Life, 1916-03-02 · page 7 of 44
Life — March 2, 1916 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes early 20th-century fashion debates, particularly women's evolving styles. The cartoon depicts a leopard in fashionable dress reading a "Fashion Supplement," captioned "Gracious! Spots are going out of style"—a visual joke equating animal patterns with human fashion trends. The poems critique what appears to be the "Modiste" (fashionable dressmaker) promoting increasingly daring women's fashions: shorter skirts, fewer sleeves, and simplified designs. Gutterman's poem mocks these as "Foolish Fashion" and "Transient Passion," while Wood B. Wilde's "A Manly Confession" ironically defends women's right to dress boldly, contrasting modern fashion restrictions with historical male dress freedom. The satire targets both fashion's rapid changes and society's gendered double standards in clothing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“cracious! SPOTS ARE GOING OUT OF STYLE” LIFE The Modiste HAT Dame do Men esteem the least? The Inexpressible Modiste Who designates each Foolish Fashion That Faddists make their Transient Passion. ‘Tis she bids Ladies dress in droll Green boots that lace along the Sole, Abbreviated Skirts with Gaiters That greatly edify Spectators, Or Evening Gowns devoid of sleeves And otherwise resembling Eve's. And Women slavishly obey her. What's stranger still, they sometimes pay her! Arthur Guiterman, A Manly Confession I AM a man, and I should dress like a woman if I were not such a coward. That is, I should revel in velvets, in silks and satins, in plumes and ruffles, in rich or delicate colors, in daring and dashing modes, in endless variety suited to my whim, to the weather or the occasion. It would be great fun. It would be an artistic gratification. But I don't dare. In the days of knighthood, when men were really brave, they out-dressed the women; but in these degenerate days we do not venture our fancies beyond cravats. No man in modern times has dared to dress as he pleased, except Oscar Wilde, and we buried him with craven hisses. We men rail at women's fashions, but in our hearts we know ourselves to be the slaves of fashion, of one dull, deadly, monotonous fashion, which we hate, but from which we are too cowardly to free ourselves. Wood B. Wilde. comicbooks.com