The American woman has a genius for dress and the valuable adjuncts of symmetrical figure and graceful carriage. With these pronounced advantages she should exercise a greater degree of independence — a larger measure of individuality. Not that she is lacking in this respect but, with natural taste and the courage of originality, she should excel the Frenchwoman and lead her sex — as I believe she will eventually — in the matter of dress.
Without invading the precincts of eccentricity, a woman may make tolerably wide excursions from the domain of fashion. Indeed, none of us can faithfully follow fashion without at some time presenting a ridiculous figure to the world. But we need not restrict ourselves to the rejection of styles that create an impossible conflict with our peculiar physical characteristics. We can and should adapt and modify every fashion freely to bring it into harmony with our personal form and features. Good taste and good judgment are requisite to success, but we generally possess a fair share of these and they would develop with increased exercise. In any case, such independent action could hardly produce more incongruous results than one constantly sees displayed in the person of a slavish disciple of fashion.
Our artists, and especially our illustrators, constantly convey hints of the possibilities in this direction. For instance: "the Gibson girl" is always stylish and yet never in style. Her frock never conforms to a pronounced fashion though it may present the idealization of some such. But the "Gibson girl" is nothing if not chic, and much of this quality is due to the element of originality in her dress.
Whilst individuality is decidedly desirable, it should not even remotely approach oddity. Extremes of all kinds are to be avoided. Fortunate, indeed, is the woman who knows her own points, good and bad, knows what will become her and what not, so that she is independent of the doubtful advice of milliners and salesmen, and may with confidence decide the details of her dress. But to do this to perfection, a woman must be not only an artist, but also, that rarest ef all beings, a just and impartial self-critic. I know several such women who spend, perhaps, half as much as others upon their clothing and look twice as well.
-- Mrs. Charles Harcourt
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