AFTERNOON BHPPERS.——At top, white kid with marbleised QM
worn. with silk stockings in atmosphere shade, and gray kid pumps worn
with moonlight grau silk stockings. Bolow, beige kid and black patent
leather strap pumps and, at bottom,
had in any one of the paste! shades.
HE shoes that women wear to-
T day constitute the last stand of
frivolous feminine apparel. To
be sure, the frocks and hats of today
achieve all the ends that frivolous
apparel was ever designed to achieve.
From our point of View they are as
frivolous as you please.
The point is this: During the last
yearn of the last. century and the
early years of the present, the dress
reformers dreamed dreams of a new
fashion in dress—sensible, hygienic.
thoroughly emancipated from the old
order of things. There should be no
more coreeted figures. High and
tight collars should go. Skirts
should be short—mo more trains—
‘and they should be scant—no more
foolish pettlcoats. Hats when worn
should not sit foolishly on top of the
head, ready to be challenged by a
heavy wind. Hat pins were an
abomination. Long hair was foolish-
none.
So far we'have, in spite of our-
selves. achieved the dream of these
reformers. But there was one more
clause—one more tenet to their
credo. Shoes should be flat and
broad. built as sensibly as a Grecian
sandal. And here alone we hold
back. Fashion permits such foot
covering only for those who actually
participate in sports. The high heel
is almost a necessity in achieving
what we regard as. a smart sil-
houette. We go without stays, at
a
.,, v
{1,
'7' 7/2277}
...u'.
suede strap pump which may be
bare our necks, We even go glove-
iess, and pettiooatless. and trains we
know not. But we must have our
high heels. Our shoes alone remain
utterly frivolous and probably quite
unhygfenic.
We Like Them
And it is a pretty safe prophecy
to make that so long as we maintain
the other sensible characteristics of
our dress we will cling to this
last inconsistency. We are not quite
rcady,for the Millenium.
Observers in Paris seem to agree
that never in their memory have
hn'omon appeared so beautifully "fin-
shed" in their dressing as at pres-
ent-day clothes are so easy to wear.
so comfortable—always save the
observers in Paris. have women who
aspire to fashion been so well shod
and so well stockinged. The same
comment might truthfully be made
of women in fashionable centers in
this country. With skirts as short
as they an ow. shoes and stock-
ings assume ount importance.
And women seem to delight in giv-
ing them what they demand. You
cannot make any sort of comment
on the clothes worn at any smart
gathering without mentioning the
shoes and stockings, because this is
Boudoir slippers of brocade and
gold at top; purple velvet with green
edge below it, and at bottom figured
Jim-n with ribbons to tie around
ankles.
least so far as appearance goes. we '
out. This is no doubt because pres- '
shoes. And never before. any the-
. .
x\>.c\\\.\\ :; ..
EVENING BLIPPI'Mp-M top left. blonds sills stockings with gold embroidered cloaks: at right. nude
silk stockings with ankle: embroidered in gold and colors.
As Skirlsfilon Shorter Shins and *
Stockings Grow. More lmporiani
7-!2.
Above [the stockings are three sandals jor eve-
M’Io wear—oi left, woven gold and silver kid, in center, blonds satin edged with gold. kid and, at right,
brocade end silver kid. 10 lesser right, dark rose satin slipper with rhinestones across front to match fan
and newer. At left, green seeds Clipper with gold straps, worn with embroidered stockings.
a detail that thrusts itself upon the
eye. ' ‘
Shoe Dealers Have Trouble V
This does not mean, as one might
’st first suppose. an ideal situation
for the shoemaker. In fact. next to
the barbers—wbo are dreadfully
overworked albeit more prosperous
with bobbed and shingled heads still
in the majority—the shounakmsnd
shoe Mortars the most harassed
of all those who contribute to full-
ionshls feminine apparel. Fashions
insboescbsngeasoftseasfubions
in hats—oftent- sometimes—ans it is
an expensive proposition to change
an entire line «g footwear as often
as a milliner changes her showing
in hats. Sometimes with the very
smart shoemaker! in Paris they and
thatassomastboybavelsidina
. complete line of a new style of shoe,
something quite different has bs-
come the fashionable rage.
We hear repeatedly that simpler
styles in shoes are coming into style.
and we are assured that many of the
smartest of women have given up
the, extremely elaborate types. But
decoration still raps riot in the shoe
shops. and women still wear shoes
that are far more ornate than their
frocks.
Gilt leather. bright colored suede.
alligator skin. lizard. yeti-colored
enamel buckles. hand-painted heels.
mother-of—psari heels. heels set in
brilliant. and gay colored stones.
satin in all the fashionable shades.
brown kid in various shades. pis-
skin. ostrich skin. sequins—all than.
materials and mere form the mate-
rials of the fashionable shoemaker.
And ones a tow staple shades of
leather. with a little satin, was
enough.
\. \axx \\
The time may come again when
smartly dressed women wear simple,
serviceable shoes with their simple
street frocks. It seems to some
women as if good taste demanded it.
But judging from appearances this
time has not come. and oven the
best dressed women continue to go
about in broad daylight in shoes that
we would once have regarded as
slightly extreme for a ballroom. «
Tinted Stockings Are Worn
Perhaps no one definite change in
footwear fashions is more pro-
nounced than the turn in favor of
colored or tinted stockings. “can.
colored stockings are no nearer
finesse and black stockings are no
nearer being snatched book from
oblivion than they were many
lnonths ago, but the colored stock-
ing is coming into prominence. To
be sure there are some women who
neyer depart from flesh-colored or
trey—conservative choices, we now
consider them-and there are women
bars as well as in Paris who wear
whenever possible the sheorest of
sheer black stockings. These are
very distinctive. Numerically speak.
ing. or course. black stockings are
still to be considered. They persist
as white stockings persisted in the
middle of the last century, When
older women clinging to a fashion
of the past were suspicious of the
new-tangled black variety. But in
those days stockings didn't show, or
weren't supposed to. so the pew.
liarity passed unnoticed.
Quite recently plaid stockings have
been spoken class a new fashion in
Paris. But these new plaid stock-
inss are not like plaid stockings 'of
yore. for the stocking itself is go
/O\\
transparent and so light in texture
that the only thing apparent at all
is the delicate tracery of the plaid.
The effect is really amusing. It is
self one were a plaid and nothing
else. Save for sports wear the
Parisian—if she aspires to fashion-
wssrs very, very thin stockings. but
“pour le spor "—which does not
mean actually participating in out-
dodr athletics—she wears stockings
of heavier weight. English stockings
of wool or heavy lisle in ribbed
effect.
' Too Thin to Wash
There are French stockings so
lmpslpabie that when worn in the
evening nothing can be seen at all
save the lhie of rhinestones that
follows the line of the clock at the
side. These stockings we are told
are'fnr too fragile to be washed. So .
to the American woman who. like
Napoleon Bonaparte. is not! used to
wearing a pair of stockings a second
time until it is washed this fashion
seems either very extravagant or
most unpleasant:
The edict that shoes must conform
to the color scheme of the frock
with which they are to be wern must
not be taken too literally. The im-
portant thing is that shoes should
harmonize and. combined with the
stockings, give an effect of unity
with the entire coetume. One of the
shoemakers is making quite a, thing
of white kid Colonial slippers with
enameled buckles. The buckles show
enamel work in red. in blue, in gran
and in other colors’ With a green
frock one would choose transparent
green stockings and green enameled
buckles. or with red. the red-trim-
med buckles with transparent \rsd
stockings.
/
/
. 1/.
w
MORNING SHOES.-—Abooe, shorr of 031016 pun metal laid an. frinso
wing of alligator. A handbag matches the shoe.» Below. one-strap slipper
of brown kid or black patent leather, and tan shoe with brown straps
dinerent at one side from the other.
FOOTWEAR FOR
T H E BEACH.—
Al upper right, pull-on slipper
of reps rubber which comes
in all colors. At left, a green
pointed wooden sandal, with
laced leather straps, and a
Roman sandal with leather
sols held on with straps.‘ Be-
low, a sandal made of braided -
strips of leather to wear be- =
tween house or bathhouse and
beach, and another crepe rub-
ber pull-on.
i
But despite the tendency toward
color in footgsar the champagne-
colored id slipper with gauzy stock-
ings of be same shade remain the
choice of smart women here and
abroad for all daytime affairs. To-
bacco brown shoes with flesh or
transparent tobacco stockings are
likewise smart and in this country
especially white kid has come into
high favor (OLWOIJ‘ at the summer
resorts. With these shoes white
stockings are worn. which gain a
note of flesh color because of their
transparency. The American woman
of taste much prefers white to flesh-
colored stockings with white shoes.
in
“5
Norwalk Chronicler