Our Behaviour/Part 4/Chapter 3
A LADY may appear in a wrapper in the morning, but it should be clean and fresh, and supplemented with spotless collar and cuffs, and with a bright knot of ribbon or bunch of flowers at the throat. No jewelry should be worn at this hour of the day save plain rings, brooch and watch and chain.
A dress for morning wear at home may be simpler than for visiting or for hotel or boarding-house. A busy housewife will find it desirable to protect her dress with an ample apron. The hair should be plainly arranged, without ornament.
For breakfasting in public or at the house of another the loose wrapper is inadmissible. A dress with a closely-fitting waist must take its place. This for summer may be of cambric, pique, marseilles, or other wash-goods, either white or figured; in winter plain woollen goods, simply made and quietly trimmed, should be adopted.
Breakfast-caps daintily made of lace may be worn, but they must not serve as an excuse for uncombed or carelessly arranged hair.
The morning-dress for the street should be quiet in color, plainly made and of serviceable material. The dress should be short enough to clear the ground without collecting mud and garbage. White skirts are out of place, the colored ones now found everywhere in furnishing and other stores being much more appropriate.
Jewelry is entirely out of place in any of the semi-business errands which take a lady from her home in the morning. Lisle thread gloves in summer and cloth ones in winter will be found more serviceable than kid ones. Linen collar and cuffs are more suitable than elaborate neck and wrist dressing. Street walking-boots of kid should be worn.
The bonnet or hat should be quiet and inexpensive, matching the dress as nearly as possible, and displaying no superfluous ornament.
In stormy weather a large waterproof with hood will be found more convenient than an umbrella, which is always troublesome to carry and often difficult to manage.
There are so many women who are engaged in literature, art or business of some sort that it seems really necessary that they should have a distinctive dress suited to their special needs. This dress need not be so peculiar as to mark them out for objects of observation wherever they go, but still it should differ somewhat from the ordinary walking-costume of the sex. Its material should, as a rule, be more serviceable, better fitted to endure the vicissitudes of weather, and of quiet colors, such as browns or grays, not easily soiled.
This costume must not be made with quite Quaker-like simplicity, but it should at least dispense with all superfluities in the way of trimming—puffs which crush and crumple, bows which are in the way, and heavy flounces which weigh down the skirt. It ought to be made with special reference to easy locomotion and to the free use of the hands and arms.
Linen cuffs and collar are best suited to this dress, gloves which can be easily removed, street walking-boots and no jewelry save plain cuff-buttons, brooch and the indispensable adjunct of the business woman, a watch and chain. The hat or bonnet should be neat and pretty, but with few flowers or feathers to be wilted or drooped by the first falling shower.
For winter wear waterproof tastefully made up is the very best material for a business woman's dress.
The dress for the promenade admits of greater richness in material, brilliancy in color and variety in trimming than that of the business- or errand-dress. It should, however, display no two incongruous colors, and had best be in one tint, except where a contrasting or harmonizing color is introduced in the way of ornament, in a bow at the neck or a flower upon the hat.
The dress for the promenade should be in perfect harmony with itself. One article should not be new and another shabby. The gloves may not be of one color, the bonnet of another, and the parasol of a third. All the colors worn should at least harmonize if they are not strictly identical.
The collars and cuffs must be of lace, the gloves of kid, selected to harmonize or contrast with the leading color of the dress, and perfect in fit. No jewelry should be worn save cuff-buttons, bracelets and ear-rings of plain gold, a watch-chain and hand some brooch.
The material of a walking-suit may be as rich or as plain as the wearer's taste may dictate or means justify, but it must always be well made and never be allowed to grow shabby. It is better to avoid bright colors and use them only in decoration. Black has come to be adopted very generally for street-dresses; but while it is becoming for most individuals, it gives to the promenade a somewhat sombre look.
In the country walking-dresses must be made for service rather than display, and what would be perfectly appropriate for the streets of a city would be entirely out of place on the muddy, unpaved walks or paths of a small town or among the unpretending population of a country neighborhood.
The promenade-dress, whether for city or country, is always made short enough to clear the ground.