Fashions.
Reading edition
NOTICE TO LADY SUBSCRIBERS.
Having had frequent applications for the purchase of jewelry, millinery, etc., by ladies living at a distance, the Editress of the Fashion Department will hereafter execute commissions for any who may desire it, with the charge of a small percentage for the time and research required. Bridal wardrobes, spring and autumn bonnets, dresses, jewelry, bridal cards, cake-boxes, envelopes, etc. etc., will be chosen with a view to economy, as well as taste; and boxes or packages forwarded by express to any part of the country. For the last, distinct directions must be given.
Orders, accompanied by checks for the proposed expenditure, to be addressed to the care of L. A. Godey, Esq., who will be responsible for the amount, and the early execution of commissions.
No order will be attended to unless the money is first received.
Instructions to be as minute as is possible, accompanied by a note of the height, complexion, and general style of the person, on which much depends in choice. Dress goods from Levy's or Stewart's; cloaks, mantillas, or talmas, from Brodie's, 51 Canal Street, New York; bonnets from Miss Wharton's; jewelry from Bailey's or Warden's, Philadelphia, or Tiffany's, New York, if requested.
DESCRIPTION OF STEEL FASHION PLATE.
The unusually beautiful fashion plate of this month gives a very correct idea of prevailing spring styles.
Fig. 1st.—A dress suitable for the morning at a fashionable country house or watering-place, or for dinner. As a home dress, it is very tasteful and simple. The robe may be of pink taffeta, cashmere, or mousseline, open from the throat to the hem of the skirt, though the waist is fitted close to the bust, as in an ordinary tight dress. This opening is finished on each side by a double ruche of the same material, the edges pinked, and is laced across by narrow taffeta ribbon. Chemisette in plaits, with a lace frill. Plain cambric skirt. Shawl of cambric embroidery; close bonnet of pink taffeta and black lace, with an edge formed of very narrow ribbons interlaced with black, to resemble a plaid.
Fig. 2d.—Walking or dinner-dress of pale green silk, made plain and close; sleeves open and loose. Light mantle of flounces or volants, of white guipure lace, headed by a narrow ribbon of violet color. The bonnet is covered with lace to correspond, and has leaves and ribbons of pale violet crape; tied with broad white taffeta ribbon. Parasol of violet lined with white silk.
It will be noticed that our styles are suited to the May of our Southern readers, and the June wardrobes of our Northern belles, being exceedingly light and simple, as summer dress should always be. Readers round about us are apt to forget that we have to be thoughtful of our far away subscribers as well as themselves.
CHITCHAT UPON PREVAILING FASHIONS
BRODIE'S MANTILLA EMPORIUM—SHADES OF FASHION, ETC. ETC.
THE present promenade of Broadway extends scarcely to the Astor, in a downward direction; the crush of omnibuses, drays, business men forgetful of especial courtesy in their haste, porters, and laborers, conspire to make a chaos of confusion and discomfort below the Park which few ladies care to adventure. The tide of shoppers sets downward from the New York Hotel, and upwards from the Astor or Irving, meeting in a grand confluence at Canal Street, where you may pat the curbstone with your gaiter from three minutes to a quarter of an hour, watching an opportunity to stem the current and cross to the other side in safety.
Standing on this upper corner, you are in full view of the large freestone front of 51 Canal, the mantilla establishment of Brodie, to which we have promised to introduce our readers.
At this present writing, when everybody wants a mantilla, the graceful article of costume being considered as needful as a spring bonnet, the lower front of Brodie's has a most inviting prospect. It is entirely occupied by two enormous windows and a door of plate glass; the windows being, in reality, small Crystal Palaces for the accommodation of two slowly revolving dames in court costume of brocade or soie d'antique, bearing upon their regal shoulders the chef-d'œuvres of the establishment, whether of velvet, guipure, or taffeta, as the season represented may be. At their feet are thrown, in apparent careless, but really artistic confusion, other designs not less elegant and attractive. These figures are of wax, modelled and colored from life, and, having supported the onerous public duties of the World's Fair, are now in the honorable retirement of comparatively private, though by no means secluded life. The room which you enter from the street is fitted up with superb mirrors, ovals and pier, the central one being of remarkable width as well as length. This is not, however, the principal show-room, though the office and much other business is carried on there in appropriate departments, handsomely fitted up. The stairs, covered with velvet carpeting, as, indeed, the whole establishment, lead you to the second floor, pannelled with plate glass mirrors set between the long windows, and in every place in which they can well be inserted. The walls are covered, as below, with delicate French paper, of white and gold, and, with the rich carpet, a drawing-room rather than a business establishment is suggested. Here there are piles of the most elegant and costly styles of mantillas and scarfs, that have given place to the heavy clothes and velvets of the just departed season; and here is a fluttering of silk dresses, a waving of spring garlands, as the busy crowd of purchasers flutter back and forth, exclaiming, "rapturizing," choosing, and trying on the profusion of styles before them. In the centre, is a light iron railing, still white, in keeping with the style of the rooms, over which you can watch the proceedings of the store below, or, looking upwards to a similar balcony, you see another story, apparently fitted and furnished as the show-room in which you now are.
This is the wholesale department, of course by far the most important of all. Ordinarily, you would have no call to ascend the stairs; but, being this morning a privileged visitor, you find there Mr. Brodie himself, in the midst of his importations, designs, and manufactures, his clerks, his saleswomen, whose patient shoulders and black silk dresses give an additional air to the latest styles, and his wholesale customers, for whom he is daily shipping packages, parcels, and boxes, north, south, east, and west; but especially south and west, where doubtless our own subscribers will be among the purchasers and the wearers.
If your curiosity will carry you up still another flight, Mr. Brodie's politeness will conduct you to a passing glance of the work-room, occupying the floor above. It would not be polite to watch too long the rows upon rows of girls and women busy with the silks, laces, ribbons, and other delicate materials of their craft; but you see that they are all busy and comfortable, with light and good fresh air in abundance. Yet higher! You noticed below how rich and how abundant was the embroidery, with what precision it was executed; here there is a row of frames, where embroidery, the lightest and richest, is executed by those to whom the work is not a pastime, but a regular and profitable occupation. Here is the pure white poult de soie of the "Snow-Drop," for instance, cut and ready for making up; the design traced upon it, tacked as smoothly upon the frame as the canvas of a picture, is stretched before the artist. The rapid and regular movement of the needle is covering it with the rich work that the young Southern bride will glory over, when the all-important box—the trousseau—reaches her from New York. There is, besides these frames, a large embroidery department, situated up town, under Mr. Brodie's constant supervision. But here the new styles are first tried, that he may thus be able to regulate the prices of work, the quantity of material, etc., to be given out. In preparing for the winter season, this whole floor is filled with quilting-frames for the mantle and cloak linings; still another branch of female industry.
Some idea of the great amount of employment an establishment like this gives to the industrious classes of the city, may be formed from this bird's-eye view of the interior of Brodie's. Three hundred workmen are engaged from season to season in preparing the piles of costly draperies we have seen, as the raw material comes in only to be manufactured. Thus, the velvets, cloths, silks, etc., with the lighter fabrics, and trimmings of ribbon, lace, gimp, are imported by Mr. Brodie himself, and his designs are furnished by leading Parisian houses, known in the pages of "La Follet," "La Modiste," "Petit Courrier des Dames," and other journals of fashion.
Last, but not least, this fine building, with its costly decorations, this immense stock of goods, these busy purchasers and workwomen, are the rapid products of a persevering industry and enterprise that, were the story told, could scarcely be believed. The private history of most successful business men is a commentary upon the proverb, "Diligence is the mother of good-luck." Mr. Brodie's is a remarkable illustration. His is the only establishment in the country entirely devoted to the one branch of manufacture; his whole time, thoughts, correspondence, and Parisian visits centering on its improvement and success.
We have given time and space to the principal theme of our "Chat," partly that our readers may see how various are the styles of every article of wearing apparel, and how safely they may trust themselves to a new and graceful form, even though Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown do not happen to have brought it from New York or New Orleans. At Brodie's, for instance, each style is made up in every prevailing shade of silk. What folly in Mrs. Jones to say, "Green is the rage!" In a large city, nothing is the rage; if it approaches such a culmination, it is given up in a very few weeks.
As of mantles, so of bonnets. The milliner has her Parisienne models, and her working materials, and employées. No two bonnets in her show-room must be precisely alike. So of the mantuamaker, who varies her shapes and her trimmings to suit her material, the figure, height, or complexion of her customer. Straw bonnets are perhaps the most uniform of all in shape; but here, again, there is every variety of ribbon and trimming. No two bows are made alike. City people will not submit to uniforms.
There is a general style in the fashions of each season, but inflections and shades as various as its grass and leafage. Our next "Chat," as in the April number, will be of these, as June admits of changes that our Northern May denies. July will claim, as usual, its watering-place and travelling fashions, with nursery items, welcome at any season to the busy mother of a household.
FASHION.