When I was asked to write a fashion article telling how lame girls hide their afflictions, I knew it was not going to be easy, because not many normal people understand what we go through.
Being born lame is not half so bad as being lamed later in life, and I think it is much worse for a girl than it is for a man. Nobody seems to mind a man being twisted, or one-legged, or having a club foot, but they look at a girl as much as to say, "I'm sorry that happened to you. It does spoil you, doesn't it?"
Some get furious, and wish that people wouldn't look or stare so, and wonder if it is our clothes that are wrong. Lame people are terribly conscious about their clothes, and try to hide their deformities by wearing sashes and capes, and plain shoes in stead of fancy ones.
Before I begin to talk about "Dress for the Maimed", I want to explain what seems to be a mystery to some of your readers who write and say that a one-legged girl has a nice figure and a face like a flower.
Well, wouldn't you try to make people look at your face and head if you knew your feet spoil you? If you had a club foot, for instance, wouldn't you look after your hair and your complexion, so that people weren't always staring at your feet?
I have a friend who is one-legged. She lost her leg in a road accident when she was 16, and it hurt her more than I can say, because her ambition was to become a dancer on the stage.
Every time she picks up her crutch to help her to walk, a funny expression goes over her face. It is bitter, and her lips twist sarcastically, and it quite spoils her until one of us (and all her friends are lame) says something nice about her hair or her figure. Then she cheers up again. Sometimes she reads articles by Wallace Stort, but she doesn't agree with them at all. She says that it is silly for a one-legged girl to wear a frock that is very short. On the contrary, she says that a lame girl, more than any other, ought to wear smart and fashionable clothes, but not go to extremes.
I have drawn Marina's latest afternoon frock and hat for you to use, and I am sure that you agree with me that it is quite smart without drawing to much attention to her remaining leg. The dress is made from midnight blue taffeta and cut with a low neck to show pretty shoulders. A big diamond clip attracts the eyes to the bosom, as do the full puffed and quilted sleeves, leading the attention to the upper part of the figure and not to the lower half. The fashion "trick" serves to disguise the missing limb.
The puffed sleeves of the gown also conceal the heavy underarm padding that is necessary to keep the wear and tear of a daily used crutch from the under-arm, a most important item.
The hat is of fez shape and made from the same taffeta as the frock, with a concealing veil of fine silver mesh, which enhances in turn the diamond neck clip and draws the eyes to the neck and shoulders.
The skirt sways enough to conceal the fact that one of her legs is missing, and allows her freedom to walk, get on and off 'buses, and move as gracefully as her lamed state will allow. I don't agree with Mr. Stort that a very short skirt adds to the appeal of a one-legged girl. It doesn't, because it shows too much, and if the skirt is very tight it enhances the thing she wishes to hide. The modern swing skirts seem almost designed for lame girls, because they don't impede movement and do not make the loss of a limb too conspicuous.
I expect a lot of you who go to dances curse the new long frocks that sweep the ground, but we lame folk don't. A long dress hides a thin leg, a club foot, a missing limb, and even those ugly irons that go up the leg to support a weak or shattered bone. In a long dress that conceals all her deficiencies a lame girl feels happy because there is nothing on view that differentiates her from any other girl. It is a thrill for her when a young man comes up and begs her for a dance, even though she has to refuse him politely and explain that she is maimed.
I have a friend who suffered from infantile paralysis and had about a dozen operations by clever surgeons. The result ended in her left leg being sound, but it is very thin and weak, and she can't stand on it or even dress herself without some assistance, and has to wear leg-irons up to he hip. But she can dance well because she has found that she can take all the fancy steps with her right leg and save the left for simple once, and her partner's supporting arm help a lot.
Having pretty shoulders and a pretty figure, this girl (Glenda) dresses up to them. She wears the long type of dinner dress that falls to the floor and hides her maimed leg, but she shows plenty of bare shoulders and arms and sometimes a back that her boy friend says is the loveliest he had ever seen - and he's seen a few!
All girls concentrate on showing face, neck, arms and shoulders, and concealing their legs. But girls who have a withered or malformed arm it is the other way about. They go in for cape effects, and they don't mind showing their legs, so their skirts are a bit shorter than usual.
The second sketch I have made shows an evening dress that disguises a girl's bad leg when she has to wear iron supports that strap round the leg.
The dress is made from oyster satin and is cut full at the back to allow for freedom of movement. The bustle-like sash hides the leg-irons. A trail of scarlet roses adds charm to the falling sash, and the colour of the roses is echoed by red paste earrings and a bracelet, and the aigrette worn in the hair. (This leads the eye upwards and away from the skirt of the dress).
A Malacca cane helps Glenda to walk and adds a note of dignity to the whole ensemble, and the outfit has the fashionable hint of the Edwardian influence.
Again, this outfit has been designed to lead the eye away from the afflicted member. As you can see in the sketch, nobody would know that Glenda was lame if they looked at her; and though she has to walk slowly and carefully, it doesn't show so much as when she wears a short afternoon dress and her legs are in full view.
Sometimes there are articles in the papers about girls without either legs or arms. Well, this is very unusual, and though I have lived for years in a home devoted to cripples of all types, I have only known of one case in which a torso alone was left, and that wasn't due to an accident, but to birth. This was pathetic, because the parents of he child were very wealthy, and did all in their power to have her fitted with artificial limbs; but it wasn't any good. Myrtle just couldn't use them, and because she was sensitive about her appearance, her parents thought it was better that she should live in a home. We used to take turns to push her around in a bath-chair (for lame people help each other and think nothing about it).
She had lovely long hair that was arranged in a coronet over her head. It was the colour of gold, and quite adorable. She wore a long robe with a pleated cape that hid her armless state, and to look at her you wouldn't notice (at first) that there was anything seriously wrong with her.
Myrtle couldn't walk or move about on her own, but she had a marvellous gift. She composed the loveliest music, and you must have had heard her songs and suites played over the air, for she is quite well known in musical circles (although nobody knows that this popular composer is a mere trunk, and not a whole woman).
Myrtle holds her pen in her mouth when she writes her melodies, and we girls play them over on the piano while she sits in her chair and beats time with her head. when she is satisfied with her composition she sends it off to be published and stands us all a party when her cheque comes through.
It was this parties of Myrtle's that made me start designing dresses or the maimed, the limbless, and all girls who are not quite able and bodily perfect, and I think that my own experience (for I lost the use of my legs after an accident) has made me capable of designing clothes for all who are so afflicted.
I hope that any lame readers who want me to design clothes for them will write to me and let me know, and I promise to do my very best for them and take into account such things as crutches, leg-irons, and artificial limbs. I hope, too, that you like my article and my drawings.