Page:Science ofDress184.png

184 I shall presently suggest. She calls this very effective costume her "trouser dress." In the materials of which the one exhibited at the Healtheries was made it would be very suitable for summer wear. It is extremely light, weighing altogether only 3 lbs. 2 oz. It consists of the cutaway coat, fastening at the throat, according to present fashion (see Fig. 16); the waistcoat and collar are of ruby-coloured velvet, and a large bunch of ribbon velvet bows make a very pretty finish at the throat. The skirt falls in loose double box-plaits more than half-way down the calf, and below it the trouser legs show for three or four inches. The coat, skirt, and trousers are made of pale grey beige. The objection to this dress could be entirely done away with by making the skirt an ordinary dress length, so as to hide the trousers. Of course, lengthening the skirt in this way reduces the dress to the condition of a divided petticoat, such as I described in my last, covered by an ordinary dress skirt, with the exception that the trousers are longer, and fit more closely to the legs than the petticoat shown in my illustration, and I may add that this is an advantage, for the closer the under garment hangs to the legs the warmer it feels. Divided dress skirts may, however, be made so artfully that an outsider would not know the difference between them and an ordinary dress. A lady friend of mine, wearing one for the first time, told her son what it was, and met from that youth the consolatory, if not elegant rejoinder, "O bosh! You don't come that sort of