ABSTRACT
There could hardly have been a more emphatic argument against the so called rational dress than the appearance of the stall-holders at the bazaar in the Kensington Town Hall organised by the Rational Dress Society opened to-day by Margaret Lady Sandhurst. Funnier figures than those presented by the wearers of the dresses advocated by the society it would be difficult to imagine. The rationality evidently consists in the duality of the under-dress, and in the shortness of the upper drapery. Of the four styles of dress to which the society gives its patronage the least hideous is, perhaps, the new Turkish tea-gown designed by Mr S. Cooper Oakley, the Girton bonnet maker. It is an accordion pleated dress of silk, made with a divided skirt so arranged as to show the divides very slightly. Made in a russet brown coloured silk, with a smart little Zouave trimmed with gold sequins over a full vest and a sash of heliotrope, the dress would pass muster as an ordinary gown unless the wearer moved about too much. The eilitto muddy weather dress, which Mrs Charles Hancock and her assistants wear with the top boots and the masculine collar, is appropriate only for a sportswoman’s wear on the moors or streams. 1 A lady walking out on the London streets in such a gown would be instantly mobbed. Lady Harberton, Mrs Oscar Wilde and the other ladies at the different stalls wear either the Syrian or Japanese skirt, the former more obviously divided than the latter. The bodices, velvet Zouaves over full blouses of silk are the only parts of the dress that will recommend themselves to ladies outside the ranks of the Rational Dress Society. Mrs Oscar Wilde’s was of terra cotta with black velvet Zouave over a blouse of terra cotta silk; Lady Harberton wore navy serge with a light blue silk vest; Mrs Stopes had chosen violet cloth and velvet; and other ladies appeared in daffodil yellow or Morris green. 2 It is stated that the dresses except for the outdoor jacket and hat are exactly as they are intended to be worn for walking out. All that can be said is that when the rational ladies walk out in their irrational dresses the London gamin 3 will have no mercy.
