THE

MRS. OSBORN'S LETTER

DRAWINGS BY CARL KLEINSCHMIDT

MRS. OSBORN, OF NEW YORK, CREATOR OF FASHIONS FOR WOMEN OF FASHION, DOES NOT CONTRIBUTE TO ANY OTHER MAGAZINE; AND THE SKETCHES OF CARL KLEINSCHMIDT APPEAR IN THE DELINEATOR ONLY

MRS. OSBORN

Not one American woman in fifty-in a hundred, even-has this knowledge, at least in working form. If it were otherwise our streets would rid themselves of many curious spectacles. Fewer and fewer would become our visions of Gainsborough hats topping ankle-length skirts, elaborate blouses with heavy boots, French heels with outing costumes. The weak spot in the American woman's scheme of gowning is her failure to consider it as a whole, to make it, in truth, a scheme, a picture in which there is harmonious quality and color. And until our women consider their costumes in entirety-from hat to heels-we shall not be relieved of mongrel mixtures.

French methods in dress are everlasting proof that unity of purpose is the primary essential. Good dressing is not an accident, but an art-a wonderful art. And art never "happens." It is born out of natural gifts and great labor. Thus the French, through generations, have developed their native talent for clothes. We cannot afford to ignore their deduction that harmony-I do not mean having things "match," rather having them suitably associated-is the basis for distinction in dress.

I think I may safely say that scarcely a day passes during which someone does not say to me:

"I want a pink frock," or a blue or mauve, as the case may be. And when I question, "What will you do about hat and shoes? What's the ensemble going to be?" why the poor women are so surprised, even a little irritated. And then I begin pounding away at my same old principles-principles people must accept if they wish me to make dresses for them -that I never conceive a gown unless I think of it as part of a finished costume.

Granted that every woman is desirous of being well dressed, why will so many of them ignore the law of unity? It is a law easily obeyed. Indeed it simplifies the problem of dress. One has only to consider each garment in relation to the wearer and to every other garment that shall be worn.

This subject has forced itself on my attention through the medium of the season's hats. If the author of a primer made copy out of the fashion, the lesson might appropriately read:

"Is this a hat? No, it is not a hat. It is a workbox-or a birdcage or a back porch or anything you choose to call it,-anything but a hat."

The combined persuasion of all the milliners in the world could not have forced upon us these disfiguring wares if the women had, to any number whatever, used their own taste and considered their individual appearances.

The general run of women play into the hands of the milliner, run blindfold after so-called fashion, buy hats, for instance, because somebody-a mysterious somebody, heaven knows who-originates the style and the poor creatures think that they must adopt it. I feel sorry for such women, I do, really.

Even for the talented, buying hats is a serious proposition. It is the last and most important factor in the ensemble of a correct toilette. It must be considered in its relation to the gown with which it is to be worn. But more even than this, the best lines of the wearer's face must be brought out, and the style must be appropriate for the costume.

Yet what have our women done this season? They have bought the hats the milliners have offered them. There is no excuse, no justification. Women have no right to say that they had to buy these hats because there were no others to buy. Take my word for it, the kind you want will be found if the milliner cannot otherwise make her sale.

The same hats that the French would discard as impossible our women not only wear, but wear with an absurdly inappropriate dressing of the hair. The result is doubly incongruous. The large mushroom shapes are disfiguring. They are a travesty on

the becoming model originally worn by me in Paris for automobiling, and from which to-day's exaggerated styles are confessedly taken. The Gainsborough, also popular this season, and always pretty, is ridiculous when worn with short skirts. While, as for the short front and protruding back that are seen in so many different types of hat, they are beyond words.

The class content to follow lack all sense of the ensemble. The moment one thinks of the finished product, the general effect, the whole question of buying and wearing clothes assumes proper proportion. Intelligent women will not be dictated to. And the time is coming when they will not be slaves to fashion at all. Moreover, in that day, the accepted criterion will be the ensemble, and the ensemble only. It is a common saying that the woman who buys the most gowns looks the worst dressed. Of course! She has no time, in the midst of her wholesale buying, to consider details. And the ensemble is made up of details! The woman who carries this consideration ever with her not only realizes that the dressmaker and the milliner who offer her ugly things insult her intelligence, but that the purchase of the gown or hat is only one item in her scheme of correct dressing. Our really smart women are coming to spend less money on their clothes and more on their person, on

A yellow satin coat embroidered in Japanese flower designs.

careful grooming, the care of the hair, the skin, the figure. I could indeed write volumes on the dressing of the hair in relation to one's general good looks, and more volumes on the subject of the corset, all as part of the ensemble.

Our women take the matter of dressing too lightly. No art is mastered in a moment, and dressing is indeed an art. The exercise of private judgment is its basic principle. The dressmaker doesn't live who can give to her individual customers the style they can give to themselves if they will. Dressmakers and milliners are creative only in so far as they discover tne individuality of their clients and make clothes to emphasize that individuality, ever with an eye to the creation of beautiful things, rather than those garishly novel or extreme.

I often feel like saying, "Don't trust your dressmaker," meaning merely to caution women against relying on judgment other than their own. Independence in dress is a necessity, because selection is a necessity. No matter where a woman purchases. she must choose the correct from a mass of the incorrect.

French models, for instance, are sold in such wholesale fashion to Americans, and reproduced so often that women of individual taste care less and less for them. It is true also, of Paris even, when the things are exclusive they are often extreme to absurdity.

The great dressmakers over there, catering to American trade, are determined, above everything and at all cost, to make "points," to introduce new things. They think little about the people they are to dress. I assert that this is not genuinely creative. The artist is known not so much by the novelty as by the beauty of his works.

History repeats itself in dress as elsewhere. The extremes to which we were driven last season by the Empire style are in class with the strange outbreak in the way of hats. Empire gowns were originated in a day when trolley cars did not exist. They have no place in company with modern petticoats and the "stepping lively" of street cars and subway.

The kimono provides another instance of inadaptability. In its pure form this garment is both beautiful and useful, but the minute one attempts to modernize it, to belt it in at the waist, to make it French, the results are appalling. Such changes are nothing less than an effort on the part of dressmakers to destroy last year's styles. This effort is commendable only if in keeping with the claims of beauty.

In the sketches illustrating this article there is illustrated the kimono sleeve anglicized as success

The sleeve line is excellent in this white linen coat

fully as possible. A white linen coat is shown in which the sleeve line is excellent. Soutache braid is used for the ornamentation of this garment. There are four pockets, the back is cut in straight lines and the sleeves are elbow length. A costume made of heavy crash is distinctly influenced by the Japanese. It is trimmed in very ordinary-looking twine in the natural color, this being put on in conventionalized designs, the buttons and the coarse lace that further ornament the costume being also in this excellent tan. Yet again we see the Japanese sleeve in a yellow satin coat, exquisitely embroidered in Japanese flower designs. This coat is cut in three-quarter length. There are rosettes of buttons with pendants, and a novel feature is the use of buttons as trimming all around the edges of the coat. A pongee suit dyed bluish-green emphasizes the kimono idea in the single seams extending from the flat finished neck to the end of the elbow sleeve. The skirt is in modified Empire style.

Josefs Ceilson Aben