SOPHISTICATED SEVENTEEN

In the Sophistries of Dress, As in Other Things, the Young Girl of To-day Evinces a Knowledge Far Beyond Her Years

ANNE RITTENHOUSE

IF DIOGENES could hold up his lantern to-day to the modern young woman, he would see things that would send him back to his tub, thinking, thinking. He would perhaps ask himself whether her costume was the visible expression of her moral and mental state, and if so, what was this state.

The young girl of to-day is a problem for the philosopher. The dressmaker is her ally, not her master. This purveyor of fashion has met a condition; she has not created it. She was the first to seize upon a revolution in the souls of women as a source of gain. She is not a reformer nor a prophet. What women want, that she gives them, and the reason she comes in for much blame is that she is a seer.

Juvenility, to-day, is sophisticated. It does not ape its elders, as many allege; it leads the way. One of the significant symptoms of this social condition is that every woman attempts to look like her daughter or some other young girl.

ONCE upon a time there was a sharp distinction between the clothes of a girl and those of her elders; now the matron buys the juene fille frock. The dressmaker, knowing what is in the heart of both branches of womanhood, pleases both, That is her part in the scheme of things. It is true that middle age is prolonged as never before in the world of dress, but, remember this, it is continued longer because it appears sooner. Wasn't it Oliver Holmes who likened woman to pears in that they attained to maturity and sweetness at different seasons? Some ripen quickly, others take their leisure, and there are those who require the sun of summer and the snow of winter for development.

THE girl of the season of 1914 has ripened long before her time. If this is a fault, who is to blame? If it is a virtue, who is to be applauded? Did the girl herself order it, or is it another phase of the revolution taking place, more or less violently, in the moral attitude of the world toward many things — and especially toward women? Perhaps you say, "All this is very well, but what has it to do with the young girl's clothes?" Everything. It explains them, and often they need explaining. However, this is not to be a diatribe against the present dress of youth; far from it. When one thinks of the soul-stunting rule of thumb under which former generations were repressed, one looks gladly not just complacently upon the change.

Here and there one finds fault. There is too much sophistication. One wants to say to the possessor of it so many things — urgent, necessitous things to which youth will not listen. One wants to throw all the weight of one's mind against the rush toward the goal-post, and keep youth back in the field of youth. One wants to prevent the girl making the touchdown that counts the first score in the game of age and youth.

But she wouldn't listen. Neither did age, when it was young. And the results are manifold. One of them is that she is a very good-looking girl indeed, especially in America. In no other country has she acquired so much knowledge of the art of dress; so much cleverness in enhancing her personal charms

SHE argues that she has the mind of an older woman; why should she not, therefore, have her clothes? She is not expected to be silly at seventeen; why, therefore, should her clothes be silly? And they are not. Look at the gowns in the picture. - Within the limitation of an ever-abiding simplicity they reflect the fashions of the moment. On the right is a double-tiered skirt of silver lace over shell pink chiffon topped by a bodice of the same materials. Slippers of silver lace over pink satin, and pink silk stockings complete the toilette. The girl in the armchair wears pale blue cr$pe de Chine, trimmed with fitch. Next comes a chiffon frock having an accordion plaited skirt of white chiffon, and a tunic run with two cords of silver ribbon, and lastly a gown of yellow chiffon with skirt looped up at the back in the new Premet bustle effect.