[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Snt,—The article you published on this subject in your issue of last week was interesting and suitably provocative. It is right and proper (nay, more, it is a fitting revenge, for a great deal of nonsense that has been talked lately about the modern girl) that a witty woman writer, with an obvious and wholly commendable affection for the picturesque, should have ridiculed the barren ugliness of men's dress. Sheep that we are, even when we have the imagination to realize that our suitings do not add greatly to the joy of life, we are generally too self-conscious to have the courage of our convictions.
There was, however, one statement in your correspondent's entertaining article by which I must confess to have been completely baffled. In the course of advising us how we may improve our summer raiment, your correspondent urges us to wear " Belted shorts, worn over loose vivid shirts, open-necked and made in one with abbreviated under-shorts." An Arcadian picture ! But I submit, Sir, that on close examination of the instructions, the thing is practically impossible, however aesthetically desirable—granted the right weather ! It is, perhaps, indelicate to ask a lady for further guidance on such a subject, but one would like the point cleared up.
We are also urged to encase our necks, particularly, I gather, during office hours, in " cerise neckerchiefs." Now this is ironical. For, whenever we do have a little flutter of this kind—and I am thinking in particular of one successful young dramatist, the hero of many recent sartorial adventures-- we are promptly—and, for all I know, rightly—dubbed " effeminate." What would you then ?
. Our lot is not a happy one.—I am, Sir, &c., E. S. A. Abinger Hammer.
Previous page
