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Show THE TYRANNY OF STYLE. manner in Which the World Bowt to fashion's Dictum. Did you ever think how completely we are ruled by that thing called style? No. Well, I have, and if you will just think it out some , time you'll see that style is the modern tyrant. It is the general gen-eral desire to be in the" fashion that makes men buy new hats two or three times a year, no matter whether their old ones are shabby or rret. Of course, this little scheme is worked for all it is worth by the enterprising hatters, and the hat-buying victims of. style pay the bill. It is fashion, that makes men put on unnatural, un-natural, uncomfortable, almost ridiculous suits of clothes whenever they attend a swell party or dinner. It is fashion that causes thousands of young men to wear collars excruciatingly high under their tender chins. It is fashion which bids obedient j'oung fellows dress beyond the;x means. It is fashion which changes the color of gloves and of scarfs, and the cut of shoes and shape of pantaloons with senseless frequency. It is fashion which makes lots of men ride down town in street cars the' ride just because other people do, whereas they feel that walking would be more healthful and economirnl. That's the trouble. We all want to do what other people do, and we don't stop to inquire if other people are doing sensible sensi-ble and proper 'things. We submit to whatever may be the "style", without a murmur. We haven't the nerve to kick over the traces, but keep right-on buying unneeded hats, uncomfortable shoes, ridiculous collars, foolish "swallow-tails," and the latest cuts of pantaloons and hair, just to be with the crowd. Men rail at women for their slavery to style, but we are just as bad as "the women. If anything we are worse, because be-cause something like independence is expected ex-pected of us. We are supposed to rise superior to apishness. But we don't. How many of us have the nerve to wear "slouch" hats, turn-down collars and old-fashioned old-fashioned neckties ? We may be very fond of slouch hats, we may despise chin-tickling chin-tickling collars, and we may think shirt-hider shirt-hider scarfs inelegant in design or color. But no matter. These are not the things "they" are wearing, and so wegivethjm up and put on things we do not like for fear we will be considered out of style. And that is not the worst of it. We are the very chaps who protest loudest and with greatest indignation whenever any one insinuates that we are so weak as to bow down before the tyrant. But we do bow, all the same we" bow abjectly, to our knees, and to the very dust. And the big Juggernaut of fashion runs oyer us and flattens us out and makes us' look thin and silly. Yet we call it jolly. Chicago Herald. |