Page:Book of Etiquette, Volume 2, by Lilian Eichler.djvu/87

Rh underneath the trees. Music is usually on the porch instead of on the grounds. The house is open, and the younger guests may dance if they wish. Supper is served either outdoors or indoors as convenient. Altogether the garden party, whether held in the afternoon or evening, is a picturesque, charming and delightful affair and deserves the wide popularity it is enjoying both in America and England.

Summer frocks, in their airy flimsiness and gay colors are ideally fitted for the colorful background of a garden or lawn party. And the lady's escort, in his white trousers and dark sack coat adds still further a note of festivity.

For the garden party, the woman wears her prettiest light-colored frock and flower-trimmed hat. Gay parasols may be carried if they match, or harmonize with, the rest of the costume. Light shoes are more attractive than dark ones with light frocks.

A garden party might be compared with a drama, the costumes of the guests deciding whether or not it would be termed pure romance or light comedy. Here, amidst summer flowers, woman's natural beauty is heightened, and the wrong color schemes in dress, the wrong costumes for the setting, jar as badly as a streak of black paint across the hazy canvas of a landscape painting by an impressionist.

Organdie seems to be the material best suited for the garden-party frock. For the younger person there could