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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

ities and exaggerations are almost beyond belief. At fashion’s command, anything may become the vogue without regard to eternal fitness. Women vie with each other in being the first to appear on the promenade in the latest fashionable caprice, and yet women, when appealed to in the name of health, grace and art, timidly ask: “ Could one wear such a dress?”

All this brings us back to the central truth, that the education of principles hav­ing reference to line, color, arrangement and expression, must precede any great advance in artistic methods of dress. There are laws fixed and unchangeable that may be learned, and we are just now at the threshold of this great study of bodily possibilities and clothing for accurate expression.

Like all higher artistic evolution the work proceeds slowly, because of ignorance, prejudice and tradition, but the triumph of higher forms of dress is as certain as the progress of human beings along other lines of science and art.

Physical development must precede the artistic clothing of the body. We must become as gods in physical grace and expression before the highest types of dress will perfectly become us. While our bodies are ill-shapen, chest sunken, shoulders raised, abdomen protruded, classically free dress seems in truth to exaggerate our deformities; but once our bodies become nobly erect and vitally expressive, dress radiating from the natural points of support in free lines, will seem artistically grace­ful and expressive. For this reason I always urge upon my hearers and followers con­servation and good judgment in selecting and adapting the least exaggerated forms of prevailing fashions while working with muscles, nerve-centers and joints for grace­ful poise and bodily culture. A stiff and unyielding figure will not become at once beautiful and expressive through disregarding the garments that have cramped motion, but disregarding such garments will give the body that freedom without which improvement remains impossible. Therefore, bodily development and free dress must go hand in hand for higher results.

Art in dress demands study of the body and adaptability of fabric, color and dec­oration of individuality. Exquisite needlework and ornamentation of a noble and not of the trivial kind will make the dress of the future sumptuous, elegant, costly and magnificent, according to the requirements of time and place.

Upon the other hand, art knowledge and regard for form and fitness will make simple dress devoted to the utilities no less attractive in its place and for its purpose than the robes of the lady of wealth, whose social requirements demand splendor and richness. The eternal principles of art in dress will be recognized as fixed and unchangeable, and regard for nature’s unalterable laws will prove the keynote to eternal harmonies.

Inconsistencies in general extend to all departments of dress under fashion’s rule. Fashion gives no attention to such fine distinction as appropriate dress for dif­ferent occasions, excepting it be a distinction between evening and street attire, and even these are not arbitrary. Street dress frequently offends good taste by too great length, suitable to house and carriage wear only; while evening dress jostles street attire upon occasions that should be sacred to picturesque costuming.

When art in dress becomes recognized, every walk in life and every occasion will have its appropriate dress, and every class of society will be the gainer. Under the regime of art in dress no woman will be seen picking her way along filthy streets in a dress-skirt bedraggled with mud, nor will women wear gems and rich fabrics at church, cloth tailor-made gowns in the reception room and high hats loaded with bustling and aggressive trimmings at the theater. We shall not be served by kitchen girls arrayed in tawdry finery; shop girls in cheap jewelry and cotton lace, nor denied our­selves the privilege of proper selection in dress for time and place in any profession. In short, with the study of principles order will evolve from chaos, and each depart­ment of w'ork will have its recognized dress, appropriate in detail, self-respecting, because the right thing for öur immediate needs, and beautiful because appropriate.