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Dressing On $300
How Mrs. Roosevelt's Dictum Is
Viewed By Fashion.
Opinions Differ Widely
A Well-Known Baltimorean Agrees
With the President's Wife And
Two Take Opposite Ground.

The announcement telegraphed from
Washington that Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt,
the lady who holds officially the highest
social position in the United States, considers
$300 a sufficient yearly expenditure
for an up-to-date woman's wardrobe has
excited no end of intresting discussion
among Baltimore women and set the very
ribbons of debutantes a flutter.

That $300 is enough, if not ample, is one
side of the argument; that it is totally and
hopelessly insufficient is the other, and
both sides are upheld by women notably
well and appropriately dressed for all occasions.

Mrs. FrancisTazewell Redwood is among
those who regard appropriate dressing on
$300 a year out of the question.

"The distinctions regarding fitness in
gowns for different occasions are now so
finely drawn," Mrs. Redwood said, "that
the one best dress of the host is a thng
forgotten. The costumes for luncheons,
afternoon teas, dinners, half full dress affairs
and balls are each distinct; the theatre
demands a distinctive style of dress,
while even for the street one has two
styles of walking dress—the long tailormade
gown for afternoon calling and the
short walking skirt for shopping and rainy
days. There are many occasions where
the convenient 'fancy waist' cannot appropriately
fill the lack of complete costume,
and about the only gown I know adapted
to more than one occasion is the silk home
receiving gown for evening wear.

A Question Of Quality.

"Another difficulty to be encountered by
the woman striving to dress on a $300 income
is the inferior quality of materials.
There are many expensive silks that are
not much more durable than brown paper.
The cut as completely when penetrated
by the machine needle as postage stamps
part at their perforated sections.

"The unceasing replenishing of underwear
and footwear costs a small fortune,
and a personal friend from New York told
me not long ago that his wife's apparel
cost $3,000 a year and that her expenditure
was less than that of many of her intimate
friends.

"Surely Mrs. Roosevelt must have meant
$3,000 when she said $300, or else she felt
safe in the official requirements of her position,
which will not permit of practical
application of her theories.

"She might however," added Mrs. Redwood,
with a merry little laugh, "experiment
in the costuming of her debutante
daughter upon the modest sum suggested."

A Contrary Opinion.

Mrs. Octavia William Bates, who is notably
well dressed among the club women
of Baltimore, and who, as a representative
of American women, has been recived at
Windsor Castle, by her late Majesty Queen
Victoria, considers that any women can
dress perfectly well for any occasion not
official on $300.

"I do not mean," said Mrs. Bates, "that
Mrs. Roosevelt with official honors to sustain,
could dress on that sum, but I do
think that any lady attending the same
functions graced by the presence of Mrs.
Roosevelt could dress on that amount, presupposing
the following conditions to exist:
That she start supplied with the jewels,
rich laces, furs, etc., which her station
demanded; that she have ready money at
her command; that she be of orderly habits
and either personally or through her maid
keep her wardrobe in perfect order, brushing
her hats and gowns and folding away
her ribbons and laces; that she have good
judgement in shopping, and above all,
good taste to guide her to harmonious selection
of colors.

"An art in dressing is to purchase a complete
costume at one time—gown, wrap,
hat, gloves, even shoes. Then, even if the
costume be last year's, it is all of one
period and harmonious to a degree impossible
if the articles are purchased at different
times.

Imported Gowns Cheapest.

"The imported gown and hat are cheapest
in the end, since they keep their 'crispness,'
their style and fit longest. The expensive
silk gown passes through stages
of usefulness as lining and silk petticoat,
and so, with the conditions named above,
a woman may be a lady of quality, as far
as it concerns her wardrobe, on $300 if she
is sufficiently clever to know how to make
the most of her money and opportunities."

A Cosmopolitan View.

Miss May Brown, daughter of ex-Gov.
Frank Brown, has been so often abroad as
to have cosmopolitan experience in the fine
art of dressign which, combined with instinctive
good taste, results in her costumes
being among the most stylish and
elegant worn in Baltimore.

"I know any number of girls who dress
on $300 a year," said Miss Brown, "but
their dresses are copies—some of them very
bad ones—of gowns designed for other persons.
It is not so much the materials that
cost, though everythjing costs double what
it used to, but it is the fit, the suitability
of the costume to the wearer, that is expensive.
As soon as you find anyone skillful
enough to fit, up go his or her prices.
They will not consider making a gown that
costs less than $100, and there is a third
of the income gone already.

"Then the really well-dressed women is
not supposed to wear machine-made underwear,
and the handwork commands prices
equivalent to the time and labor expended.
Girls who wear domestic-made dresses will
surely have them sewed more neatly than
is the custom with French dressmakers—
they will hold together longer—but the girl
who dresses on $300 will certainly have to
forego the chic attained only in gowns imported
from a people developed to the highest
degree in the feminine art of costuming."

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