Life — December 8, 1910 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘UL DPE * Husbands’ Correspondence Bureau (In Connection with the Reform League) IGHT on top of the tremendous success of our Husbands’ R Bench Show in Madison Square Garden comes the an- nouncement of a Fashion Reform League, to which our atten- tion has been called by several thousand of our patrons. That this thing is worrying husbands all over the country there can be no doubt. We therefore beg to assure everybody concerned that there is no immediate cause for alarm. American women have got to keep themselves constantly busy over some new fool notion. They may just as well be- come excited over the notion that they can start a new set of fashions for themselves as to be playing bridge or hot- footing it back and forth from Reno. We know women. We haven't been managing this bureau for the last thirteen years without having run the gamut of the feminine temperament from A to Z, There was a time when we quailed before an ordinary set of hysterics as much as we would before an Indian Ocean cyclone; but we have gotten all over that. Besides, we couldn't have treated over ten thousand cases of marital infelicity successfully unless we had an inside knowledge of the feminine heart, We have also been married ourselves; it is not necessary for us to lay bare our heart, or to state how many times we have been up against it, All marriages are about alike, and for practical purposes furnish about the same standard of trouble. We have been married, we say, and our experience is fairly com- plete, running all the way from a simple, coy, blushing Presby- terian ingenue to a six-cylinder, cighty-horsepower, hill-climb- THE TUBE SKIRT ing suffragette for a side partner, and we know whereof we speak. In the present so-called fashion crisis we are therefore calm. It will blow over, brothers, never fear. We'll be willing to bet a pearl spangled hobble skirt against a set of camel's-hair corset-covers that the whole movement will not last until Christmas, In the meantime, of course, our patrons are undergoing an unusual stress. Several of them report that just when they thought they had their wives under complete control they have joined this new league and the expense has been enor- mous. One writes: “From a giddy young thing who was constantly getting me into trouble my wife had developed into a thorough home body when this new movement came along, and it’s now cost- ing me over a hundred dollars a month in spangles alone. What is to be done?’’ We have given this customer a specific set of directions and expect to straighten him out in a few weeks. In the meantime, let us say a few words generally to our patrons to quiet their fears. There can be no doubt that woman is an ever-present trouble in time when we need the greatest help. The moment we settle down to a system and think we have her placed where she belongs, she breaks out in some fresh quarter and a new problem presents itself. It was only a short time ago that all the women in the country were playing bridge. We slowly adapted ourselves to the new regime and kept the usual office hours. Before we knew it, however, they all wanted to vote, and every husband in the land quivered with indig- nation, Once more we adapted ourselves to the emergency and started off a new suffragette jog trot with a chorus girl limp on the side. We may say, en passant, that it was dur- ing this period that the tall handsome blonde on the right as you enter our office gained her great prominence and became a national character. Very well. Once more we accustomed ourselves to the un- usual, laying back our ears slightly, it is true, over the hobble skirt, but apprehending no immediate calamity, when along comes this league movement—a movement as we undertsand it calculated to place our fashions on an entirely new basis, the idea being that American women shall hereafter clothe themselves and originate their own styles. Don’t worry, brothers. They will never do it. We've got to live down Paris and the Orient first. As long as the hearts of our yeomen are sccretly lingering in the harems of the East, and as long as the Paris branch of the Husbands’ Correspondence Bureau is doing the rushing business it is, you may be sure that American fashions as such will meet with only a lukewarm welcome. This is only a little ordinary American side whirl. Woman was originally created for the purpose of furnish- ing man with a framework with which to set off certain aspira- tions which he develops historically from time to time. He expects to have her astonish him, but only along lines in which he has previously become interested. The Salome period is still doing business, aided and abetted by Constantinople and Paris and Yokohama, and it will take more than the leading dressmaking talent of Kalamazoo and Kankakee to oust it from the seat of honor. In the meantime, to our American sisters everywhere we comicbooks.com