Dear miss Jackson, - AS I promised in the January Double Number, I am now replying in full to your letter. I am afraid that your maimed condition would not lend itself nicely to a sketch of this outfit, but I will describe it in words.
A leg that is 10 inches shorter than the other, our doctor says, is a very unusual phenomenon among the maimed. It either suggests complete paralysis of that leg at an early age, or a malformation at birth. If the second, then some twist of the spine must also be present, even if slight. Bearing both facts in mind, I suggest that your new outfit should be as follows:
Have a short black jacket seamed with a flared, rather long skirt, cut with a decided flare. The skirt hem should quite cover the maimed leg. This may give you a monopedic impression; but if, as you say, your leg is ten inches shorter, then you can't walk without crutches, anyway. (That is what my doctor says.) A ten inch limp would distort the whole body.
With your jacket you could wear a pink satin blouse, high-necked and long-sleeved, plus a hat trimmed with pink flowers and a veil. Your gloves to be of stout but fine black kid. This outfit would be both fashionable and chic and serve to disguise the poor malformed limb.
My own left leg is 4 inches shorter than the other, which gives me a decided limp, and for many years I had to use crutches until the doctors had succeeded in "stretching" the limb (cage and weight method) until it came to a 4 inch limp only. In a maimed limb with a 10 inch limp, the flesh-producing and walking muscles must be almost atrophied. Hence my suggestion that you must still be using crutches.
Yours truly,
Joan Roper.