By Robert Scott
When you have learned what type of garment is most becoming to you, how to select styles, and how to combine materials, you will be able to dress distinctively, in good taste, and much more economically than your neighbor who has not taken time to study the principles of dress and what it means in the way of adornment, developing ideals, and ultimate economy.
Women who know but little about sewing often marvel at the woman who at a glance can tell from the material just what style would be best suited to that material, or who, when she sees a person, can say quickly and with authority what kind of dress that person should wear to bring out her individual type of beauty.
Ability in this direction is usually attributed to cleverness or unusual talent; however, you who understand dress harmony can acquire such ability. With a thorough understanding of line, material, and color you will be able to determine instantly the fitness of certain lines to certain types, and you can broaden your knowledge by carefully observing individuals and styles and the way in which individuals adapt certain styles to themselves.
GETTING IDEAS FROM GOOD AND BAD DRESSERS
The true artist does not mar nor disfigure the surface he wishes to decorate; rather, he works with one thought in mind--beauty of the whole. The dressmaker or home woman who makes really beautiful garments must have not only the qualifications of a designer, but the artistic sense of the artist--must understand line and its relation to color and the individual.
An excellent way in which you may acquire a broad, practical knowledge of good line is to observe carefully and discriminately the women who wear really distinctive clothes and those who wear really ordinary clothes.
Women in dowdy clothes rarely show evidence of style or thought of design, nor do they show any regard for the essentials of correct dress; thus they teach the observer to avoid any such condition in making up garments.
Women who wear really good garments will serve other women as an inspiration to better dressing, and their costumes will suggest possibilities in other fabrics, colors, and designs.
To achieve distinctiveness in dress, never overlook the opportunity of going where good clothes are to be seen--receptions, parties, club meetings, in fact, all places where different kinds of costumes are worn. Study the suitability of the garment for the occasion. Study closely the accessories of the costume, and note how they bring out or detract from the costume itself; then, in matters regarding your own dress or the dress of others, you will be able to suggest little touches that will enhance the beauty of a costume and add materially to its attractiveness.
The theater is an excellent field of inspiration for constructive development in good dressing, not only from the point of correct and pleasing line and color in dress, but as an expression of character or type and appropriateness of environment and occasion.
A successful actress, as I have said before, not infrequently owes a large measure of her success to a close and intelligent study of dress.
Far-seeing theater managers demand a strict adherence to the best in prevailing and historical modes, knowing that, even when not fully understood by all their public, the natural feeling of pleasure and satisfaction obtained from the presentation of correct costuming has much to do with the ultimate success of their production.
It is frequently said that the church-going women folk evidence splendid taste in dress, and that the clothes they wear are excellent style criterions, because they are appropriate for the majority.
A prominent New York designer made a practice of attending a Fifth Avenue church to study the styles of the women in attendance. It may perchance seem irreverent to consider fashion in connection with church. But how many times at Sunday dinner, when the text of the sermon has been discussed, does not some member of the family say, "Did you notice what a pretty dress or hat Miss or Mrs. So and So had on this morning?"
"The artisan hurries through his work to get his dinner; the artist hurries through his dinner to get to his work," is a saying that may well be applied directly to women in their relation to the important subject of clothes.
You will study clothes and admire or criticize them according to your taste and your knowledge of what clothes express.
READY-TO-WEAR GARMENTS AS AN AID
Ready-to-wear garments are also worthy of study in developing good taste in dress.
Such garments are constructed as nearly as manufacturers can plan to please the masses of women, in the majority of cases being hurriedly made and without much regard for workmanship. Rather than durability or practicability of the garment, it is the general outline--the style effect--they strive for, and it is for this reason that the dressmaker or the woman who makes her own clothes should observe such garments carefully.
Oftentimes ready-to-wear garments display a smartness produced by the carefully careless way they are put together, a smartness that is often lost--killed, as it were--by the woman who sews too carefully and too well. It is well to remember this, and learn from ready-to-wear garments, when making clothes for yourself, to strive occasionally for effect rather than perfection in workmanship. When both qualities are attained in a garment, namely, style and good workmanship, the triumph is complete.
When you have learned what type of garment is most becoming to you, how to select styles, and how to combine materials, you will be able to dress distinctively, in good taste, and much more economically than your neighbor who has not taken time to study the principles of dress and what it means in the way of adornment, developing ideals, and ultimate economy.
Women who know but little about sewing often marvel at the woman who at a glance can tell from the material just what style would be best suited to that material, or who, when she sees a person, can say quickly and with authority what kind of dress that person should wear to bring out her individual type of beauty.
Ability in this direction is usually attributed to cleverness or unusual talent; however, you who understand dress harmony can acquire such ability. With a thorough understanding of line, material, and color you will be able to determine instantly the fitness of certain lines to certain types, and you can broaden your knowledge by carefully observing individuals and styles and the way in which individuals adapt certain styles to themselves.
GETTING IDEAS FROM GOOD AND BAD DRESSERS
The true artist does not mar nor disfigure the surface he wishes to decorate; rather, he works with one thought in mind--beauty of the whole. The dressmaker or home woman who makes really beautiful garments must have not only the qualifications of a designer, but the artistic sense of the artist--must understand line and its relation to color and the individual.
An excellent way in which you may acquire a broad, practical knowledge of good line is to observe carefully and discriminately the women who wear really distinctive clothes and those who wear really ordinary clothes.
Women in dowdy clothes rarely show evidence of style or thought of design, nor do they show any regard for the essentials of correct dress; thus they teach the observer to avoid any such condition in making up garments.
Women who wear really good garments will serve other women as an inspiration to better dressing, and their costumes will suggest possibilities in other fabrics, colors, and designs.
To achieve distinctiveness in dress, never overlook the opportunity of going where good clothes are to be seen--receptions, parties, club meetings, in fact, all places where different kinds of costumes are worn. Study the suitability of the garment for the occasion. Study closely the accessories of the costume, and note how they bring out or detract from the costume itself; then, in matters regarding your own dress or the dress of others, you will be able to suggest little touches that will enhance the beauty of a costume and add materially to its attractiveness.
The theater is an excellent field of inspiration for constructive development in good dressing, not only from the point of correct and pleasing line and color in dress, but as an expression of character or type and appropriateness of environment and occasion.
A successful actress, as I have said before, not infrequently owes a large measure of her success to a close and intelligent study of dress.
Far-seeing theater managers demand a strict adherence to the best in prevailing and historical modes, knowing that, even when not fully understood by all their public, the natural feeling of pleasure and satisfaction obtained from the presentation of correct costuming has much to do with the ultimate success of their production.
It is frequently said that the church-going women folk evidence splendid taste in dress, and that the clothes they wear are excellent style criterions, because they are appropriate for the majority.
A prominent New York designer made a practice of attending a Fifth Avenue church to study the styles of the women in attendance. It may perchance seem irreverent to consider fashion in connection with church. But how many times at Sunday dinner, when the text of the sermon has been discussed, does not some member of the family say, "Did you notice what a pretty dress or hat Miss or Mrs. So and So had on this morning?"
"The artisan hurries through his work to get his dinner; the artist hurries through his dinner to get to his work," is a saying that may well be applied directly to women in their relation to the important subject of clothes.
You will study clothes and admire or criticize them according to your taste and your knowledge of what clothes express.
READY-TO-WEAR GARMENTS AS AN AID
Ready-to-wear garments are also worthy of study in developing good taste in dress.
Such garments are constructed as nearly as manufacturers can plan to please the masses of women, in the majority of cases being hurriedly made and without much regard for workmanship. Rather than durability or practicability of the garment, it is the general outline--the style effect--they strive for, and it is for this reason that the dressmaker or the woman who makes her own clothes should observe such garments carefully.
Oftentimes ready-to-wear garments display a smartness produced by the carefully careless way they are put together, a smartness that is often lost--killed, as it were--by the woman who sews too carefully and too well. It is well to remember this, and learn from ready-to-wear garments, when making clothes for yourself, to strive occasionally for effect rather than perfection in workmanship. When both qualities are attained in a garment, namely, style and good workmanship, the triumph is complete.
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