Judge, 1914-01-10 · page 5 of 24
Judge — January 10, 1914 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Judge* magazine contains a short story titled "Before the Mirror" by Helen A. Spafford, not a political cartoon. The illustration shows a couple examining themselves in a mirror, captioned "Discriminating Husband." The story satirizes early 20th-century fashion debates and marital dynamics around women's clothing. The husband criticizes his wife's dress as unfashionable—her skirt is too tight and lacks proper draping at the waist. The narrative presents the husband as pedantically correcting her appearance while she defends her choices. The satire targets both the era's strict fashion standards and husbands who presumed to dictate women's dress. It reflects contemporary anxieties about changing women's fashion and gender roles in this period.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Young wife—Now, George, that you have met all my relatives, which do you like best? Mirror Befo fitted, Mrs. Brown, I want to stand before a full-length mirror like this. It shows me all the good points of my figure. I have left sev- eral dressmakers who would try to fit my clothes standing in front of a bureau. You say the skirts are being worn nar- rower thanever? Well, I am not affected by what other people choose to do. If other women wish to disgrace themselves in public, why, let them. It is nothing to me. Make my skirt two full yards around the bottom. I have brought you plenty of material, and you needn’t stint in using it. I think, Mrs. Brown, it is high time for the really refined women to take a stand on this matter of modern dress. Why, a decorously dressed woman is mor- tified nowadays to be on the streets with her own husband. The way the new styles DISCRIMINATING HUSBAND the By HELEN A, SPAFFORD re make the men stare is a caution! Of course I see my husband looking, and I don’t blame him. He has eyes, hasn’t he? But there is one thing I will say for him. He never looks when he sees me watching him. At least, he pays me that compliment. Yes, you may make the waist collar- i Ihave a good neck, and I see no reason why I shouldn’t show it. Don’t pull that skirt in so tight at the back, Mrs. Brown. You're not pulling it? Well, what are you doing to it? It feels mighty uncomfortable. It has an elastic around the knees to hold it close? Take it right out! I feel as if my knees were strangling. What's that you say? You want me to turn around and look at the effect in front. H'mm-m, That round, clinging style isn’t bad on me, is it? You think another tape a little higher would make it tighter in front? Well, try it. If I don’t like it, it can be changed. Oh, Mrs. Brown, what a lovely line Husband—Oh, the distant ones, I should say. that gives me! I look so slender and sin- uous! Just like that Russian Nazimova in Hedda Gabler. Must I have the skirt narrower around the bottom if I want the elastics? Suppose you take it in at the bottom just a little. Why, Mrs. Brown, you are taking out oceans of material! How wide is the skirt now? One yard! Well, let me get a good look in the mirror. Isn’t that the sweetest thing! All dragged in around the knees and nothing at all at the bottom. But it looks skimpy at the top. Oh, you’re going to drape that bunched- up piece at the waist line! Youcertainly are an artist, Mrs. Brown, to knot a piece of silk that way, and then just fling it carelessly on the dress! It looks just as if it fell on the skirt accidentally and was beautiful. The effect of this is certainly new. It reminds me of pictures I saw the other day of very stylish mummies. They looked just like this—all swathed in cere- comicbooks.com