAN BE IMAGINED, THAT SHALL 
 BE SO IDEALIZED THAT MANY PROFESSIONS CAN BE 
 DONE AWAY WITH. WE MAY SOME DAY BECOME SO 
 HYGIENIC, PHYSICIANS WILL BE UNNECESSARY. WE 
 MAY GROW SO PACIFIC, LAWYERS WILL NOT BE ESSEN- 
 TIAL TO THE LIFE OF THE COUNTRY. BY THE DE- 
 VELOPMENT OF ALTRUISTIC TENDENCIES. PREACHERS 
 MAY FIND THEIR PROVINCES ANNIHILATED. BUT SO 
 LONG AS HUMAN NATURE ENDURES, THE DRESSMAKER 
 MUST ABIDE. HER POSITION BEING A PERMANENT 
 ONE, IS IT NOT TIME THAT HER PROFESSION SHOULD 
 BEGIN TO WORK IN HARMONY? 
 
 PROBABLY NO BODY OF WOMEN ANYWHERE HAVE 
 ACCOMPLISHED SO MUCH, WITH SO LITTLE HELP, AS 
 HAVE THE AMERICAN DRESSMAKERS. THEY HAVE 
 HAD THE FAMOUS DRESS ESTABLISHMENTS OF EUROPE 
 FOR COMPETITORS. THEY HAVE HAD NONE OF THE 
 ASSISTANCE FROM BOOKS OR WRITERS OR PREACHERS, 
 AVAILABLE FOR ALL OTHER PROFESSIONS. THEY 
 HAVE FOUND MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN PROFESSION, 
 READY TO CUT PRICES AND LOWER STANDARDS. BUT 
 
NO TWO OF THEM READY TO JOIN HANDS, TO 
 EQUALIZE WORK AND REMUNERATION, AND DIGNIFY 
 THE CALLING. LOUD VOICED AND NARROW-MINDED 
 PEOPLE DECRY THE ART OF DRESS AND IN THE SAME 
 BREATH THEY ALLOW THE VIRTUES AND BEAUTIES 
 OF PICTURES AND STATUES. AGAINST OBSTACLES ON 
 ALL SIDES, THE AMERICAN DRESSMAKER HAS WON A 
 NAME AND FAME FOR HERSELF, WHEN, BESIDE HER 
 TALENT, SHE HAS HAD THE PLUCK AND STRENGTH TO 
 ENDURE. MANY WHO HAVE THE TALENT SUFFER 
 FOR OPPORTUNITY TO EDUCATE IT, AND FOR LACK OF 
 ASSISTANCE AND SYMPATHY TO NOURISH IT. AND 
 SPEND LONGER OR SHORTER LIVES IN CEASELESS 
 TOIL FOR WANT OF A FRIENDLY HAND, WHICH, IF 
 THEY COULD BUT GRASP FOR THEMSELVES, THEY 
 WOULD BE GLAD TO PASS ALONG TO OTHERS. 
 
 IS NOT THE TIME RIPE FOR DRESSMAKERS TO 
 ASSERT THEIR RIGHTS, TO BE RECOGNIZED AS OTHER 
 BODIES OF WORKERS ALL OVER THE LAND ARE REC- 
 OGNIZED? IT SEEMS SO TO THE AUTHOR AND TO THE 
 PUBLISHERS OF THESE PAGES WHO OFFER THE SUG- 
 GESTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SUBJOINED CHAPTERS 
 WITH THE AMBITION TO HELP DRESSMAKERS WHO 
 NEED HELP TO HELP THEMSELVES. AND TO EMPHASIZE. 
 IF POSSIBLE, THE VALUE OF THE WORK DONE BY THE 
 MEMBERS OF A MUCH ABUSED PROFESSION THAT HAS 
 ACCOMPLISHED WONDERS AND HAS WONDERS YET TO 
 COMPASS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 CONSIDERING THAT DRE;SS AFFE;CTS EVERY WOMAN 
 IN EVERY CIVII,IZED AND SEMX-CIVII,IZED COUNTRY 
 ON THE FACE OF THE GI^OBE, THERE IS A CURIOUS 
 LACK OF WTERATURE ON THE SUBJECT. 
 
 THERE IS NO LACK OF FASHION JOURNALS. 
 
 MANY OF THESE ARE VERY POOR, SOME ARE 
 FAIR. ONLY A FEW ARE RELIABLE. IT IS IMPORTANT 
 FOR THE DRESSMAKER TO SELECT OUT OF THESE A 
 FEW THAT ARE MOST CORRECT. TO MAKE SURE 
 
 THAT SHE HAS THE BEST SHE MUST MAKE A STUDY 
 OF THE JOURNALS AND MAKE HER SELECTION ACCORD- 
 ING TO HER BEST JUDGEMENT. IT MEANS MUCH TO 
 THE DRESSMAKER THAT SHE SHALL HAVE ONLY THE 
 BEST FASHION JOURNAL, THE ONE THAT GIVES HER 
 STRICTLY ORIGINAL DESIGNS OF THE MOST FASHION- 
 ABLE AND ARTISTIC GRADE. THE TIME USED IN 
 MAKING HER SELECTION IS WELL SPENT. 
 
 THE ONLY FASHION JOURNAL WORTH SUBSCRIBING 
 TO, IS THE ONE THAT GETS ITS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM 
 PARIS, NOT FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS, BUT FROM 
 THE ARTIST-DESIGNERS OF FASHIONS WHO DESIGN 
 EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE JOURNALS IN QUESTION. IF 
 THE DRESSMAKER VALUES HER REPUTATION AS A 
 DRESSMAXCER AND WISHES TO INCREASE HER INCOME 
 SHE WILL PAY AS MUCH ATTENTION TO THE SELECT- 
 ION OF HER FASHION JOURNAL AS THE DOCTOR DOES 
 IN SELECTING HIS MEDICAL JOURNAL, AS THE LAWYER 
 DOES IN SELECTING HIS LAW LIBRARY. 
 
 BUT EVEN THE BEST FASHION JOURNAL IS RE- 
 QUIRED TO DEVOTE ITSELF TO THE FASHIONS OP 
 THE DAY. IT PUBLISHES FROM ISSUE TO ISSUE 
 MUCH THAT IS OF VALUE TO THE DRESSMAKER IN THE 
 WAY OF HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS ABOUT CARRYING 
 ON HER WORK, BUT IT IS MANIFESTLY IMPOSSIBLE TO 
 REPEAT THESE IN EACH ISSUE. THE RESULT IS 
 
 THAT THE NEW SUBSCRIBER OFTEN LOSES MUCH 
 THAT XHE OLD SUBSCRIBER HAS HAD THE BENEFIT 
 OF LEARNING. 
 
 WHERE CAN THESE VALUABLE HINTS AND SUG- 
 GESTIONS BE FOUND? 
 
 THE DRESSMAKER WHO LOOKS UPON HER CALI/- 
 ING AS A PROFESSION AND WISHES TO RISE IN IT, 
 BUT IS MORE OR LESS AT SEA HOW TO SET TO WORK 
 TO DO SO, MAY LOOK IN LIBRARIES IN VAIN FOR 
 INFORMATION THAT HAS ANY PRACTICAL, PERMAN:ENT 
 VALUE. 
 
EVERY TRADE AND PROFESSION BUT THAT OF 
 THE DRESSMAKER IS RICH IN BOOKS OF REFERENCE 
 IT CANNOT BE THE EPHEMERAI^ NATURE OF FASH- 
 IONS THAT PREVENTS SUCH HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS, 
 BEING PENNED FOR THE DRESSMAKER'S GUIDANCE. 
 FASHIONS THEMSELVES HAVE NOT CHANGED .SO RADI- 
 CALLY AS HAS THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE AND 
 SURGERY, OR MUCH OFTENER. NEW MEDICINES ARE 
 INTRODUCED QUITE AS OFTEN AS NEW DRESSES, BUT 
 FROM THE VERIEST TYRO TO THE MOST PROMINENT 
 PHYSICIANS LIVING, THERE IS NO ONE OF THEM 
 DESIRING ANY KIND OF INFORMATION ABOUT THE 
 PRACTICE OF MEDICINE FROM THE DAYS OF AESCULAP- 
 IUS DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME WHO CANNOT FIND 
 IT FOR THE SEEKING. PERHAPS DRESSMAKERS ARE 
 THEMSELVES TO BLAME. 
 
 DRESSMAKERS CATER TO MORE PEOPLE THAN THE 
 FOLLOWERS OF ANY OTHER CALLING ON THE FACE OF 
 THE EARTH, EXCEPT THE DEALERS IN FOODS. THEY 
 CANNOT BE LESS DESERVING OF ATTENTION THAN 
 THOSE WHO ARE BROUGHT INTO CONTACT WITH 
 FEWER PEOPLE, AND WHOSE NEEDS ARE THEREFORE 
 MORE LIMITED. 
 
 THE LAWYER CAN REFER TO ANY DISTINCTIVE 
 CASE EVER TRIED IN THE COURTS OF THE WORLD, AND 
 THUS GET "POINTERS" FOR TRYING HIS OWN, BUT 
 THE DRESSMAKER WHO DOES NOT FIND OUT FOR 
 HERSELF WHY SHE IS DRAGGING ALONG WITH A PITI- 
 FULLY SMALL AMOUNT OF CUSTOM, WHILE HER NEIGH- 
 BOR HAS MORE THAN SHE CAN DO, IS LEFT TO EAT HER 
 BREAD WITHOUT BUTTER, WHILE DRESSMAKERS WITH- 
 OUT ABLER BRAINS, WARMER HEARTS, FINER FEELINGS 
 OR TENDERER SYMPATHIES, THAN HERS, MAY HAVE A 
 BOX AT THE OPERA, DINE ON SWEETBREADS AND HOT 
 HOUSE GRAPES, SUBSCRIBE TO ALL THE CHARITIES, 
 AND ESTABLISH A FUND FOR THEIR OLD AGE. 
 
 WHY ? 
 
 SOMEWHERE DRESSMAKER NUMBER TWO, HAS 
 LEARNED THE ART OF HER TRADE, WHILE NUMBER 
 ONE IS GROPING IN VAIN TO FIND IT. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN 
 IN ANSWER TO THE PERSONAL REQUESTS OF HUN- 
 DREDS OF READERS OF FASHION JOURNALS, FOR 
 "SOMETHING IN BOOK FORM ABOUT DRESSMAKING" 
 THAT WOULD HELP THEM TO ADVANCE IN THEIR 
 WORK, INSTEAD OF STANDING STILL OR RETROGRAD- 
 ING. THAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED OFTEN TIMES TO 
 RETROGRADE, NO ONE CAN DOUBT WHO RECALLS THE 
 FREQUENT COMPLAINT THAT MRS. A. OR B. OR C. IS 
 "GETTING TOO OLD TO BE A DRESSMAKER." 
 
MRS. A. OR B. OR C. SHOUI^D BE) ABLE TO DO 
 BETTER WORK THE LONGER SHE IS IN THE PROFESSION, 
 IT IS BECAUSE SHE DROPS BEHIND THE TIME, AND 
 DRESSES YOUNG AND OLD ALIKE, AND MAKES GOWNS 
 IN 1S95 AS SHE DID IN 1875 THAT LESSENS HER FAME, 
 NOT THE FACT OF HER YEARS. 
 
 THE MISSION UNDERTAKEN BY THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 IS A MODEST ONE, IT IS NOT DESIGNED TO EXHAUST 
 THE SUBJECT, IF IT TRJED TO DO SO, IT WOULD 
 PROVE SO LONG THAT IT WOULD NEVER BE READ 
 THROUGH. DRESSMAKING IS NOT A PROFESSION OF 
 RULES BUT OF EXCEPTIONS, AND ONE BOOK COULD 
 NOT CONTAIN THEM ALL. EVERY NEW FACE AND 
 FIGURE INTRODUCES A NEW FEATURE IN DRESS- 
 MAKING, OR SHOULD, IT DOES TO THE MINDS OF THE 
 MOST SUCCESSFUL DRESSMAKERS. 
 
 IT IS MERELY A COLLECTION OF HINTS AND SUG- 
 GESTIONS THAT ARE SET DOWN IN THE ACCOMPANYING 
 TALKS WITH DRESSMAKERS, HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS 
 WHICH IT IS HOPED MAY PROVE TO BE HELPFUL TO SOME 
 ONE SOMEWHERE, BY EMPHASIZING THE OPINIONS AND 
 EXAMPLES OF THE DRESSMAKERS IN THE WORLD OF 
 FASHION WHO ARE CAPTURING THE PRIZES OF FORTUNE 
 AND FAME. 
 
 FORTUNE AND FAME SHOULD BE YOURS. THEY MAY 
 BE IF YOU WILL WORK FOR THEM. WILI» YOU ? 
 
 NEW YORK, 1S96. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 Dedication . . . . 
 
 Preface . - - - 
 
 The Dressmaker - - - / 
 
 Dressmaking Systems - -6 
 
 Fitting - - - -II 
 
 Cutting and Basting - - /p 
 
 Making - - - ' ^7 
 
 Dress Goods - - - ^6 
 
 Trimmings, Laces, Furs, etc., - ^^ 
 
 Color - - - - 5^ 
 
 Style - - - . . 5c? 
 
 How to select Costumes - - 6^ 
 
 Fconomy - - - '7^ 
 
 Making-Over - ' ' 77 
 
 Dress Reform - - -82 
 
 In Conclusion - - - - ^5 
 
Tl?e Dressmal^er. 
 
 THERE are dressmakers and dressmakers. 
 Between those who lack even mechanical skill and 
 those whose "creations" are the talk and admiration of 
 both hemispheres there are a great many grades. There 
 are however but two classes, artists and artisans. 
 
 To inquire into and set forth simply some of the 
 radical and distinguishing differences in the methods 
 and results of the work of the two classes, with a view 
 to practically assisting dressmakers everywhere to make 
 the most of their capabilities is the purpose of a series 
 of talks on the subject of which this is the initial 
 number. 
 
 Whether one is an artist or an artisan in whatever 
 she undertakes to do, whether it is to make a dress or 
 lobby a bill through Congress, depends not only upon 
 the dexterity with which she manipulates the actual 
 tools of her craft, be they scissors or tongue — as so many 
 apparently suppose-^but upon all the faculties of the 
 worker, and her power or lack of it, in employing them. 
 
 Certain queries suggest themselves at the outset 
 to whomever gives a second thought to dressmaking. 
 For example — Why can some dressmakers ask and 
 receive four or six or ten times as much money for 
 making a dress as some others get? 
 
 The reasons are a little way below the surface, but 
 it pays to unearth them because they have to 
 do with the verj-' foundations of good and successful 
 dressmaking. The investigation, if well conducted, and 
 thoughtfully followed will answer the question not only 
 so far as money is concerned, but will put into bold 
 relief the reasons why one woman is ill-dressed in the 
 exact duplicate of her well dressed neighbor's toilet. 
 
 The difference between Worth's fame and that of 
 Miss Slimpkins of Jones' Corner may be merely a 
 difference of opportunity. But the chances are that if 
 Miss Slimpkins has never been heard of, it is because 
 
her work bears the same relation to that of the famous 
 artist, in dress that the frame made by the mechanic 
 bears to the canvas painted by Raphael. This much 
 is certain ; every dressmaker whether in the city or 
 backwoods has a chance to show what she can do with 
 every gown she makes, and if Miss Slimpkins is an artist 
 her fame will not long be compassed by the Corner, 
 The late Mr. Worth was but a poor and uneducated ap- 
 prentice when he was thirteen years old, but in his time 
 he made gowns for every Queen of Europe except 
 Victoria who cares nothing for good clothes. 
 
 The dressmaker who becomes famous, whose work 
 is in demand long before that time, and who is always 
 handsomely paid for it, is she (or he) who not only 
 knows how to cut and fit and sew, but who uses this 
 knowledge with a clear comprehension of the laws of 
 beauty in dress. This comprehension is as much a part 
 of her stock in trade as dressgoods. She weaves this 
 wisdom into the lines of the gowns she makes, and 
 through its decorations, and she sends in her bill 
 accordingly. When she is paid it is not only in money, 
 but in reputation. 
 
 The artisan on the other hand knows only the 
 technical part of her trade, and this often but indiffer- 
 ently well. She gets her ideas from others, and often 
 is not clever at appropriating them. Her services are 
 all told when mention is made of the smaller or greater 
 number of seams and ruffles that she puts into a gown. 
 Her patrons pay her merely for the work of her hands, 
 not for the insight of the artist, that puts a fine harmony 
 into all her handiwork, for of this quality she has none. 
 
 True, the prestige of a long established reputation 
 for being an excellent workwoman and artist combined, 
 permits one to " pick and choose" her customers, from 
 among the number that flock to her, and she can charge 
 and receive larger prices than the unknown dressmaker 
 can command, though the latter be equally accomplished. 
 But this prestige is an effect, not the cause of suc- 
 cess. Merit in work tells its own story, and one that is 
 not long in getting noised abroad. If one has the ambi- 
 tion to do work second to none, and the ability whether 
 
 2. 
 
still latent or already developed, to support such an 
 ambition she can safely count upon sooner or later 
 securing the highest market price for whatever she does, 
 and the reputation to boot that brings her even more 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Selection, Style, Color, Fitness, Economy — these all 
 play important roles in dressmaking, and need to be 
 considered, and to be considered wisely, and sympathet- 
 ically, and just as conscientiously as the intricacies of 
 Cutting, Fitting, Plaiting or Shirring. 
 
 The difference between the poor artisan dressmaker 
 and the good artist dressmaker is not in their respective 
 systems of draughting ; it is a many-sided difference, 
 but this generalization covers the ground; the poor 
 dressmaker looks upon each dress as so much snipping 
 and sewing ; the good dressmaker views each gown that 
 she makes as whole. She does not make one dress after 
 another, without regard to anything but the size of the 
 intended wearer, and copying the latest wrinkle of some 
 French dressmaker. Instead, she considers each dress 
 that she makes, no matter how simple it is to be, as a 
 creation of itself, aisd not with regard to any woman, 
 but with the strictest regard to one woman, her for 
 whom it is intended. She studies her figure, her com- 
 plexion, her needs-whether she can have a dress for 
 every new function and needs a great many, or whether 
 she must make one dress answer for a great many diff- 
 erent occasions. The good dressmaker feels it incumbent 
 upon her for the sake of her reputation, to give each 
 of her customers the benefit of her supposedly superior 
 judgement, and if she does this her fame spreads fast 
 and far. 
 
 It isn't enough to advise me that I shall require so 
 many yards of material for a dress when I ask for your 
 assistance. If you make good your claim to understan- 
 ding the art of dressmaking, you will be able to caution 
 me against buying for my one best dress something that 
 will look well only a few times, or something that will 
 make me look less well than I might. You will counsel 
 me not to insist upon having my flimsy summer silk 
 made in the fashion selected by my friend for her heavy 
 3. 
 
broadcloth, and will know better than to permit me to 
 clothe my short, stout, figure in a gown that is becoming 
 only to a tall and slender ;woman. 
 
 If you have all this superior sort of wisdom anent 
 clothes at your fingers' and tongue's end, and possess 
 into the bargain the rest of the knowledge of dress- 
 making that insures your tight-fitting bodices, fitting 
 like wall paper, and your loose-fitting ones like the 
 draperies of the old masters ; that never fails to have 
 your skirts hang well, and your sewing last while the 
 garment does ; if in short you make me and every other 
 one of your customers look as well as it is possible for 
 us to look, you will find in us the best possible advertis- 
 ing medium that you could have. 
 
 This is the grade of work turned out by the leading 
 foreign dressmakers. It is the grade of work turned 
 out by the rapidly increasing number of most admirable 
 artists in dress in this country. It is the standard of 
 work to aim at, for every one who aspires to be a leader 
 in her profession whether her place of business is in New 
 York City or some hamlet in Indian Territory. 
 
 An apprenticeship under an able teacher is an ex- 
 cellent school for one who feels her own shortcomingsrto 
 be very many, but many of the leading dressmakers to- 
 day have had few other instructors than their own 
 ability after they passed the first stage, where they 
 learned the bare rudiments of the trade. Some are 
 entirely self taught. The ins and outs of dressmaking 
 are many, but one can learn the ins by "practice, and the 
 outs by observation. 
 
 Object lessons are worth volumes of sermons. It is 
 the best possible help to cultivate the art of seeing, and 
 thinking about what one notices. If the fashion plate, 
 the imported or native-made model, the women who 
 pass one upon the street, or in the drawing room appeal 
 to the artistic sense, discover the reason. Depend upon 
 it that the pictures whether living, or stamped in colors 
 upon paper, which are quite satisfactory are not alone 
 those whose gowns are perfection as gowns, but those 
 whose toilets are perfection from the view-point of the 
 woman they adorn. 
 
 4. 
 
The inferior dressmaker's motto is, "anything so 
 long as it looks like something." 
 
 The superior dressmaker aims not to copy slavishly, 
 but to create. 
 
 There are dressmakers and dressmakers. 
 
 The poor dressmaker's lot, that of the artisan, is a 
 thorny one and an unsatisfactory one, and a poorly paid 
 one. 
 
 The lot of a good dressmaker, that of the artist, is 
 not an easy one, but there is a vast deal of satisfaction 
 in contemplating its achievements. 
 
^^YXTHAT dressmaking system do you use?" 
 
 Poor over worked and worn out question! What 
 does it matter, any way? Use whichever one you like, 
 that most readily assists you in getting good results. 
 How find this? By experimenting. One dressmaker 
 " swears by" a system that the next dressmaker you 
 question will tell you is absolutely unreliable. And 
 if you took the time and trouble as the writer has done, 
 to carry the question the rounds of the dressmakers, you 
 would find that of the almost infinite variety of 
 systems" each has its stanch adherents, and that 
 equally lovely creations in dress are turned out by those 
 using totally different systems. 
 
 America, the country, is still old, but civilized 
 America is young, and as a people we are still largely 
 imitative. It is an excellent move on the part of you 
 and me to profit all we can by the experience of others, 
 but, in the end, we shall do nothing very great unless we 
 do something orignal. By the amount of time spent in 
 discussing dressmaking systems, it would seem that the 
 cutting of a dress were all there were in it. In point of 
 fact it is the least thing in the estimation of the famous 
 dressmakers. Not that cutting is not an important 
 factor in dressmaking ; it is, of course, but it is one of 
 the mechanical operations, and as such quite subser- 
 vient in point of value, to the artistic knowledge that 
 makes a "creation" of every dress, and a "vision" of the 
 woman who wears it. 
 
 The fact that the majority of a dressmaker's patrons 
 do not know whether they are well dressed or not, is 
 not an excuse for some dressmakers who ask. "To 
 what end, master the art of dressmaking, when all 
 that the majority of the women care for is a dress a 'la 
 mode, that fits well?" It is a mistake to think it is 
 enough to know merely how to cut a dress so that it will 
 turn out in the style of the day, that is, if one aspires to 
 6. 
 
be one of the leaders in ones' profession. 
 
 Elect for a cutting sj'stem, of course, one that an- 
 swers your needs best, but do not exaggerate the import- 
 ance of the cutting system. It is merely a stepping stone. 
 not the goal. 
 
 What systems do the best dressmakers use in 
 cutting? 
 
 Some of the leading cutters use no guide but their 
 heads. They cut the lining for each dress bodice upon 
 the figure. They throw a piece of slightly stiffened 
 muslin over the shoulders, pin it here, and snip it there, 
 and in a few minutes they have a lining guide of sur- 
 prising accuracy. It looks easy. It is'nt. It is well 
 enough for those accustomed to cut in this way to go on 
 doing so, "letting well enough alone, " but there is 
 nothing in the method to commend it to one not already 
 able to follow it. 
 
 All other cutting methods resolve themselves into 
 cutting by chart, and cutting by paper patterns in work- 
 ing size. 
 
 . The number of cutting charts, so-called tailor 
 systems, draughting machines, etc. , is large and con- 
 stantly growing. Prices vary and so do the systems 
 from a simple tape measure, and book of instructions, '.o 
 complex formulas in the way of figuring, that none but 
 students of the higher mathematics could possibly mas- 
 ter in this life in time to make them useful. All are not 
 equally valuable, indeed most of them are good for 
 noting, all have their devoted followers, and those expert 
 in evolving their several possibilities make by their aid 
 absolutely perfect-fitting gowns. 
 
 All mathematical chart systems of cutting depend 
 entirely for their practical merit upon the skill with 
 which they are used. They are not automatic ; they 
 require to be operated by thinking heads and deft 
 fingers. They are simply helps such as you get from 
 your machine tape line and they supply, it must be re- 
 membered, no designs of themselves. 
 
 Those who are not apt at copying models from ideas 
 carried in the head, or at designing garments outright 
 7. 
 
are reduced to the necessity of using paper patterns 
 that give precise working models. These in common 
 with the charts are many and each manufacturer claims 
 and finds those who support his claims that his patterns 
 are the best. You and I may chance to prefer the same 
 or different patterns, but having found what you like, 
 there is no reason to give yourself any uneasiness be- 
 cause I cut by a different system, providing the one you 
 have gives you good results. 
 
 If the female form divine were absolutely perfect, 
 then a good draughing system would be the cutting 
 system par excellence so far as fitting a garment goes, 
 because after the first measurements were accurately 
 taken. That is, if it were possible to take exact measures. 
 We claim that it is not. There would be no need to try 
 on a bodice. But the cry does not go any farther in 
 dressmaking than it does in many other things. The 
 perfect figure is hard to find, and "trying on" is bound 
 to continue to be thought one of the bug-a-boos of 
 dressmaking. Then too, so long as every dressmaker 
 cannot live in the full glare of the great fashion centres 
 whence the "styles" radiate, and all dressmakers have 
 not yet arrived at the point where they can evolve from 
 their creative and artistic faculties, beautiful designs of 
 their own, recourse must be had to the models of others. 
 These are furnished in fashion plates for those who can 
 draught their patterns having once caught the idea of 
 the design, and in paper patterns for those who prefer 
 working models. 
 
 It is buying experience too dearly to try each 
 different make of paper pattern in turn, and run the risk 
 of spoiling several frocks meanwhile. A simpler and 
 better way is to pick out one make that promises to be 
 among the best. How do this? 
 
 One way would be to compare the reigning modes as 
 exhibited by the fashion leaders, and described by the 
 fashion chroniclers, with the journal and designs issued 
 by the paper pattern dealers and publishers. Note by a 
 comparison of different books, which manufacturer puts 
 out the handsomest and most artistic styles and is thus 
 8. 
 
most thoroughly up to date in catering to the great 
 numbers of women who depend upon his guidance. 
 
 Patterns that keep pace with the march of fashion 
 are bound to be new, and being new the chances are all 
 in favor of their being in demand. If they are in 
 demand they are supplied in large numbers, in a great 
 variety of styles, and this means an able corps of work- 
 men and women and the most approved methods of 
 draughting the various portions of the pattern. Does it 
 not stand to reason that the patterns of such a manufact- 
 urer are vastly superior in style and fit to those of the 
 maker who creeps along in the trail of fashion instead 
 of running in the v^n? 
 
 No woman wishes a gown made in a fashion already 
 in common use when the pattern maker selects it. 
 Therefore pick out the design of the publisher who gets 
 his inspiration, not at second or fifth hand from foreign 
 journals printed after Paris dressmakers have started the 
 styles around the world, but direct from the Parisian 
 artist designers who create the styles. The patterns of 
 such manufacturer give you and me the cream of the 
 styles for any season before anybody else has them, and 
 our gowns lead the fashion, competing with the oracles 
 of that quivering heart of fashiondom — Paris — instead of 
 copying designs that are months old before the inferior 
 patterns of second rate manufacturers get round to them. 
 The dressmaker who creates all her own designs — she 
 is a rarity in any part of the world. 
 
 No good dressmaker slavishly copies a model. 
 Do not make the mistake of measuring the width of 
 a plait and its distance from the neck or foot of a dress 
 in order to make it conform precisely to the pattern. 
 
 Get the best effect of the drapery or trimming 
 regardless of whether it is just like the copy or not. 
 
 Paris dressmakers take great pains with the tout 
 ensemble of their dresses ; i. e. with the outlines and the 
 general effect. They do not worry over details such as 
 whether the strap goes under at the left side and out at 
 the right, or vice versa, or trouble themselves about 
 similar inconsequential inatters over which American 
 9. 
 
dressmakers spend too much time. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the 'American dressmaker has 
 spent much valuable time and hard earned cash in the 
 past, on systems. She is now getting beyond the use 
 of them and doing her work as the best French dress- 
 maker does hers. They say in Paris; — "We do not cut 
 dresses, we fit them," showing how little real import- 
 ance they attach to cutting. Most dressmakers fail to 
 realize the enormous amount of benefit derived from 
 each fitting. Not only do you fit milady's dress well, 
 but at the same time, unconsciously, you are learning 
 all her individualities, and will, by the time you come 
 to the trimming, know how to trim without giving it 
 much study. 
 
 All of this time and a great deal more can be spent 
 to real advantage in studying dress material and linings, 
 and the proper linings for different materials, and in 
 studying your customers. 
 
 Search out from whatever is fashionable that which 
 is destined to makethem look their best, and so rebound 
 to your credit, both financially and as a matter of fame. 
 
F^RESS fitting is not a mathematical problem that 
 ^—^ can be solved by learning a few rules. Every 
 new customer introduces another and frequently very 
 refractory figure, making quite a different problem. 
 There is no royal or easy road to learning to fit a dress. 
 But the best all round guide post to follow is the one 
 that directs the dressmaker to make herself mistress of 
 the situation and let rules act as humble servants. 
 Turn them and twist and manipulate them anyway, 
 anyhow, to produce good effects whether anybody ever 
 heard of doing the like before, or ever will again, or not. 
 American dressmakers are famous for their devotion to 
 arbitrary methods, fitting their customers to their 
 theories, instead of subjugating theories to suit the 
 customer's peculiar needs. 
 
 Parisian dressmakers on the other hand are famous 
 for their pooh-poohing of systems. Instead of wasting 
 their energies in following hard and fast theories they 
 invest their ingenuity and talent in turning out original 
 effects. Instead of studying systems they study their 
 patrons. It is quite worth while to look at the Parisian 
 methods, because Parisian dressmakers annually 
 receive thousands upon thousands of dollars which 
 American dressmakers ought to have, and which they 
 will have-not so soon as they deserve them perhaps, 
 but when they prove conclusively by their work, 
 that they can outmatch the foreign-made gown at 
 every point, 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker laughs at the American 
 dressmaker, not without considerable excuse it must be 
 admitted, for considering the fit of a dress its chief 
 glory. To the Parisian mind the fit is merely a matter 
 of course, the real success of the dress lying in its 
 beautiful lines, charming combination of color, hand- 
 some texture, its success in enhancing the beauty of 
 the figure and covering up its defects. The London 
 II. 
 
maker of riding habits prides himself upon the skin- 
 fitting qualities of his work, but the Parisian modiste 
 considers fit merely part of the skeleton of a dress, 
 wholly subordinate to its decorative qualities. 
 
 The American dressmaker who has to be the tailor 
 as well as the maker of ball gowns for her neighborhood 
 has a distinctly harder task than the specialist who 
 confines herself to one branch of the profession, say 
 that of making girls' dresses, or morning apparel for 
 adults, or dress suitable for sports, or merely tea gowns 
 and dinner dresses and other resplendent frocks of their 
 ilk. But the dressmaker who is called upon to make all 
 manner of dresses will make it easier instead of harder 
 for herself, if she learns to appreciate the Parisian point 
 of view about dress, which is, that its chief aim to cover 
 the body was long, long ago lost sight of in its recognized 
 mission today — that of making the wearer look her best. 
 The Parisian dressmaker does not care whether she 
 takes your last sou or not, but she will not fit a gown 
 to you if she considers the style unbecoming, though she 
 loses your trade by her refusal. 
 
 • When she has consented to make a dress for you 
 she is autocratic to the last degree, but so polite and 
 sauve in her autocracy, that you can but rejoice 
 in her dominion over you. 
 
 Whether you are her best customer, or a chance 
 rover upon the face of the earth whom she never expects 
 to see again, she takes as much pains with your order as 
 if her reputation hung upon that one dress. Yours 
 may be the least important order she has, and she may 
 not care a picayune for your few dollars, but she does' n't 
 tell 3'ou so; and she does' n't say she is so rushed that 
 she does' n't see how in the world she can make your 
 dress, and thus forever after fill you with the feeling 
 that it was but half made. Not she. If she takes your 
 dress to make, she pools all her issues upon satisfying 
 herself, and if she does this she is bound to satisfy you, 
 because her taste is perfect. 
 
 Why perfect? Because she is forever studying 
 to make it so. If the Parisian dressmaker requires your 
 
 12. 
 
presence for ten fittings, she tells you so and gets them. 
 You may think three ought to answer, but, if she thinks 
 ten, 3^ou give her ten, or she will not have any. 
 
 She thinks fitting merely a stepping stone to a 
 fetching ensemble, but, if she sets out to make the dress 
 fit, she fits, and she does it to perfection. Worth 
 could'n't bear a plain, smooth, tight-fitting bodice and 
 never made one if he could possible help it, but his 
 linings fitted like the skin — not like paper on the wall, 
 immovably tight, but like skin that is wrinkleless, but 
 plays with every motion of the body. 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker will not fit over clumsy 
 under-clothing, and her views on corsets ought to be 
 adopted by every American woman. The average 
 American woman today, if she does not live in the back 
 woods, has her gloves and her boots fitted as carefully 
 as a dress waist, but she continues, with comparatively 
 few exceptions, to buy her corsets by a waist measure. 
 The clever dressmaker knows that the majority of 
 figures are corset built, that if the corset changes shape, 
 so do the figures. It is, then, for her interest to have 
 her dresses fitted over corsets that will keep their shape 
 to the end of their days. No cheap corset will. It is 
 starched into some sort of shape which never fits very 
 well. Soon the stiffening lessens, and such shapeliness 
 as the corset had, leaves it, with the result that the 
 bodice which was fitted over it has, at the end of a few 
 times wearing, quite a different figure to fit and, not 
 being automatically adjustable, it ceases to fit and the 
 dressmaker gets the blame. 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker will not fit a dress over a 
 heavy stiff new corset ; neither will a tailor who knows 
 his business. They advise you to buy a corset with- 
 out any stiffening, save that afforded by the bones and 
 steels, and to have this fitted (which is done free at all 
 first class houses) as carefully as you would have a glove 
 fitted, to be sure that the bust fit is just right ; that of 
 the hips ditto ; that the waist is neither too long nor too 
 short ; etc. This kind of a corset will fit as well when it 
 is threadbare as when it is new, for the shape is in the 
 13. 
 
way it is cut, not in the starch of the cheap corset. 
 
 Another bit of work for the American dressmaker 
 who means to pride herself upon having her dresses fit 
 as well as they should, is to educate her American 
 patrons up to having different corsets for different 
 occasions. A Parisian dressmaker will not fit a ball 
 gown over a corset suitable for a cloth street dress, 
 and the smart London tailor assures Madam that she 
 must have a pair of riding corsets to do his habit justice. 
 
 Nobody wishes to drive trade away to one's rivals 
 but most women are more amenable to advice than they 
 are credited with being, and the dressmaker who makes 
 no mention of her point of view (that of not having her 
 reputation as a dressmaker ruined) but urges the 
 customer for the sake of her appearance to wear a light 
 weight, pliable, well made, and accurately fitted corset, 
 will find customers more than ready to take advantage 
 of the advice. 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker and the London tailor Jit 
 their dresses. They do not pull them together and get 
 the noticeable wrinkles out, and let them go at that. 
 They do not make any attempt to fit carefully, till the 
 bodice, when tried on, proves to be a pretty close fit in 
 itself. Then the middle back seam is drawn in close to 
 the neck well up ; with the hands, the waist is smoothed, 
 not jerked into place, and the fronts are pinned, not by 
 lapping but by folding the edges together, as if to make 
 a standing frill down the front. Many excellent dress- 
 makers work down from the shoulders in fitting, but the 
 best tailors work up from the waist line, and will tell 
 you always to button coats, bodices, and all waists 
 from the waist line up. 
 
 On a slender figure, the hems down the front will 
 be practically straight, but the full bust must be accom- 
 modated by a curve, which makes itself when the fronts 
 are drawn together and pinned. The bodices, today, 
 nearly all have more or less fanciful fronts, the lining, 
 fastening with hooks and eyes which merely bring the 
 edges together without lapping. A bias facing is better 
 14. 
 
than a hem on bodices, where there is a curve over the 
 bust, the line for the making of either being indicated 
 when the fitting has been accomplished. 
 
 It is not a good idea to make more than the first 
 trial fitting with the bodice wrong side out. There are 
 scarcely two shoulders or two hips just alike, and a 
 waist fitted most carefully inside out will be awry when 
 tried on where it belongs. After the first trial fitting, 
 the Parisian dressmaker asks her customer to sit down 
 for a special process that is most useful. Except the 
 ball dress and the promenade dress, the average dress 
 is worn more in a sitting position than in a standing one. 
 Ninety-nine women out of a hundred, sink into them- 
 selves more or less in sitting, and a bodice which looks 
 pretty well while they are standing, will develop a 
 wrinkle across the shoulders when they sit down. 
 
 Half a ^dozen times, perhaps, the Parisian dress- 
 maker rips the shoulders apart and presses the material 
 in the back, from the top of the side-back form to the 
 neck, up, up, till every possibility of wrinkling there is 
 dissipated. 
 
 A point in fitting the shoulders, upon which the 
 French dressmaker lays great stress, is on no account 
 to take more off the back than off the front, when the 
 shoulder seams are taken in. Unless. There is the 
 usual exception to any rule. If the woman who is being 
 fitted, is hollow about the neck in front and the back of 
 her neck between the shoulders is plump, then th& 
 bodice fits better and looks better, to have the shoulder 
 seam moved back a little by taking off the back than 
 off the front. 
 
 If the fronts are too wide and wrinkle, she cuts out 
 the arm's eye gingerly but, if it is too tight, she runs, 
 her finger round and turns the raw edge out, knowing 
 that it is going to stretch more or less, and that, if cut„ 
 out in the beginning, it will very likely prove in the end,, 
 when it is too late, to be too narrow across the front.. 
 Many American dressmakers make the mistake of fit- 
 ting a dress bodice as if the woman to wear it were a 
 15. 
 
slab of wood, and flat, the same distance from arm to 
 arm, both back and front. 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker never gives her customers 
 too little room across the bust, a very common fault of 
 the native made dress. And she is equally careful not 
 to give a vestige too much room across the back. 
 
 If there is a tendency to bag between the shoulders 
 and the top of the bodice, rip go the shoulders again, 
 and the fulness is pressed and smoothed knd worked up. 
 The waist line is the one point that is left undisturbed; 
 to displace that would mean ruin. 
 
 After the waist has been fitted not only over, but 
 actually into the figure by being worked into every 
 curve and line of the upper half of the body, the seams 
 are stitched just inside the bastings in all save 
 shoulders and under-arm-seams. The bastings that 
 hold inside and outside materials together are left in 
 till the waist is done, but the bastings in the seams 
 are ripped out, and the bones are put in before the last 
 fitting is done, all the bones, that is, but those in the 
 under-arm seams. The under-arm and shoulder seams 
 are left subject to alteration, until after the waist has 
 been boned and the fronts supplied with fastenings. 
 When wrinkles there are none with the wearer sitting, 
 then the shoulder and under-arm seams are stitched, and 
 the latter receive their quota of bones. 
 
 The French dressmaker excels in her ability to 
 make a dress fit without a wrinkle and not look tight. 
 Many home dressmakers can turn out a wrinkleless 
 bodice, but how very, very few do not make their 
 wearers look like trussed fowls. A bandage of straight 
 cloth can be put upon a body so that it will not wrinkle, 
 (that is not at once) but it is done by pulling and haul- 
 ing and crowding the flesh into it. To fit closely one or 
 two layers of material so that one can turn her head, 
 lift her arms, make a courtesy, or make any other 
 reasonable movement, without having the appearance 
 of dislocating some organ of the body, is quite another 
 matter. 
 
 16. 
 
The dressmaker who has a reasonable amount of 
 pride in her work, is not content to have a dress look 
 pretty well, when it goes home in its pristine glory. 
 She wishes it to fit just as well when she sees it weeks 
 afterward. But, if it is to do this, it must not be too 
 tight anywhere and it must be tight enough every- 
 where. 
 
 If the customer is habitually round shouldered, it is 
 of no use to straighten her up while you are fitting the 
 bodice. Make instead some sort of a variation upon the 
 plain bodice that will conceal her bad posture. 
 
 If the material, like some of the rough finished 
 serges, will stretch a great deal in wearing, have the 
 dress sent back at the end of a dozen times wearing to 
 have the fulness that has gathered pinched up and 
 taken out from bodice and skirt. It costs you but a 
 few minutes of your assistant's time, and secures you 
 great credit from all who see your work. 
 
 The sleeve that has the curve for the elbow over the 
 bend when the hand is brought to the breast, and the 
 inside seam in a line with the thumb when the hand is 
 dropped to the side and the back of the hand is toward 
 the front, will sit well and not twist. 
 
 Padding is only allowable in habit bodices where 
 plainness is de riguer, and even then Norfolk jackets are 
 preferable, unless one knows the tailoring trade so 
 accurately, that there is no chance of making a bodice all 
 hills and hollows — so often done in padding. The 
 woman who is so thin as to need padding to make a 
 plain bodice presentable will look better in some other 
 style that is less severe ; and it is your place to make 
 her see the truth of this statement, 
 
 Wire bust forms are not inimicable to health and 
 may be recommended with impunity when needed, but 
 large ones upon a small figure are inartistic and 
 objectionable. Do not allow the use of hair or wool 
 bust forms. They are heating, injure the natural figure, 
 and do not look natural. The slight hollow just in front 
 and under the arms of many woman, is obviated by some 
 17. 
 
good dressmakers by making a small double crescent of 
 the lining, filling it with a layer or two of sheet wadding- 
 (intersprinkled with orris and violet powder) : this is. 
 tacked after the waist is finished where needed under 
 the sleeve shields. If these crescents, which should in 
 any event be small and graduated toward the edge, are: 
 to be worn, the fitting must be done over a trial pair. 
 Other dressmakers get rid of the fullness caused by the. 
 hollow as described in the talk on Cutting, by taking up- 
 a triangle bias in the lining and stretching the outside, 
 material without bias over it, their claim being that false- 
 plumpness is very apt to show, however carefully 
 applied. In general it is safer and more satisfactory in 
 point of looks to hide too great slenderness by a differ- 
 ent style of dress instead of padding up a shape for a 
 a plain one. 
 
 Standing collars will fit closely if the lower edge 
 (collars are cut on the bias) is stretched between the 
 fingers two or three times. 
 
 .Skirts cannot hang badly if they are fitted by 
 shaping the front and side gores, either by goring or 
 biases near the waist line so to make every seam hang 
 in a vertical line from the waist to the foot. It is twist- 
 ing the seams out of line in the fitting that causes most 
 of the badly hung skirts. Each seam should represent 
 a straight line from top to bottom, curved of course as it 
 is carried in at the waist, but not stretched out of line 
 by being carried too far back at the top when the belt is 
 attached. 
 
 All this goes to prove that the French dressmaker 
 knows just what she is talking about when she says that 
 there is not much in cutting dresses, but that the test is 
 in the fitting. 
 
 i8. 
 
"T^O claim that there is but one right way of doing 
 most things, dressmaking among others, is to 
 make an egregious mistake. Every first class dress- 
 maker has a way of her own, and, while there is often 
 room for improvement upon it according to somebody's 
 else way of thinking, it may be the way of all others 
 for her. 
 
 But after making all due allowance for your way 
 and mine, which, though differing a good deal, gives to 
 each of us A-i results, it may be we may both learn 
 something from the experience of others who clear of our 
 difficulties altogether, or get over them more easily than 
 we do. 
 
 It pays to learn that there is a kind of economy that 
 in the end is rank extravagance. It pays, for instance, 
 to have the proper tools to work with. The table should 
 be large enough to spread a skirt breadth on easily, and 
 soft enough to trace upon, smooth enough to offer no 
 obstacle to the roughest cloth, and heavy enough so that 
 it cannot jolt or tip. There should be a chair comfort- 
 able enough to sit in before this table, and high enough 
 to work from, and a footstool beside. It's a wonderful 
 nerve saver, the footstool. Because a man tailor stands 
 at his work is no reason at all why a woman should. 
 Don't. 
 
 The shears should be sharp, and so should the 
 scissors. A paper weight or two is a convenience and 
 so is a supply of the thumb tacks such as artists use to 
 tack their drawing paper upon boards. The pin cushion 
 should be large and well filled ; there should be some 
 chalk, a tracing wheel, and needles and basting thread 
 galore. 
 
 It pays to prove before wasting good linings whether 
 the cutting guide is anywhere near the size required, as 
 the inexperienced not infrequently, after the most pains- 
 19. 
 
taking attention to directions, find too late that they 
 have slipped up somewhere and the lining is a world too 
 big. or hopelessly wrong. The novice, with a new 
 pattern or chart does bravely to cut a dummy waist, a 
 lining of some cheap stuff, and an outside to go with it, 
 though the latter is only unbleached muslin. The 
 experimenting she can do freely with this dummy in the 
 line of cutting and basting. It will be worth all the 
 lessons given in a year in the so-called dressmaking 
 schools. 
 
 Many clever dressmakers after fitttng the first lining 
 cut from it another, make a memorandum of the pecu- 
 liarities of the customer's figure and keep itj on file. 
 This makes fitting an easy matter, and her patrons are 
 loud in their praises of the ease they have in getting a 
 gown that is just right. 
 
 There cannot be a dressmaker anywhere nowadays 
 who does not know that the wry forms in close fitting 
 bodices are due to the fact that the line representing the 
 waist line of each form was not laid parallel with a 
 straight thread of the goods running from selvage to 
 selvage ; but, judging from the number of wry bodices 
 one sees at every turn, someone surely forgets this rule. 
 
 If the material is intended to be on the bias when 
 made up, it is not enough to twist it somewhat out of a 
 straight line. Bias bodices, skirt breadths, or trim- 
 mings, — none of them will sit properly unless they are 
 cut exactly on the bias ; this means with all their 
 straight edges at an angle of 45 degrees from the selvage, 
 and an angle of 45 degrees is one that would run through 
 both of the opposite corners of a square the sides of 
 which were parallel to the selvages. 
 
 But even observing these points is not enough to 
 save all waists from wrinkles. Bear in mind the axiom 
 about stretching the outside cloth and letting the lining 
 lie "easy" upon it ; this is important in its way. Then 
 it is necessary to the best results to know at the outset 
 that basting is one of the 30 articles of the creed of the 
 leading dressmakers. Most dressmakers think to econo- 
 20. 
 
p 
 
 mise time by basting as little as possible. The way to 
 save time in the long run is to baste a great deal, and do 
 it in the right way. 
 
 But horrid little wrinkles often put in an appearance 
 about the waist or across the back forms after every one 
 of the foregoing points has been carefully attended to 
 and the bodice has been boned according to the best light 
 obtained on that crucial point. 
 
 In your despair, have you ever turned to a first class 
 woman's tailor and begged him to enlighten you on the 
 subject of his paper fitting bodices that yet are never 
 tight looking as so many dressmaker-made waists are? 
 True, most tailors guard their secrets as a miser does 
 his money, but now and then a friendly one may be 
 found. He asks you if you have never heard of the 
 woman who returned a gown ordered of a famous tailor 
 '•because the inside of the waist was a mass of wrinkles." 
 
 If you are not in the habit of wrinkling the lining in 
 your bodicej, have you never wondered why the gowns 
 turned out by the leading tailors and dressmakers are 
 as the woman in the true story said, "a mass of 
 wrinkles," about the waistline on the wrong side? 
 
 The reason for the wrinkled lining in a nutshell is 
 this : most dress fabrics stretch more or less. Linings 
 are not supposed to stretch at all. The outside material 
 is not only stretched somewhat when it is basted, but 
 is kept upon the stretch in the seams afterward by the 
 bones. Just where the greatest strain comes upon the 
 outside material to keep it wrinkleless, a little addi- 
 tional room must be afforded it by the lining ; hence 
 the few tiny puckers in the lining. If these are omitted, 
 it is possible for a very skilful fitter to make the bodice 
 smooth upon the outside at the start, but shortly the 
 outside will begin to stretch, and, unless there is a little 
 leeway in the lining underneath to accomodate this 
 lengthening out, the outside will have to collect its 
 fulness in puckers where they will show. 
 
 One great curse of American dressmaking is the 
 carelessness of the dressmakers about little things of 
 
 21. 
 
this sort which are really important. They make their 
 standard, quantity of work, not quality. The leading 
 dressmakers of Paris do not ask how many dresses they 
 can turn out in a given time, but how recherche they 
 can make each one within the limits of time and money 
 afforded them by the customer. 
 
 The cleverest Parisian dressmakers do not pay much 
 attention to cutting; they spend themselves on their 
 fitting, but they are not fond of plain close fitting bodices 
 and most of them make up their pretty, airy, fairy creat- 
 ions with an eye to their first effect, and with never a 
 thought to their lasting qualities. The tailor builds his 
 gowns for long continued and hard wear, and he takes 
 oath that no amount of cleverness in fitting can make a 
 plain close fitting bodice permanently aufait, unless it 
 is correctly cut and basted. Bones are to keep seams in 
 order, not to put them there by main strength, he says. 
 And further the oracle deposes in this wise, "Every 
 part of a bodice should be a law unto itself. It is not 
 safe to cut any part double. First, because the under 
 side is apt to be thrown out of line and so come out 
 awry ; but especially because each portion of the lin- 
 ing requires to be especially fitted to the outside material 
 and basted there before the outside is cut. Wholesale 
 blocking out may do for men's coats, and women's 
 aprons, but not for bodices." 
 
 After the lining has been cut, stretch the cloth foi 
 the front, right side down upon the table, nap run, 
 ning toward the cutter, and fasten the cloth to the 
 table by sticking in thumbtacks. Adjust the lining to 
 bring the waist line on a straight cross thread, and 
 then pin it in place, beginning at the top. Have the 
 lining smooth to an inch below the top of the biases, 
 then pucker it to tiny wrinkles from there to within 
 one half inch of the waist line. Do not plait those 
 puckers but hold them between the basting threads. 
 Put the pins in slantwise to hold linings firmly and 
 baste with fine stitches, putting the needle in each 
 time at an angle. Do not turn down the front hems, 
 
 22. 
 
but leave them to pull the waist together with in fit 
 ting. Do not baste on the indicated tracing lines on 
 the lining for the stitching but a trifle inside the 
 tracing. 
 
 Wrinkle the lining on the under-arm form, a half 
 inch both above and below the waist line on both sides 
 of the form, and wrinkle the side-back form in the same 
 way but only on the side that is to come next the back, 
 Do not stretch the cloth for the side back form in pin- 
 ning it to the table, this form being already on the bias, 
 more or less. 
 
 For the back of the bodice, allow the lining to lie 
 "easy" all over the stretched material beneath, and 
 baste thus, but do not wrinkle the cloth anywhere. 
 
 Do not be afraid of basting too much, or of taking 
 too much pains with the positions of the basting. This 
 is half the battle for a perfect fitting waist. Baste 
 through the centre of the biases lengthwise, and across 
 the waist line of each form. In basting the form., 
 together, begin with the waist line. Match this in each 
 of the two portions that come together, then pin from 
 this point up, and from the waist line down, and baste 
 on the tracing line for the stitching. 
 
 Cut the biases open and jom the indicated tracings 
 for stitching, paying no further attention to the traced 
 waistline. In joining the side-back form to the back, hold 
 the side-back uppermost both in basting and in stitching. 
 Do not stretch the curve in basting, but in stitching see 
 that though not stretched, still, that the seam is not 
 puckered at all. The proper shoulder seam is a straight 
 slant with the front a little shorter than the back. 
 Stretch the front to fit the back and baste thus. The 
 stretching will curve the front a little, and make it fit 
 the hollow in the shoulder underneath. 
 
 Where the outside is to show but four seams, one on 
 each shoulder and one under each arm, the material 
 should be cut on the bias, if it is designed to have it fit 
 smoothly. If it is to be fulled or plaited a trifle at the 
 waist line, back and front, it can be cut straight way of 
 23. 
 
the clotli. In any case the lining should be as carefully 
 fitted as for the usual many seamed bodice. 
 
 The French bias is a stroke of genius for fitting the 
 fronts of dress waists, and may be employed by those 
 who cut by paper patterns as well as by those who can 
 manipulate the most complicated charts. The French 
 bias merely cuts the second bias at a different angle than 
 that usually outlined in the ordinary paper patterns, 
 thus bringing the cloth between the second bias and the 
 under-arm seam on the bias, conducing to a better fit 
 in that troublesome region. Many dressmakers always 
 use the French bias even in the linings of bodices that 
 are cut whole upon the outside. The accomplished cut- 
 ters by chart understand about draughting the French 
 bias. Those who cut direct from paper patterns that 
 do not have this bias can make it for themselves. Cut 
 through the second bias, (the farthest from the front) 
 from top to bottom. About two inches from the line of 
 perforations indicating the under arm seam measuring 
 on the curve for the arm, make a mark, and draw a line 
 from it to the top of the bias you have just cut through 
 the middle. Now draw a second line from the same point 
 (at the top of the bias) back to the arm curve to a point an 
 inch farther along, that is to say three inches from the 
 under arm seam perforations. The pencil marks now 
 give a triangle resting on the arm curve, with the apex 
 at the top of the second bias. Fold the sides or pencil 
 lines together and pin or paste or baste ; this swings the 
 lower portion of the waist pattern between the under 
 arm seam and the second bias, over to the left (or toward 
 the right if it be the other front), so that the pattern lies 
 upon the cloth on the bias instead of straightway. The 
 little angle taken out of the arm curve rids the .fitter of 
 a troublesome fulness there, where most figures are 
 hollow. Of course it is not desirable to take up any- 
 thing on the arm curve from the outside material, and 
 it is, therefore, stretched smooth to fit the lining. If the 
 figure is full instead of hollow in front of the arm, simply 
 cut the arm curve out a little to make up for the room 
 24. 
 
that is borrowed in the triangle 1)135. 
 
 The chief things to remember about cutting dress 
 skirts are not to stretch gored edges, and to make 
 allowance for the way in which the intended wearer 
 habitually carries herself. She is likely to take what is 
 for her an unnaturally upright pose in standing to be fitted, 
 and, if she usually stands and walks with weight on 
 heels, abdomen forward, and hips thrown to the front, 
 letting the best made skirt down at the back and up in 
 front, allowance must be made for this melancholy fact 
 in cutting. 
 
 Very sleazily woven goods should be overcast as 
 soon as cut to prevent fraying and stretching, both 
 bodice and skirt forms. All thin goods should have a 
 thread run about the arm's eyes to prevent their stretch- 
 ing out of shape. 
 
 It is of great importance to have the outside ma- 
 terial and all the linings for every part of all dresses cut 
 upon corresponding threads of the goods. 
 
 Unless this is done the strain of wearing falls in one 
 way upon the outside fabric and in another way upon 
 the inside lining, and in another upon the under lining, 
 and the dress hangs badly, sits badly, and wears 
 badly. Facings and linings for the skirts should be 
 fitted exactly in cutting to the shape of the breadths 
 and weaving of the outside, and linings should be just as 
 precisely fitted to the outside of bodices. 
 
 In handling velvet and all exquisite fabrics use a 
 piece of soft clean old cheese cloth as a foil. Basting 
 threads and pin thrusts mar velvet, and should be used 
 only where their trail will afterward be hidden. Vel- 
 vet seams must be practically hand sewed. If machine 
 stitching is used, every inch of the seams must be guard- 
 ed to prevent the pile of one edge slipping past that of 
 the opposite one, so that when finished the edges of the 
 seam will look like a miniature field of wheat through, 
 which somebody has strolled, With a needle or some- 
 smooth instrument press the pile back from the edge in 
 sewing, so that instead of flattening it down between. 
 25. 
 
the edges of the seam, it shall be forced back and thus 
 stand up partially hiding the seam when the dress is 
 finished. It is in such points as that the dressmaker 
 "must use her head." 
 
 No one's eyes should be so critical of her work 
 as her own, and when anything goes astray or 
 "a'gley," she should fathom the trouble and correct it. 
 
 Sleeves are now made "forty ways for Sunday," 
 but it is rarely the exception that those do not sit best 
 that are cut so as to bring a straight thread of the 
 goods between the middle of the elbow and the middle of 
 the top of the sleeve at the shoulder. This throws the 
 part of the sleeve below the elbow upon the bias and 
 produces the best fitting forearm sleeve. 
 
 Women whose figures are out of proportion must 
 have special accommodations devised for them. A page 
 of rules and suggestions might be laid down, and the 
 next patron who happened along would very likely 
 defy them all. 
 
 A dummy lining is the best aid to the dressmaker 
 in experimenting in cutting for great perculiarity or de- 
 formity of figure. Do not be afraid of taking exceptions 
 to rules, or of inventing new methods to suit the case in 
 hand, whether it is to take a V out of the arm's eye at 
 the back, to fit the very round-shouldered woman, or to 
 insert one over the bust in front, to suit the very large 
 woman. 
 
 Make the dummy lining fit though it has biases all 
 over it, then cut the lining by it, and adjust the outside 
 to make it as becoming as possible. Never allow a de- 
 formed woman to wear a severely plain bodice. 
 
 Economize cloth in cutting, but be a spendthrift 
 with ideas and basting. 
 
AIT" HEN it comes to making, the actual sewing and 
 " ^ finishing, the American dressmaker has nothing 
 to learn from any one. First class American dress- 
 makers turn out the best work, so far as the mechanics 
 of dressmaking go, of any dressmakers in the world. 
 In point of fact, they make dresses too well. They 
 might with advantage to themselves, and with no dis- 
 advantage to their patrons, unlearn something about 
 sewing, and let some of the fussy details, over which 
 they now bother their heads to very little purpose, go 
 by default. 
 
 Doubtless, a riding habit cannot be too well made. 
 There is not a superfluous inch of material about it and, 
 probably, it cannot be too well sewed, or too carefully 
 finished. But the A-i American dressmaker puts too 
 much fine sewing into her dresses. They look well; 
 they look about as well on the wrong side as upon the 
 right side ; perhaps if they were not such marvels of 
 patience in the inside finishing, they might be more 
 artistic to look at on the outside. Look at even the 
 highest priced foreign made dresses ; by comparison, 
 they seem almost slovenly in workmanship, compared 
 with American dresses, but after all to what end put 
 such an infinite amount of pains into the finishing off of 
 a dress that, nowadays, is worn but a few times. The 
 riding habit that lasts its last thread out, may be made 
 as well as possible, and even the heavy cloth street 
 dress demands considerable detail of finishing to make 
 it pass muster and stand its hard usage, but house 
 dresses and evening dresses might be slighted in finish- 
 ing just as the Parisian dressmakers slight them 
 without suffering an iota in looks or wearing possi- 
 bilities, and with a notable saving in time and trouble. 
 A good many American dressmakers are martyrs 
 
 27. 
 
to fine stitches out of a mistaken regard for the unim- 
 portant part of their work. Nobody desires to return 
 to the pretty ugly sewing of our great grandmothers' 
 days, when their hand-made gorgeous brocades were 
 not only not very carefully finished on the inside, but 
 were not particularly well sewed on the outside. Oh, 
 I know their sewing was held up as a fetish to our 
 childish understandings, but look over a collection of 
 their most splendid clothes preserved in any museum, 
 and take courage. 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker is clever. She knows 
 every trick in putting her work where it will make the 
 most show. So long as she gets the effect she 
 wants, and it stays as long as long as it is required, 
 which is not long, for instance, in a tulle party frock, 
 she doesn't try to make the sewing in every part of the 
 sort that would win a prize at a school exhibition. The 
 Parisian Milliner long, long ago found that she could 
 get effects by pinning on her hat and bonnet trimmings 
 that absolutely defied sewing, and the Parisian dress- 
 maker will catch a flounce of lace here and a ribbon 
 there with fascinating grace, and never bother her head 
 about how it looks on the wrong side. Why should 
 she? 
 
 There is a chance for American dressmakers who 
 have spoiled American customers by over precision of 
 finish upon the wrong side of dresses, to introduce a 
 change by quoting the example of the most influential 
 of the Paris modistes ; they might offer to make a dress, 
 for a given sum, that shall be neat on the under side, 
 but not sewn with a microscope ; or one finished mic- 
 roscopically as to sewing for a certain additional sum. 
 This would win the day and offend nobody. It is high 
 time that American dressmakers learned some of the 
 Parisian tricks. 
 
 For the necessary multiplicity of detail in making 
 
 the simplest dress after it is cut and basted and fitted, 
 
 the following suggestions are based upon the points 
 
 that many dressmakers have not yet learned to follow 
 
 28. 
 
or avoid, as the case may be. 
 
 In the matter of seam stitching, it pays to use the 
 best quality of silk for everything but wash goods. 
 The waist seams should he sewed with fine stitches 
 that lock in the middle. For stitching skirts, the stitch 
 should be lengthened to double the length. Skirt seams 
 do not have the strain of bodice seams, and sit better 
 if the long stitch is employed. All seams should be 
 stretched to the full extent of their straight edge in stitch- 
 ing, as the seam passes under the machine presser foot. 
 
 Large dressmaking establishments employ special- 
 ists, one who does nothing but cut and fit, or several 
 who cut and fit exclusively ; sometimes even the cut- 
 ters and fitters are different individuals ; then there are 
 workwomen who make waists exclusive of sleeves; 
 others who do nothing but make and trim sleeves; 
 others are skirt makers. The buttonholes are made by 
 someone else, and so on and so on. The average dress- 
 maker must combine all these specialities in her single 
 grasp, and her task at best is not an easy one ; however 
 she can do it, and must. 
 
 The dressmaking establishment with which she 
 must compete, has a man tailor to make all the jackets 
 and waistcoats for its outing suits, and its dressmakers 
 coolly if wittily say that a dressmaker who attempts 
 to make coats and vests should be arrested for mal- 
 practice. 
 
 Perhaps the dressmaker who doesn't know how to 
 make a coat or a vest should be, but it often happens 
 that the dressmaker is an all round able woman who 
 can do everything in her line and do it pretty well. 
 
 If she aspires to be something of a tailor as well as 
 a dressmaker, or even to be a very good dressmaker, 
 she must learn that tailors call their pressing irons 
 their best friends. 
 
 It isn't enough to iron; dresses must be pressed, 
 
 by main strength. Many goods ought not to be ironed, 
 
 that is to say, they cannot with impunity stand having 
 
 irons pushed into their texture enough to stretch it out. 
 
 29. 
 
Pressing from above downward, not along in a line, 
 is the sort of pressing seams and binding, etc. require. 
 Do not iron seams flat along upon the surface. The 
 edges of the open seams will show on the right side ten 
 times out of ten. A common place but efficacious way 
 of pressing seams to look well, is to open them over the 
 rounding edge of an ironing board, and allow the iron 
 to touch only the centre of the seam. The edges of the 
 seam will then not be outlined upon the goods. Velvet 
 requires to be pressed with infinite painstaking. An iron 
 covered with a damp cloth and set upon end, over the 
 point of which the velvet seam is carried is one method. 
 Another is to open the velvet over the rounding edge 
 above referred to, which is to be covered with coarse and 
 very soft flannel into which the pile can sink without 
 being flattened out. 
 
 The custom of binding seams with lute string 
 instead of overcasting them gives an adorably neat 
 finish, and many good dressmakers, by cutting the edges 
 of the seams into scollops before they are bound, succeed 
 in producing a waist that fits very well. But the best 
 Paris dressmakers do not bind their seams. They over- 
 cast them. Their claim is that no matter how many 
 scollops are made in the seams, or how loosely the lute 
 string ribbon is folded over the edge, still the ribbon 
 binds more or less. The overcast edge gives in wearing 
 to fit the strain on the bodice, and readily adjusts itself 
 to the figure. Open every seam, even to the curved 
 sideback seams, and bone every one, except the shoulder 
 seam, and if the bodice is a close fi,tting bodice as in a 
 habit bodice and some others, put an extra bone between 
 the second bias and the first underarm seam. 
 
 Bones are not intended to fit the seams to the 
 wearer, but merely to keep fitted seams on the stretch, 
 therefore the careful, wise dressmaker fits every bone to 
 the seam it is to occupy, curving some merely at the 
 waist and over the hips, if they go over the hips ; and 
 others, as in the side-back seams, to follow the side 
 curve of the seam. It is a very easy process, 
 30. 
 
requiring only that the bones shall lie in warm water 
 for some time, and be shaped over a warm flat iron. 
 While damp a hole should be bored through each end 
 and twice between, one point being at the waist line to 
 facilitate keeping the bone in place in the casing. 
 
 Because of the care with which first-class dress- 
 makers and tailors bone bodices, it is easy to see why 
 none of the patent steels and other contrivances ready 
 to be applied by paste or a few stitches caty cornered 
 are used in well made gowns. The very best quality 
 of whale bone is only just good enough. 
 
 Bone castings should be puckered decidedly full 
 about the waist line, and full but less so all the way. 
 
 The fullness makes of each casing a pocket, into 
 which the bone sinks, putting the seam above it upon 
 the stretch, while the bone drops away from it into the 
 easier bed, and thus prevents the "rubbing" of the seams 
 upon the right side of a bodice, always in evidence 
 sooner or later where the bones are pressed into the 
 seam by a tight plain casing. 
 
 The bones should reach from the bottom of the 
 bodice, or so far as it is designed to fit closely, (the full 
 skirts of a blouse being of course a possible exception) to 
 within an inch of the top of the corset at the back and 
 side-back. Under the arms the bones must stop short 
 at least a trifle below the corset, and, while in front they 
 may reach nearly but not quite to the top of the biases, 
 they should not be attached to any seam within an inch 
 and a half of the top of the bone. The best casing is a 
 narrow galoon with selvage edges. The upper end 
 should be loose from the seams for a half inch at least, 
 and folded and sewed double, to make a sort of hood in 
 which the bone can play. If sewed to the seam to the 
 very end, they soon wear the dress into holes and show 
 at all times. Two or three strong stitches should be 
 taken through the holes previously bored, from each 
 side of the seam, to prevent the bone twisting on its side 
 as it will otherwise do, and also to keep the seam well 
 distributed over it, instead of allowing it to crawl along 
 31. 
 
to rid itself of the strain upon it. 
 
 If an extra bone is put in between the second bias 
 and the under arm seam, it is covered, and set diagonally 
 between the two, ending on the seams, and is cat- 
 stitched to the lining only. It should be cut a half inch 
 longer than the space it fills, so that it bows out slightly 
 when fastened at each end. When the bodice is in posi- 
 tion, the bow sinks toward the figure, straightens itself 
 somewhat, and puts the outer material on the stretch as 
 desired to keep it from wrinkling, as it is apt to do 
 over full figures. 
 
 A heavy dress or one that is to be worn a good deal, 
 and all dresses with close fitting bodices for large 
 women, in addition to the whalebones down the 
 front, should be provided with one of the flap, kid 
 covered corset side steels which can be bought by the 
 pair for a few cents. The best way of adjusting this 
 steel is to slip it into a pocket made in a double flap of 
 silk, or any lining material in accord with the dress. 
 Attach the flap at one side, so as to bring the bone just in 
 the centre when the dress is fastened ; it takes the strain 
 off the slighter whalebones, helps to keep a too prom- 
 inent abdomen from ruining a bodice and the flap 
 answers as a fly under the opening. The steel reaches 
 from the bottom of the bodice as high as it will go, which 
 is just below the bust. 
 
 A belt of non-elastic webbing fastened at the waist 
 on the three back seams is a necessity in a bodice. The 
 Parisian dressmaker makes this belt noticeably tighter 
 than the outside of the waist in order to keep the bodice 
 from "riding up" in the back. American dressmakers 
 to prevent skirts sagging have latterly attached these 
 belts pretty generally to skirts by means of hooks and 
 eyes at the back. 
 
 The Paris dressmaker refuses to use them, saying 
 that in every case they give to the waist a strained look 
 up and down the back, and pull the skirts up in the mid- 
 dle of the back. She prevents the skirt's sagging by mak- 
 ing the waist band tighter than we do, and directly under 
 32. 
 
the back breadth attached to the lower edge of the 
 waist band, she puts a little cushion of curled hair to fill 
 in the too pronounced hollow that nearly every back has 
 nt that point. 
 
 Facings for the inner side of the bottom of bodices 
 and sleeves should be of silk always, and on the bias. 
 The facings sit better if the edges are turned in and they 
 are hemmed down in long hemming stitched instead of 
 being run on. and turned up and felled down. 
 
 The neck should be faced and felled down neatly, 
 and the collar should be finished separately then blind 
 stitched in place. Where hooks and eyes are used to 
 fasten the fronts, use the common small hooks and eyes, 
 and sew them on alternately, first a hook and then an 
 eye down each side. This insures their staying fastened 
 which they will not do if all the hooks are on one side 
 and the eyes on the other. To prevent hooked fronts 
 yawning set all the eyes even with the edge and all the 
 hooks in a quarter of an inch, so that a line drawn 
 from top to bottom touching each hook and eye would 
 he slightly zig-zag. Hem facings down over them after 
 the hooks and eyes are sewed strongly to the finished 
 edge made by turning the edges of the outside and lining 
 in toward each other, the front whalebones being 
 pocketed between. 
 
 It is a good idea to strengthen the arm's eyes in 
 delicate fabrics in which the linings are also delicate in 
 texture by stitching a narrow bias strip of lining about 
 the seam. Overcast sleeve seams separately, and 
 overcast arm's eye seams with edges together and as 
 narrow as compatible with strength. 
 
 Braided gowns, those that have applied trimmings 
 snch as galoons, '"passementeries, etc., should have a 
 lining of crinoline or canvas under the portion of the 
 cloth bearing the trimming. 
 
 Facings of canvas or crinoline in skirts that are 
 
 not lined throughout should be seamed separately, have 
 
 the seams pressed open, and turned toward the dress 
 
 when applied. A dress that is to be worn on the 
 
 33. 
 
street will outwear more than one binding ; therefore 
 it makes it easier for the repairer if the skirt is finished 
 completely before the binding of braid or velveteen is 
 applied. It is only necessary to turn raw edges in toward 
 each other and fell the lining upon the outside just 
 above the edge of the latter as it folds onto the under 
 side of the skirt. Bindings put on as a piping look and 
 wear better than when applied as a binding. 
 
 Hemming especially upon Henrietta, Lansdown — 
 any of the fine wools, should be done with short needle- 
 fuls of split silk. It makes a much better looking hem 
 to use a medium sized silk split, than the finest silk 
 whole, the latter being twisted and more or less hard. 
 It takes but a few minutes to split the silk for all the 
 hemming on any dress and well repays the slight extra 
 bother. Never hem selvages; snip them at intervals 
 and turn them under or cut them off. No amount of 
 pressing will prevent a hemmed selvage puckering. The 
 skirt opening in the middle of the back should be on the 
 under edge of plaits or gathers, and should have a 
 safety hook and eye for fastening half way down. 
 
 Small wire rings through which to run puckering 
 strings are better than tapes. Where lace or tulle is to 
 be gathered run on one or more rows of the narrow 
 lace "taste" sold for the purpose which is merely a 
 succession of eyelets with a thread or two on each side 
 for the stitching to hold it in place. 
 
 Skirt bands are wrinkled strings before they are 
 worn thrice. In place of them " pipe" the the tops of 
 skirts with a small cord, the cover of the same being 
 felled down upon the under side. Silk looks well but 
 cotton surah or something of that nature lies almost as 
 flat and wears longer. However, this cannot be done if 
 the skirt is to be worn with a round waist ; in that case, 
 use a real belt tape — it is fiat and stiff enough not to 
 wrinkle. 
 
 The leading dressmakers not only send dresses 
 home complete to the ribbons in the sleeves, shields 
 under the arms, tiny sachets of powder under them (if 
 34. 
 
the crescent be not used for fitting purposes,) in packing 
 boxes long enough to take the skirt without folding, and 
 with the shoulders of the bodice plumped out with tissue 
 paper to prevent wrinkles in transit ; but every dress 
 sent home is supplied with a wooden "shoulder" to 
 hang it upon and a skilful needlewoman is sent up to 
 see that the customer upon trying her gown on finds it 
 just right. 
 
 After the most careful last fitting, sometimes, a 
 simple error or oversight will leave something quite 
 wrong, and to discover this, just when one has barely 
 time to dress, is an aggravation that makes the most 
 patient patron " damn" her dressmaker with anything 
 but "faint praise." 
 
 The delicate little attention of these final touches 
 helps to make a dressmaker lauded to the skies, and 
 costs but a trifle which she receives back forty fold. 
 
 ?5 
 
Dri^ss (Joods. 
 
 JP VERY season for the past half dozen years the 
 general verdict has been that, at last, manufact- 
 urers must have reached the limit of possibility in 
 beautiful weaving, charming combinations, and lovely 
 coloring as regards dress goods. But each succeeding 
 season every body — including the manufacturers them- 
 selves — has been astonished and pleased by still other 
 and more fascinating novelties. 
 
 Silk, wool, and cotton — these three divisions still 
 include all the wealth of dress fabrics known, and 
 there are no new colors in the world. But the variety of 
 shading possible in the seven primary colors, plus the 
 limitless possibilities in combining them is infinite, 
 apparently. And out of cotton, wool, and silk, ingenuity 
 manages to devise without end novelties that have all 
 the practical virtues of being new under the sun although 
 when reduced to their lowest terms they prove to be 
 related to very old fashioned fabrics. 
 
 There really appears to be a different texture and a 
 special shade of color for every woman in the world, 
 and yet three quarters of all women seem bent upon 
 having just what the other quarter selects. The woman 
 who knows of her own free will what she wants is not 
 common, and the woman who knows what she ought to 
 have is positively rare. 
 
 The dressmaker is appealed to over and over again 
 for advice. If she aspires to satisfy all the demands 
 made upon her she must not only be an artist in making 
 clothes, but she must be a bureau of information about 
 the dry goods trade. In addition she is supposed to 
 have a brain large enough to remember all the foibles 
 and fads of all her customers, and a heart sensitive and 
 loving enough to bathe each one in sympathy for all the 
 troubles and trials to the unbosoming of which the 
 36. 
 
fitting of a dress somehow leads. 
 
 It certainly does " take it out of a body " to endeavor 
 to live up to these requirements, but, if one means to hit 
 only the weather vane, she is more likely to do so by 
 aiming at the stars than if she fires at the barn door. 
 It pays to be all that is asked of one. The dressmaker 
 who succeeds in knowing everything from the dry goods 
 market a season ahead, to how to dress a scarecrow so 
 that she will look eqally well in a bathing suit and a 
 skating dress, has her hands full, but so has anybody 
 who means to compass all there is of success to be had. 
 It pays. It pays in money, and more than that it pays 
 in fame. 
 
 It pays for the dressmaker to respect herself and her 
 profession. If she does both, and if her knowledge of 
 the art of dressmaking is in proportion, she can present 
 her bills for work done with as much dignity and sense of 
 their justice as can the lawyer, the artist, or the architect. 
 The custom is increasing among city dressmakers 
 of making one or more trips abroad each year, and 
 importing goods and models to fill individual orders; 
 also that of importing from choice lines of fabrics (and 
 keeping on hand) for which customers can select exclusive 
 novelties. There is considerable profit accruing to the 
 dressmaker from these purchases if she be a 
 skilful buyer. There are forty out-of-town dress- 
 makers who make periodical trips to shopping 
 centres now where there was one a few years ago, 
 and the number of dressmakers who buy all linings 
 and furnishings for the dress, if not the material also for 
 each of the gowns they make, increases rapidly. 
 There are compensations for taking this trouble. By 
 buying a quantity of linings at once, the dressmaker 
 can earn a commission for herself, can get better mater- 
 ials to work with, and can give better satisfaction to her 
 patrons, than if each one of them bought a small 
 amount of the things in question for herself. Another 
 reason why it is a good thing for the dressmaker to 
 become a purchasing agent, if not an importer for her 
 37. 
 
customers, lies in the fact that it takes the dressmaker 
 out of her sewing room where she is in danger of 
 becoming a slave to her shears and tape measure, 
 carries her to the fashion centres, keeps her in touch 
 with the world, and really rests her by a change of occu- 
 pation. If one cannot go to Paris and London it is 
 possible to identify one's self with the customers of a 
 leading Metropolitan house or houses, to become 
 acquainted with the buyers, and thus to see the sample 
 books of new things each season weeks before they are 
 placed upon the counters. This gives one a chance to be 
 the oracle of her neighborhood. 
 
 But an oracle has to be very wise in this day and 
 generation. There is next to nothing that it will not be 
 for her direct or indirect advantage to know. 
 
 Chief among the knowledge of materials that the 
 dressmaker should have at her finger ends, is the possi- 
 bilities and limitations in the manner of treating 
 different textures. This is the foundation of a great 
 part of the success of French gowns. The utter lack of 
 careless disregard of this knowledge is at the base of 
 the failure of the majority of native-made dresses in 
 this country. 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker reserves one style of 
 handsome design exclusively for magnificent brocades 
 that are so they require no trimming and are so beau- 
 tiful in their own pattern that they must be made 
 up with long flowing lines to display the material itself. 
 An American dressmaker is painfully apt to see and 
 admire the design of such a dress, and make one like 
 it for some one of her patrons substituting for the heavy 
 rich fabric that would almost stand alone, some fluffly, 
 flimsy stuff that in justice to itself should be draped. 
 
 Parisians introduced stiffened skirt linings to extend 
 their cloth skirts, and for a season now they have been 
 holding up their hands in horror over the spectacle of 
 American-made gowns of pretty soft, dainty fluttering 
 silks stretched into board-like sweeps by horse hair such 
 as they had found desirable for heavy cloths. 
 38. 
 
The American dressmaker is too meek. She will 
 take any kind of an order fearing to offend a customer 
 by refusing. It would be a feather in her cap in the 
 end, if she refused to throw away her work upon un- 
 worthy models. 
 
 To compete with La Parisenne the American dress- 
 maker must learn to perfection the handling required to 
 show various dress goods at their best. The best 
 handling for India silk is not the best for ladies' cloth, 
 nor is the treatment proper for f oule at all the thing for 
 cloth of silver, or rich moire antique. 
 
 It is not enough either to know that superb brocade 
 trims itself, and that applied ornament, save as a 
 jeweled border or lace for the neck aud arms, is an im- 
 pertinence. The dressmaker who understands the art 
 of dressmaking will not make up a material suitable 
 only for a dowager for a girl of eighteen, or vice versa. 
 
 The American dressmaker is fertile in resources 
 and has a wonderful fund of tact. Let her but exercise 
 these, and the most captious patron will melt at once 
 under the illuminating advice of the dressmaker as to 
 what to buy and how to make it. 
 
 The dressmaker who knows her business thoroughly 
 keeps herself posted in dry goods trade matters as well 
 as in designs for dresses. The big shops have one 
 buyer for laces and another for trimmings; one for 
 wools and another for silks ; in short, a specialist for 
 each department. It need not be set down that the 
 dressmaker who must know something of everything 
 from button hole twist to wedding veils, cannot be 
 expected to know all there is to know of all the details 
 of the business from which she draws her supplies. But, 
 if she subscribes to fashion journals that keep her 
 posted in advance upon all matters connected with 
 dress, she will know a great deal before a good many 
 people find it out. 
 
 For example the retail shops are flooded with 
 Vandyke laces. But the dressmaker who is up in the 
 trend of the dry goods trade does not advise her patrons 
 39. 
 
to t)uy Vandyke points. She has learned that they are 
 "popular," yes; but they are no longer worn by the 
 most fashionably dressed woman aoroad. New designs 
 are forthcoming from the lace manufacturer, and 
 dealers who have a lot of Vandyke points on hand are 
 endeavoring naturally to make you and me think they 
 are all the rage in order to work off their superfluous 
 stock. If one finds a really beautiful piece at a real 
 " bargain" in price there is every reason for picking it 
 up to use where it will not be over conspicuous, as upon 
 a house gown ; but nobody wishes to buy for a street 
 dress or one that is to be worn in public anything that 
 is bound to become very common because the bottom 
 is falling out of the price, owing to the lapse from style 
 of the article in question. 
 
 The American dressmaker must study more. 
 
 The nomenclature of dry goods changes from season 
 to season, but no one needs to pay much attention to 
 names except the merchant who uses them for facility 
 in filling orders. The dressmaker cares little whether 
 the wool is woven slanting and is called diagonal, or in 
 waving lines and is named corkscrew. The thing that 
 she is concerned with is whether it has a hard twist and 
 is going to wear shiny quickly ; whether it is really all 
 wool ; or whether there is cotton in it to turn it shabby in 
 a short time. Dressmakers have gone on recommending 
 dark serge for summer traveling dresses till the ghosts 
 of there victims who have worn their fingers out brush- 
 ing it will surely rise and haunt them someday. For 
 winter wear serge is admirable. For summer it is too 
 hot, and catches dust, especially the prettier English 
 rough finished serge, in a manner quite awful to behold. 
 The dressmaker who first had the courage to say the 
 truth about serge received the blessings of every woman 
 who heard of her. 
 
 It doesn't matter whether I have an all-over crinkled 
 cr8pe wool or not, if it is to be interlined, and the inter- 
 lining is to be seamed up with it, but the wise dress- 
 maker will warn me against having an "all-over," if 
 40. 
 
ttiere is to be but one lining and that seamed separately, 
 because, after I have worn the dress a few times, it will 
 have sagged below the lining, and will look weary and 
 sad, and so shall I. She, being wise, will save me and 
 herself annoyance by advising me to take the crinkles 
 with plain supporting threads between. 
 
 She will advise me that there are English dyes and 
 German dyes and French dyes, and that, if I am pick- 
 ing out an all black toilet, I ought to select all blacks of 
 the same dye, for one wears green, and one gray, and 
 one yellow, and my gown and hat and coat will look 
 passe long before they should, and long before they 
 would, if the blacks were alike and wore to the same tone. 
 
 I may not know, but my dressmaker should, that 
 English crape for mourning is better in quality when 
 sold in the roll than when folded, and that the rough 
 side ought to be put next the dress to give it something 
 to cling to, and that the smooth side ought to be turned 
 out so that it will not catch dust and threads ; and fhat 
 if the crape is applied to silk or some smooth surface it 
 should be lined before being put on with a thin rough 
 black cloth that it may have the support it requires in 
 wide folds to keep it in place. 
 
 If I do not know any better than to buy cheap and 
 poor silk just because it is "warranted every thread 
 silk," it would be a beneficent action on the part of my 
 dressmaker to tell me, that " all silk" silk very low in 
 price is made up of either very poor silk or very short 
 ends and that either one is not worth making up. The 
 wise dressmaker knows that most of the high priced 
 novelties at the beginning of the season are no better, so 
 far as the grade of the silk or cotton or wool goes, than 
 many that are much cheaper, the advanced price being 
 to cover the oddity in weaving, or unusualness in some 
 other particular. If she wishes to deserve my gratitude, 
 she will advise me against buying these, unless I 
 can have endless changes of toilet, because they are not 
 enough better in grade to make it worth my while to 
 afford them, — I who can have but few dresses, — when 
 41. 
 
'they are new ; and, when at the end of the season they 
 are cheap, they are pronounced enough to look bizzarre, 
 and so much more out of style than something less 
 noticeable. 
 
 It is an excellent idea to find out the differences 
 between leading foreign and American productions. It 
 assists greatly in buying to know that in fancy silks 
 France leads ; that American black silks are so good 
 France imports some of them; that plain, colored 
 American silks are admirable ; that staple, plain wools 
 are good here at home, but that for novelties the foreign 
 manufacturers whose designers and colorers have been 
 in the business from generation to generation, excel us. 
 The Paisley coloring in some of the Scotch mixtures, for 
 example, is something that we here cannot duplicate ; at 
 least we have not done so yet. 
 
 It pays to know that the prettiest brocaded fancy 
 linings are a delusion and a snare for anything but 
 capes. They are not firm enough for bodices or skirts. 
 The very best possible lining for any dress is one of 
 silk. It adds something to the cost of the dress, but it 
 adds a great deal more to the style of the dress. It has 
 with all its thinness, a firmness and a body that nothing 
 else has. A silk bodice lining does not wear as long as 
 a fine silesia lining, and, in some of the dresses that cost 
 even two or three hundred dollars and have an all siik 
 skirt lining, the bodice is lined with silesia where 
 the dress, as in the case of a cloth street dress, is to be 
 subjected to hard wear. 
 
 Taffeta is the best silk for lining, and when it cuts 
 out about the foot, a facing of cotton surah and a silk 
 balayeuse will make it strong and presentable again. 
 
 Percaline is totally unfit for the very wide skirts, well 
 as it answered the purpose in cheap dress when sheath 
 skirts were in vogue, as it collapses in yards of addit- 
 ional weight about the feet. Lawn or paper cambric 
 is the only suitable lining for summer silk dresses, 
 where silk cannot be afforded. Stiff interlinings are al- 
 ready passe in Paris in all gowns save as facings about 
 42. 
 
the foot. These facihgs should range from ten to four- 
 teen inches according to the height of the wearer. The 
 break in so many skirts when the wearer steps is due to 
 the carelessness or ignorance of the dressmaker who put 
 in a facing as deep for the short woman as the tall 
 woman. 
 
 A dressmaker may make a good gown and not 
 know gro8 de Londres from ombre mousseline pa^se by 
 name. But the gown will not amount to much, unless 
 she recognizes the essential difference in the materials 
 and designs the dress accordingly. She can be a pretty 
 good dressmaker and not leave town once in a year, nor 
 know whether batiste or peau de soie is the correct thing 
 for a golfing costume, till she reads a description of one. 
 
 But, the dressmaker who keeps herself posted on the 
 dry goods market and new styles, and knows them from 
 A to Z when they are new and fresh, is the dressmaker 
 who is not going to miss getting anything that is worth 
 having. 
 
 43. 
 
1r\m\T)(§S, Ca(:(?5, purs, ^tc. 
 
 /^^NE of the differences between good dressmaking 
 ^"'^ and poor dressmaking is the tendency on the 
 part of the latter to over-elaboration, and meaningless 
 design. The home-made hat and bonnet are nearly 
 always over-trimmed. The home-made dress and the 
 gown made by the professional dressmaker who is a 
 novice incline the same way. 
 
 Half the dresses that are meant to be attractive 
 combination gowns look like nothing so much as patch- 
 work, and two thirds of all dresses, instead of having a 
 governing motive enhanced by the decoration, are but 
 collections of more or less handsome materials put to- 
 gether without ryme, reason, or art. 
 
 Of course, there is nobody left who does not know 
 that the province of trimming is to ornament, but no- 
 body will deny that the greater part of all the trimming 
 to be seen looks as if it had been cut off the material for 
 the sake of sewing it on again, and rarely as if it had 
 been applied by the hand of an intelligent directing 
 being carrying out a definite idea of her own or of some- 
 body's else. 
 
 One of the commonest designs in dresses were first 
 made is that giving the effect of one dress opening 
 over another. Where there are not actually two robes 
 the idea is furthered by having a separate petticoat, or 
 skirt panels ; a waistcoat, or perhaps there are but a 
 chemisette and cuffs to carry out the idea of an under- 
 dress. 
 
 The idea is a pleasant one to the eye, but half the 
 time the design is spoiled by the silly way in which it is 
 put into effect. Suppose for example that the inner robe 
 is white and the outer one black ; it would be quite the 
 proper thing to have black revers turning away from 
 the white chemisette faced with white, or to have cuffs 
 
 44. 
 
of the black turned back faced with white ; or to have 
 puffings of the white show through slashes in the black 
 sleeve ; but to set a puff of white on the outside that has 
 no connection with the supposed inner robe, at once gives 
 a mixed up look to the dress that is fatal. Have some 
 plan, some motion in combining goods. 
 
 An unobtrusive fabric, however simple, so that it be 
 good of the kind, will, if made up aristically.pass muster 
 among much handsomer materials ; but once add to it 
 some cheap trimming and its poorness, in contrast to the 
 other iine gowns about it, is thrown into positive poverty. 
 The simple dress of itself, so long as it does not trans- 
 gress auj' law of beauty, might have been chosen by a 
 simple taste out of sheer preference for its simplicity ; 
 but attempt to trim it up with poor trimming, and it is 
 stamped at once as poverty stricken from necessity, not 
 plain from preference. 
 
 On the other hand, trimmings should not be too 
 splendid for the materials they are to adorn, nor incon- 
 gruous. Fashion's leading tailor can put a mohair braid 
 on a cloth street dress and ask two hundred dollars for 
 it with impunity ; but he could get fifty more as well as 
 not; why doesn't he put pendant jets on the dress? 
 because he knows better ; the jets do not belong on a 
 street dress, but on carriage and drawing :oom toilets. 
 
 Study more. Study cause and effect, and the rela- 
 tions of things. 
 
 A white pique waistcoat for the street dress is quite 
 correct in taste as it can be laundered daily, if need be, 
 and may always be fresh and dainty. But a white yoke 
 or white trimming of any kind of material that cannot 
 be laundered,on a dress that must see hard or constant 
 service, where it is certain after a few times wearing to 
 look dingy and inelegant, is an error in taste that is 
 inexcusable. 
 
 The rich silk passementeries in even the most ex- 
 pensive varieties are made of silk wound over cotton 
 cords Upon elegant dresses these outwear the dresses, 
 45- 
 
but upon dresses that are to be knocked about from Dan 
 to Beersheba they are a poor choice. They do not looK 
 appropriate when new and they soon become shabby. 
 
 All silk fringes are worth buying. No silk braids are, 
 save for use upon garments that are to be seldom sub- 
 jected to hard wear. 
 
 Trimming is not designed to cover up, but to enhance. 
 When for economy's sake it is used to cover up, it must 
 be selected and applied with redoubled skill to prevent 
 it '-giving away" its mission. 
 
 Trimming should mean something. Bands that bor- 
 der nothing, straps that confine nothing, bows that tie 
 nothing, offend the taste. 
 
 A girdle on a close-fitting plain waist is an anomaly. 
 It should seem, if it does not, to belt in fulness. 
 
 Draperies invisibly held are always annoying to the 
 sensitive vision. It adds greatly to the influence they 
 have upon the eye, to supply a strap or some apparent 
 means of holding the gathers. 
 
 A full gathered skirt below a tight-fitting plain waist 
 is comical. Where does the fulness come from ? The 
 waist should have some fulness, else the body has the 
 appearance of having been made and dressed in two 
 portions. The body is whole from head to foot, and 
 this must be born in mind in order not to spoil the lines 
 of the figure and the effect of the dress as a whole. 
 
 The most beautiful trimmings are those worked upon 
 the material ; they represent the utmost refinement and 
 elegance. Embroideries and those done in connection 
 ■with fine applique are usually beyond the province of 
 the dressmaker, being wrought either on or off her prem- 
 ises by specialists. But a gown to be thus ornamented 
 should be designed with especial reference to the 
 trimming, and the dressmaker is therefore by no means 
 unconcerned in the decoration. 
 
 Laces like dress-staffs have well defined limits within 
 ■which alone they should be employed. Delicate, fine, 
 fairy like laces only are suitable for the very young, and 
 46. 
 
the superb heavy rich laces are appropriate only for 
 magnificent gowns for stately matrons. There are 
 laces and laces, but most people are in a curious state of 
 ignorance about them all. 
 
 One need not be a connoisseur in lace to know enough 
 about it to be able to tell good from bad, nor need she 
 devote much time to the study in order to get a passing 
 knowledge that will be of genuine value. For ordinary 
 uses it is desirable to know that laces may all be roughly 
 divided into hand-made and machine made examples. 
 The hand-made laces are either "point" laces, that is 
 made stitch by stitch with a needle; or "pillow" 
 laces made upon a pillow by weaving with a 
 number of little bobbins around pins stuck in the pat- 
 tern ; or a combination of pillow and point lace. 
 
 Machine laces do their best and often a wonder- 
 fully good best it is too, to imitate all hand-made laces. 
 Latterly, the especial fashion in laces has been the 
 revival of heavy points or their imitation, those repro- 
 ducing the raised points of the Spanish and Venetian 
 schools having a particular vogue. This is a far throw from 
 the reign of the so-called oriental laces that overswept the 
 country a few years ago, but not so erratic a one as it 
 seems, for the absence of draperies in the present 
 fashions precludes the wholesale use of deep flouncings, 
 and the more compact laces that do not lend themselves 
 to fulness, and are carefully enough made in the 
 machine laces to bear more or less scrutiny, are the only 
 ones thats in reason, could be used for the flaring collars 
 and revers and similar styles of the present day. 
 
 Handsome lace should not be gathered to disturb 
 the pattern, and beautiful fine laces are out of harmony 
 with coarse materials ; 'two points that many dress- 
 makers quite overlook in embellishing gowns with lace, 
 or endeavoring to do so. The so-called guipures, a 
 name that has been appropriated by some of the. 
 machine laces imitating the ancient guipure which 
 included all raised point lace, in good quality are,; 
 47. 
 
suitable for dresses of heavy material as velvets, satins 
 handsome wools in combination with these, etc., but 
 on the delicate soft stuflfs they are wholly out of place, 
 and should not be permitted to mar an otherwise fair 
 creation. 
 
 " Thread lace " does not mean anything, for all lace 
 is thread lace, whether machine or hand made, being 
 either of silk thread, linen thread or cotton thread ; but 
 real hand made lace is always valuable and in good 
 style if used in conjunction with proper materials. 
 
 Furs are perhaps the biggest lottery in the shoppmg 
 trade outside of boots and shoes, and the latter is one 
 of the few things with which the dressmaker need not 
 bother her head on anybody's account but her own. It 
 pays to buy furs of a reputable dealer and depend upon 
 his advice. All black furs are dyed, and upon the dye 
 depends much of their subsequent value. Even the so- 
 called natural black furs are of a brownish tinge and are 
 dyed for the market. The Germans dye Persian lamb 
 and Astrachan skins better than anybody else in the 
 world, and the English beat the world with seal skins. 
 
 Persiana that looks to the inexperienced eye every 
 whit as good as the German cured and dyed article, 
 undersells it two to one, but the German article will 
 outwear it six to one. 
 
 A little information of this kind is extremely useful to 
 go shopping with. 
 
 Suppose that furs which are warranted dyed by the 
 best dyers in that special line, are offered half lower than 
 what seems to be the same article a few doors away. It 
 may be that the difference is because of the greater 
 prestige of the higher priced store, and that part of the 
 difference in price is to pay the fashionable dealer's 
 high rent, and not for a superior article in fur. But the 
 chances are that the cheap fur, while made up of well 
 cured and dyed skins, contain only odds and ends of 
 them, put together in such a way that thick and thin 
 skin comes together, insuring little wearing quality for 
 
tiic fur. 
 
 Prices whiffle up and down to accord with fashionable 
 favor, but all skins, as of the chinchilla, that come from 
 a little animal are one not plenty, are always high 
 priced when finely matched. The so-called electric 
 seals are high priced at any price, as they wear very 
 ill indeed. If it is selected, it should always be for a 
 cape, and should be bordered with some strong fur, as 
 Martin. The cheap "seal" furs are so soft they wear 
 bare on edges very soon, and are not to be thought of 
 for jackets or anything that is to be subjected to rub- 
 bing. In buying in the spring at " bargain sales," it is 
 well to remember that Martin is beloved of moths be- 
 cause of its natural odor, while the pests rarely attack 
 seal and Persiana and other dyed furs. 
 
 There are furs and furs, and only an expert's opinion 
 is worth anything about them, so many are the pranks 
 played in curing, dyeing, and sewing the skins. There- 
 fore learn all you can about them, so as to know what 
 to avoid, and then deal with a A-i house. 
 
 The making of bows is a Parisian knack that deserves 
 to be caught over here. It is'nt difficult to make a 
 fetching bow, and yet most women dread to undertake 
 it, and fail when they do. ' ' What advice would you 
 give to a would-be bow maker ?" I asked a Parisian 
 adept. " Don't fuss," was her reply. "People take 
 too much pains with bows and they look set and 
 homely." 
 
 Her way was to make each bow of one piece of ribbon, 
 unless she had a lot of short ends to make up for econ- 
 omy's sake. She folded a lot of loops together and took 
 a bit of fine thread wire, black or white, whichever 
 accorded best with the color of the ribbon, and twisted 
 it tightly a few times round the loops ; then she gave 
 each one a pert little touch, snapped a strap of ribbon 
 over the wire, and there was the bow. If she wished 
 the loops to set out very bouff antly, she put a flat ribbon 
 wire under the ribbon as she bowed it up, but she used 
 49- 
 
little wire, saying that first qualities of ribbon and the 
 tight strapping through the middle kept the loops 
 fluffy enough. 
 
 If anybody with a scrap of taste will sit down with 
 ten cents worth of crSpe tissue paper, and experiment for 
 a few minutes, she can learn to make bows as well as a 
 French Milliner. 
 
 It puzzles many women to guage the amount of 
 material they will need for a dress, if they have no pat- 
 tern at hand that gives the precise figures. But it is 
 easy to reckon the quantity. How wide is the material? 
 How many widths of it will be required to cut the num- 
 ber of breadths going into the skirt ? How long are 
 these breadths to be ? 
 
 If the cloth is a yard wide and there are to be six 
 yards in the width of the skirt, and the wearer needs a 
 skirt 42 inches long when finished ; then, roughly speak- 
 ing, allowance must be made for six breadths, 45 inches, 
 or a yard and a quarter long, each, to allow for turning 
 in, or seven and a half yards of cloth for the skirt. 
 
 Of material half as wide, as much again would be 
 needed. If the material were half as wide again, that 
 is 54 inches, or three halves of a yard, one third less 
 material would be needed than for cloth a yard wide. 
 For the bodice allow the length from shoulder to bottom 
 of bodice back and front, and twice the width from 
 shoulder to shoulder including any fulness there is to be. 
 The length of each sleeve must be allowed and the 
 quantity doubled, if the sleeve is to be large, made in 
 one piece and of narrow width goods. Facings and 
 small side forms will be provided in the goring. 
 
 It doesn't pay a dressmaker to make buttonholes, 
 for there is always a specialist in buttonhole making 
 glad to get the work, but now that buttonholes are ' 'com- 
 ing in" again it pays to remember that most materials 
 require an interfacing under the buttonhole hem of 
 stiffened muslin or canvass. 
 
 The buttonhole side proper ? Recall the story of the 
 50. 
 
minister who prayed that none of his hearers (on 
 judgment day) should be found on the buttonhole side. 
 
 5^- 
 
Qolor. 
 
 A A UCH of the effect of dress depends upon its color. 
 ^ *■ Gowns of handsome fabrics made upon becoming 
 lines, may be very ugly in effect because of their unbe- 
 coming- colors, or because these are ill combined, or are 
 out of harmony with their surroundings. 
 
 Nature patiently teaches us impersonal lessons in 
 color that we are slow to learn, and, of the habit of close 
 observation that unfolds the truth with regard to what 
 is becoming to us as individuals, we have precious little. 
 It is not that we cannot learn, but that we will not. 
 "What a pretty bonnet," I say to a friend, and add 
 with brutal frankness, "but you ought not to wear 
 yellow." 
 
 "Pshaw," says she, " what odds? I like yellow," 
 And off she goes looking sallow and dull, and every 
 body who sees her and chances to have an ' ' eye for 
 color," shudders at her bad judgment. 
 
 " What odds ? " That is what we think, if we do not 
 say it. And yet we like to think of ourselves as artists 
 in dress. The truth isn't always pleasant, but it is 
 good for us. We shall never be a really well dressed 
 people, till we take the trouble to know beauty when we 
 see it, and, how to outwit ugliness, and until we are 
 really honest with ourselves. 
 
 An entire red gown is a fascinating bit of color in 
 the dim religious light of a studio corner, but red is a 
 trying color to go abroad in by daylight on the city 
 streets in July. It's worth nothing that the gorgeous, 
 crimson, sunset, glow comes when the shadows are 
 deepening. A red gown on a sandy beach with an 
 expanse of sea for a background, or a scarlet parasol in 
 the fastnessness of the mountain, is delightful, but 
 either in juxtaposition with crude red bricks in town 
 52. 
 
under a fiery sky is an atrocity. 
 
 Nature! Fudge, say you? And you point out that 
 a green lawn, with gay flower beds may be well enough, 
 but that a grass green dress with trimmings all the 
 colors of the rainbow, would be sufficient to put an 
 impressionistic painter's teeth on edge. 
 
 But not so fast. A green field is never a mass of 
 solid color. There is always a delicate bloom of gray, 
 purple, or yellow or all three on the green. The gorgeous 
 blossoms are not so many bits of primary colors. The 
 subtile gradations in tints, the delicate harmony of 
 tones — these are what please. Contrast, even quite 
 sharp if it be not too violent, is also attractive, but a 
 certain amount of perspective is essential to get the best 
 eflfect. The manufacturers of dress goods have suc- 
 ceeded, past all previous belief, in reducing all the 
 glories of coloring to all wool at so much a yard, but 
 beyond this their power ceases. It is the dressmaker 
 upon whose conscience the color blind, or color insensible 
 woman must, in the end, depend. She may not know 
 better than to order a gra3S green frock with garnitures 
 of artificial old fashioned garden posies, but the dress- 
 maker who expatiates upon the superior loveliness of a 
 sage green gown with embroideries that introduce all 
 the colors, but toned down to a perfect harmony as in 
 some of the oriental handiwork, will have won a great 
 victory, and saved to herself the credit for making Mrs. 
 So and So a gown that is something for artists to rave 
 over, and even men to rhapsodize about. 
 
 There never was a dressmaker, of course, who did 
 not patiently wade through books about color, one of 
 those that deals in details, monstrous long and wise. 
 Orange and from that to blue, and back to white, each 
 and every possible color and shade of it is taken up in 
 turn, and the truth told with regard to its proper and im- 
 proper combination with every other color and shade. 
 But you find it impossible to remember the statistical ob- 
 servations. So do I. So does everybody. We shall do 
 53- 
 
better to keep our eyes open and observe. Study the 
 pictures of the painters who are noted for their superior 
 coloring, for one thing. Ask ourselves questions about 
 toilets that we see everywhere, for another thing. Try 
 the effect of certain colors alone and in combination 
 against certain faces, for another thing. Don't you 
 remember holding the butter-cup under some school- 
 mate friend's chin years ago, to see if she "liked but- 
 ter ?" Don't you remember the glow the buttercup 
 yellow threw upon the skin? It might not be so becom- 
 ing to her now, if she had eaten fried foods and taken 
 no exercise these many years. 
 
 It helps out one's success to remember that many 
 colors, that cannot be worn becomingly close up about 
 the face in a high necked dress, are becoming enough 
 in a low necked gown. Shades that are becoming by 
 daylight, may not be so by artificial light, and vice- 
 versa. This is the reason why the careful shopper 
 selects the colors for her evening finery in the 
 " evening silk room " that is a feature of all leading dry 
 goods shops, a room in which only artificial light is 
 furnished. 
 
 It is not even safe to match odd colors by daylight 
 alone, if they are also to be worn in the evening, as 
 shades that are often pretty together in the sunlight, 
 are ready to "swear" at each other, as the French 
 have it, by gas light. 
 
 There is a wonderful scene of proportion observed 
 by nature in her color arrangement, riotous as it some- 
 times seems. The sharp contrasts that she sanctions, 
 are shown, it must be remembered, subject to the soften- 
 ing influences of perspective and environment. A 
 jonquil with its vivid yellow petals and green stem has a 
 whorl of a harmonizing shade between the colors to 
 blend them. 
 
 If the daffodil yellow bodice above the leaf green 
 skirt is not agreeable to contemplate, try introducing yel- 
 low in jewels or tapestry needlework upon the green gown. 
 54. 
 
Bright colors are seldom becoming in the mass, 
 except to pretty children, or when the surroundings can 
 be arranged with special reference to the toilet, but 
 they may be introduced as accenting notes. The deli- 
 cate maiden who figures in story books, "clad in a plain 
 gray frock relieved by a single glowing damask rose," 
 is not unknown in real life, and a pretty picture she 
 looks, providing she has the clear skin and rose tinted 
 cheeks that look well in neutral tints. 
 
 But why the elderly woman who has lost from her 
 cheeks and from her hair, all the color they ever had 
 and from whose eyes the sparkle of youth has departed, 
 should array herself in gray, is a disheartening mystery. 
 She of all others requires the soft warm tints of rich 
 crimsons and prune russet and plum shades, those that 
 are so successfully dyed, that they seem to have a bloom 
 over them like that on the velvety petal of a deep jac- 
 queminot rose. As one grown older too, she looks best, 
 not in the simple colors and plain fabrics, but in those 
 with slightly roughed surfaces, and "invisible" com- 
 binations of colors, as in the miroir velvets, the shot and 
 ombre silks, and the very fine mixtures in cloths. 
 
 "The too stout figure by the judicious choice of colors 
 and combinations of contrasting shades, may manage to 
 appear like a willowy girl," writes an artist, and, while 
 ■we may question the exact truth of his enthusiastic 
 utterance, it is unquestionably correct in principle. 
 
 It is most creditable to fashion, the despot, that she is 
 becoming more and even more liberal. She no longer 
 sets the seal of her approval upon any one color or com- 
 bination ; and, while smiling benevolently upon a variety 
 of colors, she approves more and more of colors as well 
 as designs that are becoming. You may make up bleuet 
 with equanimity for the youthful person's house bodice, 
 because her hair is glossy and brown, and her cheeks 
 are wild roses, her eyes like a deer's, and her skin like a 
 baby's, but defend me who have colorless straw hair 
 and dull blue eyes, a muddy skin and no color in it, save 
 55. 
 
about the nose, from wearing bleuet, shell-pink, olive, 
 or any of the other colors from ecru to majenta, in 
 which I shall be equally a fright. 
 
 There is a medium bright shade of green with consid- 
 erable depth to the color, in which I look surprisingly 
 well, and there is another shade of brown, a warm deep 
 rich brown with gold lights in it, which also reduces my 
 hopeless ugliness to its lowest terms. See that I am 
 advised about accepting them, if you would save your 
 gowns from losing all their credit through being most 
 unbecoming to me. 
 
 Black and white in combination are generally 
 becoming to all European races, say artists, the fair 
 skin forming a neutral tint between the two. Creamery 
 white is becoming to nearly all people, save to the 
 sallow woman under strong daylight. Where there is 
 too little color in the eyes and hair and cheeks, an all 
 white toilet may be saved from failure by the addition 
 of becoming color in bands and bows. 
 
 The florid, blowzy complexion looks best in clear 
 black, with a creamy tint, placed between the neck and 
 the dress to soften the contrast. The same thing is 
 true of all colors ; the late reign of the colored velvet 
 stock to the contrary notwithstanding. A line of 
 creamy white should come between the face and any 
 decided color to make the latter most becoming. 
 
 Dark hair and fair skins take kindly to reds, and 
 red is amazingly becoming to flaxen haired children and 
 blondes of older growth, when the skin is fair and 
 clear — not otherwise. A dull complexion needs lighting 
 up, but do not set it in too great a glare of light. Very 
 light and very dark shades are more becoming, as a gen- 
 eral thing, than medium shades of any color. Swarthy 
 and sallow skins may wear reds to advantage, if they 
 are rich, not dull in color, and neutral shades with a bit 
 of rich color here and there ; but dull brown and dull 
 greens, and the pale tint of blue and pink etc., never. 
 
 Reddish gold hair and gray or blue eyes look well 
 56. 
 
in rich warm browns, golden hair inclining toward 
 flaxen, and very fair skins find greens with yellowish 
 tones, peachy-purples, and purpling red plum shades 
 becoming. Pale pink is exceedingly unbecoming to 
 anyone who has not dark hair, a very pale skin, with a 
 delicate bloom of pink in the cheeks. Pale blues and 
 very light greens look well with delicate skins and 
 light hair, if the eyes are not dull. 
 
 Complexions vary from person to person, literally in- 
 finitely, and no rule is iron clad. But this much is cer- 
 tain ; all colors are not equally becoming. Charming 
 toilets in themselves are often robbed of their effective- 
 ness, because of their unbecoming color, and therefore 
 the clever dressmaker who is looking out for all the 
 credit to which she is entitled, will, as a matter of busi- 
 ness, make herself a judge of the values of color. And 
 as a matter of beauty, she can lay claim to her prowess 
 in this direction upon a far higher plane than that of 
 mere reputation's sake. 
 
 57. 
 
style. 
 
 4 6 O TYLE" applied .to the description of dress is a 
 i curiously elusive quality either to lay hold 
 upon or to define. 
 
 A " stylish" garment describes one made in one of 
 the fashions of the day, but. when the "style of the 
 garment" is mentioned, we do not know, until we see 
 the garment or hear it described, whether it is made in 
 the style of yesterday or of last century. A dress may 
 be "in style" so far as its cut and finish go, and yet 
 not look " stylish" when it is worn, either because it is 
 worn in the wrong way or by the wrong person, showing 
 style to be not a simple but a compound product. 
 
 "A stylish woman " is said frequently of one dress- 
 ed a la mode, and yet, in the next breath, some other 
 woman is described as "good style" though she may 
 not wear the latest fashions or the costliest material, 
 and need not herself be beautiful. 
 
 The French word chic which is so glibly misused in 
 in English, expresses, in the original, a good deal of 
 what we mean by " style " in English, although chic is 
 a substantive and we use it as an adjective. Comically 
 enough cMc in the original is a masculine noun, but 
 whatever it may have had of righteous masculine appli- 
 cability when the Lords of Creation wore brocades and 
 real laces, in these days of black swallow-tail coats and 
 trousers, chic is practically an exclusively feminine ap- 
 pelation. Chic means knack. It is the knack in getting 
 up a toilet that shows itself in the ensemble, or the 
 absence of it that makes or mars the style of the toilet. 
 
 "We say style," says an old writer, " of anything, in 
 which form or matter is conceived to be, in however 
 slight degree, expressive of taste and sentiment." And 
 it is taste and sentiment more than costliness that go to 
 the making of sfyZe-that intangible something, so hard to 
 58. 
 
locate and so much to be desired, because it is so much 
 admired in woman's dress. 
 
 "Good style," that is, really good style— the best 
 style — is a landmark. Just beyond its borders is that 
 quagmire of loud and flashy fashion into which so many 
 women tumble and flounder through trying to hit style 
 and making a poor shot. 
 
 There is a certain breezy quality in the fashions of 
 the day, allowable in the dress of buds and young 
 society blossoms, that is fatal to the attire of older 
 women. If the latter attempt to copy it, they are cer- 
 tain to make themselves ridiculous by calling attention 
 to the stretch of their imagination between their ageing 
 figures and faces, and their girlish clothes. A stretch so 
 great that the connection becomes painfully attenuated. 
 On the other hand, it is perfectly possible for women 
 even of three score and ten years to dress stylishly. It 
 must be possible for others, because some elderly 
 women already do both dress stylishly and look stylish. 
 But it can be done only by clothing the dignity of years 
 in clothes not only elegant (or at least fashionably 
 modish and refined), but in fashions that have some 
 dignity. 
 
 The era of the "New Woman" has in no way 
 displaced the Old Woman-old in femininity, whatever 
 her years. She is about, just as usual, asking in her 
 search for help in the matter of clothes, of all her 
 acquaintances, '' Who is your dressmaker?" "Is she 
 stylish, and does she fit well?" Vernacular for, are 
 the gowns she makes a success. 
 
 What does it mean, this being " stylish?" 
 All dressmakers cut and fit and make by the newest 
 designs, but everybody knows to her distress of mind, 
 that only the minority of woman get safely into that 
 haven of dress — "style." The woman who wishes she 
 were stylish and knows she isn't, would like to know 
 the reason why she is not; and the dressmaker who 
 sees the ducats scampering into other tills than her 
 59- 
 
own, and fame making a mundane halo around other 
 heads than hers, wishes she knew the reason. 
 
 Style is not a synonym for richness of apparel, for 
 it is not possible to turn round without seeing two 
 women of whom one may be said to be "stylish" and 
 the other quite devoid of style, and, yet, the latter is 
 more often than not the more expensively dressed. 
 
 Style isn't imitation. There are women galore 
 whom one might dress up in duplicates of all the splen- 
 did clothes ever made, and they would still look dowdy 
 and frumpy. 
 
 It is a good deal easier to tell what style isn't, than 
 what it is. For one thing, though, it is a combination 
 of qualities. The stylish woman not only has stylish 
 clothes, (clothes made modishly, however inexpensi- 
 vely), but she wears them stylishly. 
 
 Personality is the real essence of style. "That 
 which can contrive, which can design, must be a person," 
 says Paley "These capacities constitute personality, 
 for they imply consciousness of thought." 
 
 A dressmaker, almost any dressmaker, can learn 
 to cut and to fit and sew a dress, and yet be almost as 
 impersonal as an automaton, but the dressmaker who 
 turns out a "creation," must herself be a person with 
 contriving and designing faculties, and must have so 
 keen a scent for discovering the leading traits of the 
 women for whom she makes gowns, that she recognises 
 them when she finds these leading characteristics, and 
 knows how best to set them off with articles of dress. 
 
 Every conoisseur in gems knows that only a strik- 
 ingly beautiful, brilliant, statuesque woman with fine 
 coloring can wear diamonds. Upon the quiet little 
 mouse of a woman ; on the sallow, homely woman, they 
 are like the glare of an electric light in showing up 
 her facial shortcomings. Diamonds belong to the 
 handsome woman, with flashes of wit to keep the sparkle 
 of the stones company. 
 
 The handsomest materials made in the newest 
 60. 
 
 il 
 
fashions are by no means to be distributed hap-hazard 
 among women, any more than should jewels. One 
 woman looks well in one style, another in some other 
 and quite different one. 
 
 To find out what style suits any particular woman, 
 the woman herself must be studied. To one who never 
 thought of the doctrine of fitness in connection with 
 style in dress, it might seem a huge undertaking to root 
 into the subject to such depths, but it is the route taken 
 and followed by every prominent dressmaker.^ 
 
 It doesn't make any difference whether I am a 
 Methodist or an atheist, an admirer of Howells or an 
 apostle of romanticism, when it comes to selecting the 
 color of my dress ; the proper color or colors depend up- 
 on my complexion, and the lines of the dress should ac- 
 cord with my height and avoirdupois. But if I am a 
 dashing young person who plays golf, and drives a four 
 in hand, and dances the German with the leader, and 
 gives dinners and goes to the opera, my style of dress, 
 the style that would be perfectly correct for me would 
 be totally bad style for the Sister of Charity. Her figure 
 may be like mine, her coloring the same, but her mode 
 of life is so different from mine, that the clothes in 
 which I might be properly dressed and very effective, 
 would be as incongruous in the slums as the Sisters cor- 
 rect toilet would be in the box seat of a coach. 
 
 By the same token, the pretty, trailing, clinging, 
 charming gowns that are tout aufait upon the artist 
 dreamer in her studio, she being young and lovely, 
 would be in wretchedly bad style for me who am getting 
 fat, and forty and not fair, and devoted to business and 
 the hustling bustling walks of Hfe. 
 
 Stvle has to do with the fashions that are in vogue ; 
 it has also a great deal to do with the skilful or unskilful 
 way in which the reigning modes are adapted to the 
 woman who is to wear them, and to her needs and re- 
 quirements. It also depends a good deal upon the way 
 in which a woman wears her clothes after they are made. 
 6i. 
 
Some woman are not " stylish," dress them in what 
 you will. They do not "carry" their clothes well. They 
 do not carry themselves well, and their gowns look, how- 
 ever handsome in themselves, or however appropiate, 
 as if they merely happened upon them and not as if 
 they were designed for the woman who wear them. The 
 dressmaker can do a great deal ; but there is a point be- 
 yond which she fails, unless her efforts are supported 
 by those of the woman for whom she designs. 
 
 A word to the wise is sometimes sufficient, and, if, 
 when I am lamenting the while you struggle with the 
 fit of my bodice, because ' ' Mrs. Brown always loots so 
 well in her clothes," you were to say Mrs. Brown carries 
 off her clothes well, it might have a salutary effect upon 
 me. 
 
 The " stylish" woman has a good poise. She stands 
 well, and she walks well, and she carries her head well, 
 and her clothes take on just the right swing. Put them 
 upon the woman who shambles ; the woman who stands 
 on her heels instead of upon the balls of her feet ; the 
 woman who throws her abdomen and hips forward, and 
 lets her chest sink in and her shoulders droop forward 
 and her back flatten ; and the style of the toilet is over- 
 shadowed by the lack of style in the woman herself. 
 
 If dressmakers called the attention of their custom- 
 ers not brutally to their deficiencies, but politely to the 
 superiority of certain styles of dress for certain styles of 
 figures, much might be gained in the way of satisfaction 
 for the customer, and credit to the dressmaker. 
 
 The woman who is admired for her style in dress- 
 ing, no matter what the time or the occassion, looks as 
 if what she wears at that time and upon that occasion 
 were thought out with especially reference to the time 
 and the occasion and especially to her. 
 
 How many, many toilets are to be seen on every 
 
 hand that look as if they were picked up hap-hazard, a 
 
 piece at a time, at a ready made shop, or very often as 
 
 if they were actually made an inch or two at a time ; as 
 
 62. 
 
if the designer did not know how she was going to make 
 the sleeves till she got the rest of the bodice done : as if 
 the skirt were made in another mood, from quite 
 another point of view the really stylish dress is thought 
 out as a whole. It "hangs together" well; the 
 *' composition," as painters of pictures say, is good. It 
 may be a morning dress for the street, simple as an un- 
 trimmed skirt and round waist of black crepon with a 
 twist of ribbon about the waist and neck and wrists can 
 make it, but it hangs just right as to skirt, fits just right 
 as vO bodice, is of a becoming color, and the lines suit the 
 figure ; it is fresh and wrinkled and unfrayed. Every 
 detail accompanying it from gloves to delicate linen 
 handkerchief is spick and span ; the wearer walks as if 
 she were an uncrowned queen, and three quarters of 
 all the men and women who pass her say ' ' awfully 
 good style." 
 
 The very next woman is over-dressed in the morning 
 in a toilet elaborate enough for an afternoon tea, she has 
 a bad carriage, her hair is stringy, her gloves a little or 
 a good deal soiled, her veil looks as if it had been put on 
 in the dark, etc. etc. and she has the general air of having 
 been left over from the day before. 
 
 The chances are that her dressmaker receives a 
 good deal of the blame for the lack of "style" about 
 this second woman, and not infrequently, she is a good 
 deal to blame for having made up a street dress that is 
 over done, and for having failed to so subtly impress her 
 customer with the all-round character of style in dress 
 that she is not a credit to her when the customer walks 
 abroad. 
 
 The dressmaker who succeeds in giving to her 
 gowns the coveted stamp of style, has her fortune in 
 her grasp. Therefore, it is worth while for her to 
 know all there is to know about the externals that 
 contribute to style, and enough about the core of the 
 matter, which is the wearer's own bearing and carriage 
 and keen appeciation of detail, to coax these up to the 
 63. 
 
standard necessary to set off properly the dressmaker's 
 successful designs. 
 
 Study materials and study designs with a view to 
 adapting one to the other. Study the woman her face, 
 her figure, her complexion, and her needs in dress — in 
 the light of the position she fills in society. Then, 
 having gotten a fair picture of what the ensemble should 
 be, make the details agree with it, never loosing sight 
 of the fact that the stylish dress looks as if had 
 been "composed" as a whole, not collected in fragments 
 and fastened together till there was enough of it to cover 
 the woman. 
 
 And, to top off with, the stylish dress must be carried 
 off with a stylish air, and this depends upon the woman 
 who wears it. Some women are hopeless, so far as 
 style goes. Others are a great success within themselves. 
 Others are malleable material and susceptible to the 
 clever dressmaker's missionary efforts. Be a mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 64. 
 
jiow to Select gotl^es. 
 
 6 i r^^> dear ! What shall I get for a dress?" 
 
 ^^ Poor dressmaker ! As if she did not earn 
 
 her money hard enough in dressmaking, she is expected 
 to have a wealth of suggestions always on draught 
 about selecting the materials as well as the fashions for 
 making them up. And, yet, who is so well equipped as 
 the dressmaker or who should be so well equipped as 
 she to give just this information ? It is for her advan- 
 tage, moreover, to do so, even at the expense of the 
 extra time required. It helps in securing for her the 
 best possible materials to work with, and thus increases 
 many fold her opportunities to turn out work that will 
 do her credit. The growing custom, already referred 
 to, among dressmakers, of shopping, even of importing 
 for their customers, proves that many dressmakers 
 have already found out the advantages of designing 
 their gowns as far back as the materials themselves. 
 
 But it presupposes no small amount of knowledge 
 on the part of the dressmaker, to expect her to be infal- 
 lible in planning every gown she makes to perfection, 
 beginning with its very beginning. 
 
 The fashion chronicler does not need to be nearly 
 so wise as the dressmaker. The former tells what the 
 fashions are — all of them. The dressmaker must needs 
 know the virtues of every design, and enough to guard 
 against bringing out the possible vices of the style by 
 placing it where it does not belong. The customer 
 must judge of the limit of expense for her order, but 
 beyond this no one should be better able than the dress- 
 maker to say just what the price named will do, when 
 spent to the best advantage. It would seem with the 
 great variety of materials and styles for making ever at 
 hand, that it should be an easy matter to suit every 
 body to a T. So it would, if Nature had gotten round 
 65. 
 
to moulding every woman in perfect form, with perfect 
 coloring. But she hasn't. The perfect jwoman, physi- 
 cally speaking, does exist, but she is rare. Considering 
 how rare she is, the dress designers pay altogether too 
 much attention to her. 
 
 Most women, measured by an ideal standard of 
 beauty, are too tall or too thin ; too short or too stout ; 
 they stand badly ; they walk badly ; or they have spoiled 
 their complexions by hook or by crook ; something is 
 sure to be wrong. The dressmaker's art is to cover 
 these defects so far as possible to draw attention away 
 from defects toward the good points of the figure. 
 
 The ideal woman can wear anything from a Greek 
 chiton, to a Knickerbocker bicycle dress, and look divine 
 in it. But with very few exceptions allowed for the 
 perfect woman, designs must be adapted before they 
 can be adopted to advantage. Fashion plates are drawn 
 tall and divinely upon divinely fair women ; to show 
 the proper proportions to be observed in the designs 
 themselves, according to the mind of the de- 
 signing artist — speaking now of designs that are 
 good enough to be entitled to consideration by elegantly 
 dressed woman. Some designs are hopelessly 
 bad at the beginning, and the dressmaker who is 
 worthy of her price, should know these at a glance and 
 eschew them. 
 
 Designs, however good in ^themselves, are not 
 meant to be slavishly copied. A woman six feet tall 
 may wear a dress skirt eight or ten yards wide at the 
 bottom, but the dumpy little Frau who is as broad as 
 she is long will be a ridiculous figure in the same enor- 
 mous sweep of skirt. 
 
 The Parisian dressmaker refuses to make sleeves 
 for short, stout women of the width of the sleeves she 
 makes for tall, thin women ; more than this she does 
 not believe in giving the ^short, stout woman gowns 
 modeled on the same lines as those for tall, thin women. 
 She designs something especially for the roly-poly 
 66. 
 
body. 
 
 •' Make Madam a long coat of this material ? Oh na 
 Madam has not length of limb enough for a coat ! " 
 .'A cape? ' you suggest meekly, " Worse and worse ;" 
 says La Parisienne in effect if not in so many words, 
 and she goes on to explain that Madam's figure is too 
 short for a cape, but that she is well formed, and a 
 close fitting jacket which will display the symmetry of 
 her figure, is the proper garment for her. 
 
 In America somebody sees a good looking dress for 
 the ideal woman, and in 99 times out of 100 dresses are 
 made from it in all sizes from 32 to 44 inch bust meas- 
 ure ! Once in a while the style is such, that by enlarging 
 or reducing the pattern and keeping the proportions the 
 same as in the original, the dress is becoming to large 
 and small women: but in most cases the design, while 
 all right for the little woman or for the large woman, is 
 all wrong for the woman who is at the other extreme in 
 size. 
 
 Paris dressmakers and the American dressmakers who 
 have their trade turned into an art, make one style of 
 sleeve for the woman whose arm is like a rail and quite 
 another style for the arm shaped like a ham. But three- 
 fourths of the home dressmakers, with too great con- 
 fidence in the pictured fashions and too little in them- 
 selves, put the enormous leg of mutton or the elbow 
 balloon or the skin tight sleeve, if that is in vogue, into 
 all their dresses the season through, regardless of the 
 size or shape of that forearm, or the eflfect of the sleeve 
 upon the huge bust, or painfully thin shoulders, thinking 
 only of the fascinating personage who wears those 
 same sleeves in the fashion journal. 
 
 All praise to the journals. What should we do 
 without them. They scour the world for ideas that 
 dressmakers may sit at home and make use of them. 
 But the dressmaker has her share of work to do. It is 
 to study her patrons with just as much assiduity as the 
 fashion chronicler studies the generality of designs. 
 67. 
 
Supposing the fashion chronicle does say that plaids 
 are coming " in " again. They are never in fashion for 
 the woman who weighs two hundred pounds. 
 
 V-shaped necks are never in style for the woman 
 with a long thin face, Et cetera ad infinitum. 
 
 Boleros may come and blouses may go. but 
 the princess style reigns forever for the stout woman. 
 Details may be altered to accord with those in vogue, 
 but the unbroken lines characteristic of the design, (the 
 only style of gown which preserves intact that beauti- 
 ful line on the stout figure from the arm to the ankles 
 over the hip) are anchors of safety. 
 
 There is a fortune, not to mention the thanks of the 
 community, awaiting the dressmaker who will make a 
 specialty of designing and making dresses for the women 
 who are too large, too small, and not well formed. A 
 few dressmakers have this gift among their other gifts, 
 and profit accordingly ; and until none but the perfect 
 woman presents herself for advice about her clothes, as 
 well as to have dresses made, it will pay every dress- 
 maker to know how best to overcome such deficiencies 
 as there are to be overcome. Depend upon it, if they 
 are not disguised, peculiarities of figure spoil the effect 
 of the most stylish dress. 
 
 It is possible to bring a circle into the field of vision 
 in such a way as to make it look like a line without any 
 breadth. The superabundant flesh of the fat woman 
 cannot be annihilated by the dressmaker, whatever can 
 be done by means of dieting and Turkish baths and 
 tramping. But it can be dressed in a way to direct at- 
 tention away from it instead of toward it. Whatever 
 makes one appear to be taller, makes her look more 
 slender. Dresses for over stout and short women should 
 be designed to attract the eyes of the beholder, up and 
 down the figure, and not across it. 
 
 Belts that seem to cut the body in two, basques 
 that appear to lengthen the bodice and make the lower 
 part of the body shorter, horizontal and all foot trim- 
 68. 
 
mings, hip draperies, everything, in short, that assists 
 in making the dress look expansive, including large 
 plaids and large figures and very rough cloths, should, 
 be tabooed. Unbroken lines from neck to hem, trim- 
 mings that run up and down, and narrow stripes in 
 dress materials, are especially successful adjuncts of 
 the dress for the stout woman. For the short, fat arm 
 a cuff that turns back draws attention to the arm ; a 
 turn down collar calls attention to the short neck ; tucks 
 in the skirt of a dress for a short figure, say as plainly 
 as So many words, behold how much too long this skirt 
 was for so short a wearer. Black and dark colors make 
 the stout figure appear smaller, and "one piece" effects 
 in dresses and outer garments should be cultivated. 
 Two-third lengths in long coat bodices are disastrous, 
 since they reduce apparent height. 
 
 The majority of women who are unpleasantly stout 
 make the mistake of thinking that the tighter their 
 clothes are the better they look. This is a preposterous 
 idea, for it makes them appear, when it is carried into 
 execution, as if they were tied up for the spit. The 
 very stout woman may be so well proportioned and may 
 carry herself so well, that her clothes do not need special 
 manipulating in order to make them acceptable. But 
 the average large woman carries herself badly, with 
 rounding shoulders, and flattened back at the waist 
 line, and, through long years of bad management of 
 herself, her bust and abdomen are in a fair way to meet. 
 The young woman who gets into this deplorable shape 
 may undo the trouble by persistence, but the 
 elderly woman is generally too indolent, too accustomed 
 to her bad figure to be willing to make it over. The 
 dressmaker's one hope, then, is to make a dress for such 
 a figure that will not tell the whole truth with regard to 
 its inartistic outlines. 
 
 The dress that has an unbroken line from under 
 the arm to the hem is the best choice, and the under arm 
 form should be close fitting ; if the shoulders are very 
 69. 
 
rounding at the back, there will be an unlovely broken 
 backed effect between them in a plain waist. Accord- 
 ingly the existing fashions in trimming should be 
 adapted to cover that line where the back curves sharply 
 above the corsets from long habit of settling into them 
 and stooping. 
 
 The bodice in front should be a trifle loose fitting 
 between the bust and abdomen, the fulness serving to 
 hide the real hollow there, suggesting a valley between. 
 two mountains. If the fulness cannot be draped a 
 trifle, as in the present style of blouse front which on a 
 stout woman looks well between two close fitting jacket 
 fronts cut quite narrow, it can be drawn in plaits, not too 
 tightly, to a point on the abdomen, and seemingly be 
 held there by a girdle coming merely from the under 
 arm forms. 
 
 Sleeves must not be so large as to make the width 
 of the figure enormous, but should be loose enough to 
 conceal the over grown arm. Skirts should be full 
 enough to hang easily, whatever the style, and should 
 be extra long in front so that under no conditions will 
 the skirt poke up in front. 
 
 The thin woman's best course is in general terms 
 to pursue just the opposite plan to that followed in the 
 dress of the stout woman. Fluffy fashions are becom- 
 ing to her, shirrings, puffings, floating ends, U-shaped 
 necks instead of V-shaped ones if they must be low, 
 clouds of tulle, and all manner of devices to soften the 
 too angular outlines of face and figure. Trimmings 
 should go across the dress, not up and down. Yokes 
 and girdles, and foot trimmings that seem to reduce the 
 height, loose jacket fronts if any on bodices, full round 
 waists where possible, plaids, and never stripes unless 
 made up horizontally — these, are some of the details 
 that the skilful dressmaker will observe. 
 
 Sleek, smooth, cold, plain surfaced satins are very 
 trying to the thin, colorless woman; and "nigger head" 
 materials, large figured, high colored brocades make 
 70. 
 
the big woman look bigger and blowzier. 
 
 Nothing but complete metamorphosis will make a 
 beautiful woman out of a homely one, and this is 
 beyond the province of even the dressmaker, but she 
 has it within her power to make a fright of a really 
 very good looking woman, or to make a really well 
 dressed and attractive picture of a woman to whom 
 nature has not been kind. 
 
 The dressmaker who makes up her mind to include 
 the latter feat among her specialties is certain to have 
 half the feminine world at her feet. 
 
Eco^o/ny. 
 
 THE best is the cheapest. The saying is so trite 
 that it has lost some of its force. Everybody 
 believes it, but a great many people make bold to dis- 
 regard it, because they find so many seeming exceptions 
 to the rule. The truth is, these are not exceptions — the 
 instances where the best does not prove to be the cheap- 
 est. They are the cases merely where the best is not 
 the highest priced. A great many people make the 
 mistake of thinking first class quality and expensiveness 
 are identical. Good grades cost more than poor ones, 
 but fancy prices are very often asked, not because the 
 quality is super excellent, but because the pattern is 
 novel. 
 
 The best is the cheapest, all things taken into con- 
 sideration. One would not buy the best quality of any 
 goods for a stage dress to wear one night, because the 
 grade that would answer every purpose for the case in 
 hand, would not have to withstand wear, and something 
 less valuable would look to all intents and purposes 
 quite as well across the footlights. But when it comes 
 to buying clothes that are to be subjected to close 
 scrutiny and continued wear, it pays to get the best 
 quality, whether it be flannel or cloth of gold. 
 
 The old fashioned distinction between a "best 
 dress" and one of every day wear, has passed away 
 with the introduction of the custom of having a special 
 dress for many special uses, — calling, wheeling, dining, 
 the theatre, shopping, etc., etc. The woman who lives 
 in the country and does her own housework and has 
 one dress a year which she must put on every time she 
 puts on her bonnet and leaves her own front door, still 
 speaks of her "best dress," but the chances are that 
 even her daughter belongs to a woman's club, and is in 
 other ways advanced enough to divide her wardrobe up 
 72. 
 
into at least half a dozen dresses ; instead of two. Each 
 one of these half dozen is distinctive in style, however 
 unpretentious the style is ; or it should be, if she wishes 
 to make any pretention to being well dressed. 
 
 It is a mistake to have half a dozen dresses alike, 
 save for a possible difference in color, or the adjustment 
 of the trimming. Yet very many women do this who 
 do not know better, and dressmakers somewhere aid and 
 abet them. The result is a number of cheap materials, 
 cheaply made, no one of the dresses looking anything 
 but commonplace. 
 
 The clever woman, whether she be the poor country 
 girl or the rich country girl or a city woman, knows 
 better than this. She has one street dress ; one dress 
 that is, that will answer to wear on the street whether 
 to shop or to church, to travel in or to make an informal 
 call in. This dress she has as good as she can get ; the 
 style is not pronounced enough to become known when 
 it has been once worn, but the cloth is of the best, and 
 the workmanship and style are A-i of the kind. 
 
 Then the clever woman who is trying to economise, 
 having gotten her one good street dress for the season, 
 takes care of it. She does not loll about the house in it. 
 When she gets home, off comes the dress with its 
 perfect fitting bodice that will not stand lounging, and 
 on goes a house dress. Neither does she wear her 
 stylish street dress with its elegantly hung and un- 
 wrinkled skirt to the theatre to sit in for several hours. 
 She puts on a skirt that will stand wrinkling, and a 
 fancy waist into which she can settle without ruining it. 
 
 How does the way a woman wears her clothes, after 
 she gets them, concern the dressmaker ? In several 
 ways. It is for the best interests of a dressmaker that 
 the people for whom she makes dresses — from herself to 
 her least valuable customer — shall be as well dressed as 
 possible. The woman who is always correctly dressed 
 is a great credit to the dressmaker, and the woman who 
 dresses well on a little money greatest of all. Many 
 women know ao better than to add one poor character- 
 
 73. 
 
less dress after another to their poor wardrobes, and 
 always, as a result, "look just the same no matter what 
 they have on." The dressmaker can prevent this if she 
 will educate her customers, and it is for her advantage 
 to do so. 
 
 No amount of skilful manoeuvring will make fifty 
 dollars do the work of a hundred, if both sums are 
 spent to advantage, but the difference between what 
 fifty dollars will do in the hands of a shrewd buyer and 
 clever planner, and what it does when spent by a 
 careless purchaser who does not know a good thing 
 when she sees it, is hardly to be overestimated. 
 
 There are bargains and bargains. The kind of 
 bargains that secure 12^ cent goods for 12 cents, saving 
 half a cent a piece on something by spending hours of 
 time, and a fountain of strength, isn't worthy of any- 
 body but a drummer buying by the hundred thousands, 
 The "mark-downs" of pronounced styles, when the 
 styles are passing out of fashion and are so pronounced 
 as to look old fashioned as soon as made up, is another 
 type of alleged bargains that should be passed by. The 
 good dressmaker aims at distinction in all she makes. 
 She should not therefore when shopping or giving 
 advice to shoppers defeat this object. The woman of 
 limited means who must wear any dress that she has for 
 a long time, should be advised to get something com- 
 paratively inconspicuous, letting its elegance of fit, 
 finish, and general " air" make up for its lack of ultra 
 modishness. Only the women who can have several 
 dresses at once and throw them aside as aoon as the 
 pronounced style passes, should be advised to get 
 extravagantly big patterns, markedly peculiar combi- 
 nations, etc. 
 
 It pays to buy the best linings, also to have the best 
 whalebones, the best sewing silks, etc., or two gowns, 
 of which one is to be subjected to hard wear, say, for a 
 school teacher's working dress, and the other is to be 
 reserved for visiting and special occasions, the better 
 material should be put into the dress that is to be worn 
 most. 
 
 74- 
 
It is the dressmaker s province to know shams from 
 goods that are worth while, and, if she does, she will 
 ward off on the part of her customers, the purchase of 
 goods which she knows are merely "dressed" to look 
 like something they are not. The dress goods in both 
 wool and silk that would deceive almost manufacturers 
 themselves when on the counters, but which look as if 
 they had been passed through fire and water when they 
 have been worn a few times, are a cross to the dress- 
 maker, for upon them her happiest efforts are thrown 
 away. They have no "body," and look cheap and 
 poor when they have been worn a little while. 
 
 There are real bargins to be had by the keen eyed 
 shopper, if she knows what she wants, and be not 
 cajoled into taking something she does not want be- 
 cause it is marked ' 'below Qost. " Good boots with a 
 soiled sole and a button or two missing are good bargains, 
 if they are good boots, but the truly economical person 
 no more thinks of buying boots or gloves or silk, unless 
 they are guaranteed by a reputable dealer's name, than 
 she thinks of flying in the face of Providence in any 
 other direction. 
 
 Women are themselves to blame for the trash in the 
 market, because of their illogical determination to have 
 something for nothing, and, when women become wise 
 enough to sort the good values from the poor ones and 
 buy only the latter, there will not be so much shoddy 
 material on every hand, to hamper their selections. 
 
 Some good goods are sold cheap, some cheap things 
 are no good, and some goods are never cheap. 
 
 Trimming is meant to be ornamental garnitures, 
 and poor trimming is not only an offense to the cultiva- 
 ted taste, but it cheapens the best dress, and makes the 
 poor dress pitiful. For economy's sake, too, as well as 
 for the sake of style, it is better to put the limited 
 amount— where it is limited— that can be afforded for a 
 dress, into the material first, spending enough, if it 
 takes the entire sum to do so, to insure the linings and 
 outside dress stuff being of sufficiently good grade to 
 
 75. 
 
look well. One good dress clothes its wearer better 
 than any number of commonplace ones. 
 
 A low priced creamy cashmere may be ecomical for 
 a Greek evening gown, but a black one tailor made 
 from the same grade would be rank extravagance, 
 costing the value of all the findings and making, to no 
 end but a poor dress at best. 
 
 Low priced buttons that look well enough to be 
 acceptable to the eye, may be economical, but a cheap 
 quality of skirt binding is most extravagant, because of 
 the short time it wears and the time it takes to replace it. 
 The " short length" that is sold at a reduction in price 
 is an economical purchase, if it fills a need, but not if it 
 be bought merely because it is cheap. It is not economy 
 to buy enough extra of the original material to have 
 some left over, because when, later on, the new material 
 is added, it makes the parts of the dress that are still 
 retained look older than they really are. 
 
 It is economical to have good judgment and to use 
 it and good judgment increases with cultivation. 
 
 There is economical economy and extravagant 
 economy ; the economical economy does not mean going 
 without, but "thrift, thrift Horatio." 
 
 76- 
 
To make over or not to make over? This is a ques- 
 tion dressmakers are forever revolving in their 
 minds. Does it pay? Yes and no. It pays if one has 
 talent for re-making, and takes the stand of asking as 
 much for making a whole dress out of old stuff as from 
 new material, charging for "fixing over" in proportion 
 to the time consumed. 
 
 There are always women who must economise who 
 find themselves with good material on hand, so good 
 that if it be skilfully worked over, it makes them better 
 dressed than they could be in any new material they 
 feel able to buy. A good many of these woman are 
 willing to pay fair prices for making over the old things, 
 providing taste and ingenuity and style are combined 
 in the process. 
 
 There are dressmakers in New York who almost 
 confine their work to making over, and who make hand- 
 some incomes from so doing. One woman in particular, 
 formerly with one of the largest and most fashionably 
 patronized dressmaking establishments, decided to 
 make a specialty of making over and go into business 
 for herself, because there was a constant fire of queries 
 from the customers of the place where she formerly 
 was, for the address of some one who would take old 
 materials still good and revamp them into stylish up-to- 
 date frocks, or parts of frocks. 
 
 This dressmaker asks her customers to send to her 
 all of whatever they have on hand that they wish made 
 over ; she looks it over and makes an appointment for 
 an interview, in which she says. " With this I can do 
 so and so; that I can do nothing with; this, if you will 
 spend so much on it, I can make into such and such a 
 thing. The work will cost such and such a sum." 
 And so on. 
 
 She employs apprentices who save her time in rip- 
 ping and pressing; she has the materials cleansed if 
 77. 
 
necessary but she prefers if possible to turn them, for 
 most light materials cleansed by any process lose 
 their original "dressing," and soil next time much 
 more quickly than when new. She has a genius for 
 making effective things, this woman. She takes the 
 pale pink silk of the faded party frock, and the 
 black mousseline de sole of the skirt that is frayed 
 and passe about the bottom. The latter she steams free 
 from wrinkles and more crepe like than ever, and has it 
 accordion plaited, and from the combination produces a 
 theatre bodice that is a dream, etc., etc. 
 
 The bodice linings of good fitting waists are often 
 perfectly good when the outside is worn out, needing 
 perhaps merely to be cleaned about the neck and wrists, 
 have some new bones or bone casing, etc. While it 
 would not pay to put them into heavy new cloth bodices, 
 they can be utilized with comparatively little work for 
 the foundations of more or less fancy waists for house 
 or evening wear, the wear on which is slight. 
 
 Most silk is ruined when re-dyed. Light silk better 
 be turned and veiled with some thin material. Black 
 silks, sponged with strong black tea and some ammonia 
 come out wonderfully well if they are rolled when damp 
 very smoothly and very tightly upon a smooth round 
 stick like a Holland shade roller, and have the last 
 edge kept in place by a flat wide tape wound round and 
 round, the stick and its load being stood away to dry. 
 Do not iron the silk. If greasy in spots but otherwise 
 clean, sponge all over with naptha (in a fireless room), 
 and hang in the air to get rid of the odor. 
 
 Some all wool fabrics dye very well indeed when 
 ripped apart. The fairy tales about what can be done 
 in dying whole are not worthy of credence. The wool 
 shrinks, the lining does not and the latter, when cotton, 
 remains near its original color, When the waist is put 
 on, the strain upon all the seams makes them show 
 white, and the dress is good for nothing. 
 
 Lace that is not rusty but wrinkled can be steamed 
 to look like new over the top of a wide mouthed pot of 
 
 78. 
 
boiling water. Crape ditto. Velvet requires two opera- 
 tors ; one to hold it out over the steam, perfectly straight 
 as the least bend mars the velvet, the other with a soft 
 velvet brush to brush against the nap to assist the steam 
 in raising it where it has become crushed. 
 
 It is better when possible to make one new dress of 
 two old ones and buy one new one outright, than to 
 spend the cost of the new one in buying new goods to 
 put with the old, and have in the end but two partially 
 worn gowns. 
 
 Where it is necessary to buy new goods for the old 
 dress, considerable care must be exercised to select 
 something that will make the old goods look better 
 instead of worse. The new texture should be generally 
 of a different material, that is to say, new velvet looks 
 better with old silk than new silk does. Black cloth 
 that has been worn sometime looks better made over, if 
 possible, with some color than with new black goods ; if 
 it is desirable to have the dress still all black, then buy 
 the same color of black, and change the texture, putting 
 rough cloth with smooth, etc. Black chiffon makes a 
 partially worn dull black cloth lifeless and homely. Jet, 
 on the other hand, does something to enliven the black 
 material. 
 
 It is a good deal easier to put a contrasting color or 
 a different shade of the same color with partially worn 
 colored goods, than to match the color exactly; where 
 it is possible to do the latter, the new color is apt ta 
 make the old one look faded beside it. Where other 
 shades or colors are selected, have them either in sharp 
 contrast or harmonizing. Some sets of shades, as blue- 
 greens for instance with yellow-greens, are very ugly 
 together. 
 
 The light coachman's drab dress that, however 
 carefully cleaned, would soil again too soon to make it 
 worth while to remake by itself, may be used with, 
 fetching effect under a darker broadcloth that is perfor- 
 ated in "pinking" pattern, or in such a way that 
 the light cloth shows as a simulated under-skirt, under 
 
 79- 
 
slashed sleeves, as a waistcoat, etc. But, if the drab in 
 the cleansing process has lost its brownish tinge, do not 
 make it up with darker brown, since that will merely 
 make the light cloth look faded. Use a warm green or 
 warm mahogany red-something to give a little color by 
 reflection. 
 
 The skirts of a couple of seasons ago, even those of 
 one year back, are hopeless as skirts to-day, but a col- 
 lection of old skirts in clever hands will make an assort- 
 ment of waists which a couple of new black skirts will 
 make into several useful and attractive dresses. 
 
 A challie that has lost its first bloom is a good con- 
 tribution to the heathen's missionary barrel, but a real 
 camel's hair that was lovely when new and light but is 
 now soiled or faded, can be dyed black to look like new. 
 
 Trimmings of the nature of passementeries, when 
 not worn but which look gray and old, can often be 
 made to take on a new lease of life merely by sponging 
 them thoroughly on both sides with clear black tea and 
 ammonia. Buttons of some kinds take kindly to a gener- 
 ous bath of soapy warm ammonia water, and a polishing 
 when dry with a bit of chamois. Others, as of cut steel, 
 need to be polished with a brush and steel polishing 
 powder. Jet which gets very dusty from usage, when 
 it is not feasible to wash it or sponge it, can be brushed 
 clean with a soft hat brush. Silk passementeries, by 
 the way, should never be brushed, but always sponged 
 clean with a sponge that is merely damp and not wet. 
 Tell customers this when their passementeries are new. 
 
 The fashions of the present day are especially com- 
 plaisant so far as making over goes, the great latitude 
 allowed in the decoration of bodices making it possible 
 to shorten old basques into round waists, make too short 
 waists in basque bodices by adding a gored piece or 
 several gored basque forms below the waist. Bodices 
 too tight across the bust may be enlarged under loose 
 blouse fronts. Sleeves that are tight or in old style 
 may be slashed to admit puffs, the biggest that ever 
 were seen ; indeed there is no portion of a bodice, seem- 
 
 80. 
 
ingly, which may not be revamped to suit the style, one 
 style or another, by adding a yoke, a collarette, a 
 ceinture, — some design of fashion that, in the case in 
 hand, will prove to be both ornamental and useful. 
 
 The dressmaker who will make over, and make 
 over to the best advantage and will make announcement 
 of the fact, draws at once to her doors a deal of custom 
 that is lying about waiting for some body to turn foster 
 mother to it. 
 
 That it pays is proved by the money returns made 
 to those who have cleverly seized upon this unending 
 branch of dressmaking, either by itself, or in connection 
 with their regular work in new materials. 
 
 Whenever and wherever two women gather together, 
 the dressmaker who is "a genius in making over old 
 things" is lauded to the skies, if either one of the 
 women has succeeded in finding her. Patronage flows 
 toward the dressmaker who can and will make over and 
 who does it well, because she is a rarity and because 
 •'making ovei " is an ever present burden of the 
 feminine mind. 
 
 8 1. 
 
Dr(?ss l^<?form. 
 
 SHALL the dressmaker who aspires to be a success- 
 ful fashionable dressmaker, bother her head about 
 dress reform? 
 
 She can't avoid the subject. 
 
 All modern dress is reformed. There was never a 
 time since feminine dress became a complex matter of 
 several garments, when women dressed at once so 
 hygienically and charmingly as to-day. The most 
 ultra-fashionable woman, who does not know that she 
 has a suspicion of sympathy with dress reformers, is 
 wearing more or less reformed dress. She is wearing 
 reformed, or improved — perhaps improved is the better 
 word — underwear, not because she wouldn't rather die 
 than be unfashionable, and so not because of hy- 
 gienic reasons, but because her dressmaker and tailor 
 advise her that her dresses will fit much better 
 over smooth-fitting under-garments [than [over the old 
 fashioned sort loaded with trimming and sweeping 
 with fulness. The latter mode smothered in ruffles and 
 other furbelows is preserved for her negligee chamber 
 robes. 
 
 The fact that French dressmakers, sensitive to the 
 inartistic effect of horsehair stiffened silk skirts, decided 
 not to use the horsehair in thin stuffs, has a great deal 
 more to do with heavy skirts going out of fashion than 
 all the preachments of all the physicians, and profes- 
 sional reformers. Fashion, not preaching is wheeling 
 hygienic dress into line. 
 
 The prettiest dress and the most fetching dress to- 
 day has nothing inimicable to health about it. And the 
 increasing custom of having a number of radically dif- 
 ferent uses, is introducing the sensible as well as 
 artistic and fashionable habit of making each one the 
 best possible dress for the occasion in question. 
 
 There are a number of professional dress reformers 
 in this country and in England who advocate peculiar 
 82. 
 
forms of dress, but the only ones that have any decided 
 following are those that look quite like the dresses worn 
 by the most fashionable women, but which follow more 
 or less closely the outlines of the princess dress in effect 
 or principle. 
 
 Any dressmaker who understands her business can 
 make any "reform" dress that she is asked to make, 
 without any cross to her conscience or offence to fashion. 
 In the large cities there are dressmakers reaping large 
 incomes by advertising that they will design artistic 
 dresses and make reform dresses after the model of this 
 that or the other of the Professional dress reformers. 
 
 It is a good stroke of business to make and to make 
 attractive any dress one is requested to make. The 
 only thing to avoid is turning out a dress that will not 
 do one credit. The few dressmakers who were asked 
 to make the knickerbocker and bloomer costumes shown 
 at the World's Fair by the dress reformers in conven- 
 tion there, claimed great credit for their prowess, but 
 tailors all over the country have made riding habit 
 trousers for years and are making knickerbockers now 
 by the hundreds. 
 
 Bicycling is introducing a style of dress for special 
 wear which reformers have been decades trying in vain 
 to make popular for all occasions. It is a foregone con- 
 clusion that women are not going into trousers ever 
 save for horseback riding, and then only under habit 
 skirts. They are too hideous. The trend is all in 
 favor however of " knickers " for wheeling, and just as 
 strongly as ever in the world, in favor of trailing lovely 
 draped trained creations for the drawing room and 
 boudoir. 
 
 It does behove every dressmaker to master the 
 intricacies of every possible style of dress that she can 
 be called upon to make, if she wishes to hold all her 
 trade, and get more. In the city, the tailor not the 
 dressmaker, is asked to make the bicycle suit, but in the 
 smaller places where "ladies' tailors" are unknown 
 quantities, the dressmaker must be tailor and dress- 
 maker in one. 
 
 83. 
 
Personally, she might not be willing to wear knick- 
 erbockers or ride a bicycle, though she were paid a 
 fortune for it, but it is not good business to refuse to 
 make them or not to know how to make them for custom- 
 ers who wish this style of dress. The book seller does 
 not refuse to sell me a Methodist hymnal because he 
 happens to be a Unitarian, that is he doesn't if he is a 
 shrewd business man. He undertakes to cater to the 
 buyers of books, not to foist his creed upon any one. 
 
 The dressmaker cannot be too catholic in her ability. 
 And if she knows the foundations of her trade thor- 
 oughly, and has had the good taste and good sense to 
 master the art of it, there is nothing she need fear to 
 undertake to make, from a gymnasium dress with divided 
 skirt, to skirt hidden or revealed knickerbockers for 
 athletic sports, or gowns for Queen Victoria's drawing 
 room. 
 
 84. 
 
l9 Qo9c:IiJsio9. 
 
 THE American dressmaker is competing with the 
 world. There are no women in the world to-day- 
 paying so much attention to dress and spending so much 
 money foi it as the American women. There is no rea- 
 son in the world why they should not patronize dress- 
 makers among their own countrywomen, providing the 
 American dressmakers will dress them as effectively as 
 foreigners at the same prices.' 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that all foreign made 
 clothes are of the first order. There are poor dress- 
 makers on both sides of the water. But the best dress- 
 makers in the world, from the stand point of feminine 
 adornment, are the leading French dressmakers. 
 
 They smile, as well as they may, at the American 
 dressmakers' wild and unending chase for a new system 
 of cutting, ever and forever a new cutting system. The 
 French are working to-day as they have worked for the 
 last five hundred years, so far as methods are concerned, 
 but they have not done studying. 
 
 It is a liberal education in the art of dressmaking to 
 see a French dress designer working over any portion of a 
 new design. The material is considered as tenderly as 
 if it were precious, though it may be but an ordinary 
 fabric. And the design for making it is fitted to the 
 fabric long, long before the dressmaker has a chance to 
 fit it to the human figure. 
 
 If the material is to be a rich brocade and there are 
 to be organ plaits, they are measured and guaged and 
 trial plaits are worked upon, until it has been proved 
 that if an inch narrower or an inch wider, the plait 
 would break in walking. Only then are the plaits 
 declared perfect. 
 
 This is a sample of the way the French have built 
 up their reputation, of the way they are still at work 
 upon it. They love dress and they do it credit. 
 
 85. 
 
To the American dressmaker who is content to 
 make the cheap dresses and have her customers import 
 their high priced gowns, there is nothing to be said. 
 But the native dressmaker who aspires to having her 
 work and her profession valued in the front rank, must 
 study to make dresses well, yes ; but to make them 
 well by making them stylish and beautiful at the same 
 time. 
 
 It means study ; it means Recognizing the import- 
 ance of small things when the small things are important ; 
 it means fidelity to detail, and an appreciative eye for 
 effects. It means as constant work and thought as 
 the members of other professions give to their work. 
 The author is never done studying human nature; 
 the lawyer studies law as long as he lives ; the musician 
 studies his life through ; even the base ball player is for- 
 ever on the look out for a chance to improve his playing. 
 
 The dressmaker in this country, taking her work 
 and not theories for a criterion, has too often thought 
 she had learned all there was to know when she finished 
 her apprenticeship. 
 
 There is no such thing as finished up education of 
 any kind. So long as fashions change, and fabrics 
 change, and no two women are born into the world 
 alike, there is constant opportunity to study, if the 
 dressmaker means to raise her trade to an art. And 
 there is not only constant opportunity, but constant 
 need to study. 
 
 It doesn't seem worth while to you? 
 
 Then you are the dressmaker who has mistaken 
 her calling, and the sooner you renounce the business of 
 dressmaking and turn dentist or cook or actress or nun 
 or whatever you have a taste for, the better for you and 
 the better for your present profession. 
 
 Dressmakers who adorn their profession are all 
 round clever and able women, artists quite as much 
 as the painters who make pictures on canvas, and 
 yet there is no calling in the country that is much 
 more looked down upon. Who is going to raise it to 
 
its proper dignity? The dressmakers themselves. They 
 must work for themselves and for each other. Co-oper- 
 ation is the password of the age. Yet everybody has 
 co-operated but dressmakers. Why should they not 
 work together for their mutual advancement ? 
 
 Every dressmaker cannot go to Paris, or even to 
 New York. Why migtit there not be in every community 
 a dressmakers' club, from which at least one dele- 
 gate every season should visit the fashion centres, and 
 go back to her club associates with a head full of new 
 ideas, just as delegates from other clubs go and return 
 thus, why should there not be a national organization 
 of the local clubs, which should meet semi annually and 
 discuss new goods and new styles, the best patterns, 
 and the thousand and one details of the art of dress- 
 making from plaitings to prices? Every woman who is 
 worthy of her calling evolves in the course of her work 
 certain original ways of doing things that are excellent. 
 An exchange of ideas, far from rendering any indi- 
 vidual poorer, would make her richer. She still has the 
 use of her own discoveries and gains the hundreds con- 
 tributed by hundreds of others. 
 
 American women, save in small groups of excep- 
 tions here and there, are still a pretty badly dressed lot, 
 American dressmakers fail by long odds to receive the 
 credit they may hav<j if they will work for it. It is not 
 necessary for them to work any harder with their hands, 
 indeed it is possible for them to do better work and not 
 work so hard with their hands. 
 
 But they must work harder with their heads. They 
 must see more and hear more, and think a great deal 
 more. 
 
 When the American dressmaker understands the 
 possibilities of her profession and grasps them, she will 
 have no equal. She can cater to the tastes of the most 
 elegant American women as deftly and fascinatingly 
 as French women — if she will. 
 
 Perception, Perseverance, and — Perseverance. 
 
 Study, Study. Study. 
 
 87. 
 
->^*i^-* 
 
 'h^ 
 
 SUGGESTIONS 
 
 FOR 
 
 DRESSMAKERS, 
 
 X 
 
 THE MORSE-BROUGHTON CO., 
 
 PUBLISHERS, 
 
 3 EAST 19th STREET, 
 
 BET. B'WAY. & FIFTH AVENUE, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 

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