Autumn Fashions
Evening Dresses. White is generally adopted for the evening toilet. Muslin, tulle, and barege form elegant and very beautiful textures for this description of dress. They are decorated with festooned flounces, cut in deep square vandykes; the muslins are richly embroidered. A barege, trimmed with narrow ruches of white silk ribbon, placed upon the edge, has the appearance of being pinked at the edge. Those of white barege covered with bouquets of flowers, are extremely elegant, trimmed with three deep flounces, finished at the edge with a chicoree of green ribbon forming a wave; the same description of chicoree may be placed upon the top of the flounces. Corsage a la Louis XV., trimmed with ruches to match. For dresses of tulle, those with double skirts are most in vogue. Those composed of Brussels tulle with five skirts, each skirt being finished with a broad hem, through which passes a pink ribbon, are extremely pretty. The skirts are all raised at the sides with a large moss rose encircled with its buds, the roses diminishing in size toward the upper part. These skirts are worn over a petticoat of a lively pink silk, so that the color shows through the upper fifth skirt. As to the corsage, they all resemble each other; the Louis XV. and Pompadour being those only at present in fashion.
A very beautiful evening dress is represented by fig. 1, which shows a front and back view. It is a pale lavender dress of striped satin; the body plaited diagonally, both back and front, the plaits meeting in the centre. It has a small jacquette, pointed at the back as well as the front; plain sleeve reaching nearly to the elbow, finished by a lace ruffle, or frill of the same. The skirt is long and full, and has a rich lace flounce at the bottom. The breadths of satin are put together so that the stripes meet in points at the seams. Head dress, with lace lappets.
Fig. 2 represents an elegant style of body, worn over a skirt of light lavender silk, with three flounces, each edged with a double rûche, trimmed with narrow ribbon. The body is of embroidered muslin, the small skirt of which is trimmed with two rows of lace; the sleeves are wide; they are three-quarter length and are trimmed with three rows of lace and rosettes of pink satin ribbon. This is for a morning costume.
Another elegant style of morning home dress, is composed of Valenciennes cambric; the corsage plaited or fulled, so as to form a series of crossway fullings, which entirely cover the back and front of the bust, the centre of which is ornamented with a petit décolletté in the shape of a lengthened heart; the same description of centre-piece is placed at the back, where it is closed by means of buttons and strings, ingeniously hidden by the fullings. The lower part of the body forms but a slight point, and is round and stiffened, from which descends a châtelaine, formed by a wreath of plumetis, descending to the edge of the dress, and bordered on each side with a large inlet, gradually widening toward the lower part of the skirt.
Fashionable Colors. It is almost impossible to state which colors most prevail, all are so beautifully blended and intermixed; those, however, which seem most in demand are maroon, sea-green, blue, pensée, &c.
Footnotes
1 Now it is fate. July, 1850.
2 ——From swaddling-clothes,
Dying begins at birth.
3 The honest and uncompromising spirit in which these papers oppose the sanitary movement, has led some people to imagine that there is satire meant in them. The best way to answer this suspicion, is to print here so much as we can find space for of the speech of Alderman Lawrence, reported in the “Times” one Saturday. It will be seen that the tone of his eloquence, and that of ours, differ but little; and that the present writer resembles the learned Alderman (who has succeeded, however, on a far larger scale) in his attempt miscere stultitiam consiliis brevem. The noble city lord remarked: “The fact was, that the sanitary schemes were got up; talk was made about cholera, and people became alarmed. Now, it was said that burial-grounds were highly injurious to health, and a great cry had been raised against them. He did not know such to be the fact, that they were injurious to health. He did not believe one word about it. There were many persons who lived by raising up bugbears of this description in the present day, and those persons were always raising up some new crotchet or another.” After giving his view of the new interments bill, he asked, “Was it likely that the public would put up with the idea even of thus having the remains of their friends carried about the country? Was it likely that the Government would be permitted thus to spread perhaps pestilence and fever?” There! If you want satire, could you have a finer touch than that last sentence? There is a bone to pick, and marrow in it too.
4 In the ventilation of large buildings destined to admit a throng, it may be also advantageous to the ægritudinary cause if heat be at all times considered a sufficient agent.
5 Calcutta, 1848. This report is also published in the “Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India,” vol. vi. part 2.