Who is the sorcerer who will explain this mystery to us?
The character of Fashion is to change.

And yet, for years women have persisted in lowering their waistlines. For years the waist has been placed at the height of the flanks, when it is not at mid-thigh.

There is not a man who likes that. Taken one by one, there is not a woman who does not agree; the low waist lasts too much. When women talk among themselves, they even pretend to condemn it. And nothing helps. Look everywhere. I suppose it was invented, the low waist, by what I would call a pretty ugly girl. We will tell you right away what it is. It wasn't too well made. She had a lot of grace. She had the prettiest face in the world. She was tired of seeing, in her place, others triumph, all those who had the stupid beauty of the body, the cold beauty of the statues.

She put a vague belt on it. As an extra precaution, she hung this belt that way, towards these devices that she too was very happy to have, God having given them to all to sit on. She was rich, elegant. She was imitated. My God, it's just a fable. When you ignore history, you have to invent tales. But once the low waist was invented, what happened?

The small, delicate, casual, charming Andrée was not moved for a second. She thought, “Go for the low waist. You will see below that I have a slim bust and arched back. Under the moving line of my dress, you will see the little body that I received from heaven take shape. And what we suspect is usually no less pleasing than what we see. I also don't want to compete, for the rump, with the fillies from the stud farms. We will be able to see, thanks to this machine, that before my very flexible waist, I have a light hip.”

The beautiful Françoise, for her part, reasoned in another way. The great, the serene Françoise, the divine Françoise, as they said at the time when she was the only queen: They want, she said to herself, to catch me. The charms that I have, they believe that I am obliged to hold them tight, for their abundance. I will first prove to them that they are wrong, that a little vagueness suits me perfectly. I will show them that beauty is always beautiful. And if I tighten their belt against my hips, who will remain stupid? Not me. I will walk. I will look like a sultana.”

So all the women agreed, each having her own reason, which she did not need to confess. Low waistline reigned. It reigned all the more easily as couturiers never ceased to create wonders from it. You see I admit it. You have to be in good faith.

Fashion designers have most often been able to hide the great fault of the low waist, which is to disrupt human proportion and make the woman look like a statue that is too short, poorly placed, and which is about to fall. You just have to go to the Edouard VII theater. Betty Daussmond wears a white dress with a green belt. This dress forms a blouse from above, and this blouse, which floats, joins the green zone, which is only tight a little lower down, where it should be. The hipster's biggest enemy will be speechless in admiration.

However, it may be that the time is near for a revival. The most skilled couturiers no longer know how to defend themselves from excess which is a sign of decadence. I saw a lady the other day, who did not seem born for masquerades: she had the top of her dress arranged into a two-sided waistcoat, the base of which was at the level of her navel. Thus dressed, his torso alone made two thirds of his total person. Isn't this the end? On the other hand, at this same Edouard VII theater, look at the two large dresses of Yvonne Printemps. They restore to the female body its shape, that of a lyre, we would say, if all comparison were not superfluous.

ELIANTE. (Drawings by A. de Roux.)