Page:Book of Etiquette, Volume 2, by Lilian Eichler.djvu/186

162 middy appear beneath her elaborate wrap. We see her at a tea, enthusiastic over the glories of the eighteenth hole, and interpreting the glances of her friends at her sport shoes and bright sweater as glances of admiration rather than disapproval. Sport clothes are for the tennis courts, golf links, skating rinks and similar places. They have no place at teas and receptions.

Of the transparent blouses and silk dresses of the business woman, we will speak later; but in drawing a comparison, we might say that they are no more inappropriate than the eccentricities of dress assumed by some of our women of fashion. The importance of this question warrants a special paragraph.

Many men and women, in the mistaken belief that they are expressing personality, adopt certain peculiarities of dress.

Eccentric dressing always attracts attention, and is therefore bordering on the vulgar. There are, of course, many men and women who enjoy attracting attention, who delight in being considered "different." In such people we are not interested. It is the people of good taste that we wish to advise against the mistake of wearing peculiar and unconventional clothes.

There is a very old tale related about an Egyptian queen who owned a chain of coral, strung on a strip of dried skin from one of their sacred animals. She gloried in the possession of it, and in order to do full justice to it, she forbade everyone in her kingdom to wear beads.

The man or woman of to-day who wears "different" clothes, unconventional and in most cases unbecoming gar-