Evening Journal

Do Fashions Go Mad?

There is always a tendency to exaggerate fashions, especially those of women's attire, and we are forcibly reminded of this now that it is given out that hoops are about to be again worn. It is said that they will be small and add very much to the comfort of their wearers in hot weather. But does anybody for one moment suppose that if they are started small they will long remain so? Some ancient people remember the last hoop craze that existed, and do not forget that then they started small, and ended of such immense proportions that two or three women with them on would fill an ordinary sized room. This absurd fashion so fully controlled the female mind, that no woman, rich or poor, old or young, could be induced to show herself without her hoops.

The present craze for large sleeves has been almost as bad as that of the old time balloon hoops. These sleeves started small but the tendency to exaggeration in fashions makes every woman want to have hers a little bigger than others, the result of which has been that some of the sleeves, as now worn, are of hideous proportions. What would a woman look like dressed in these big sleeves and the big hoops of former days? We venture to say that she would look like anything else than a woman. Such foolish fashions as these seem to be made only for the benefit of those who sell dry goods and manufacture them in shapes which distort the natural beauty of woman's form.

If kept within reasonable proportions there is no objection to either of the fashions named. Large sleeves, if not exaggerated out of all due proportion, may be both comfortable and in good taste, while hoops large enough for comfort are not inappropriate for the present character of woman's attire. It is only the overdoing of these fashions which make them absurd and we feel sure that any fashion which destroys the symmetry of the form is objectionable and a travesty upon good taste.