3-086-340 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ladies' Page: a morning gown of cashmere, 1898. 'The dressmakers are having a hard-worked time, indeed, since all this frilling and flouncing has become law. Scarcely a square inch of material remains undecorated, whether in hat, mantelet, or gown; and judging from the models that Paris sends over sea each week, this piling on the agony of elaboration but becomes each day more pronounced. Painted gauze is in the last cry for evening frocks. Skirts that open in the form of rounded tunics over a separate and distinct apron may be accounted in the same category; and Japanese sunshades of frilled China crêpe are the latest of the Bois, the accordion-pleated frill coming in one piece from the centre, where it is fastened by a jewelled medallion, and falling to two or three inches over the edge. This galon-trimmed frock of stone-coloured cashmere would make a useful dress for the early Park.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.