Mrs. Chalmers' Lesson On
The New Circular Skirt

          The two points that the great French dressmakers emphasize in regard to the new circular skirt is the pronounced flare or ripple at the hem, and the length, or rather the shortness, of the skirt. It is worn extremely short. It must be at least five or even six inches from the ground.  Bechoff-David, Callot and other French houses that introduced the circular skirt make their models so short that they show the ankle and the instep, and frequently only come to the top of the boot. These skirts are never worn long, for their entire effect depends on their length. They are the logical development of the tunic, which has grown longer and longer in a year’s time, until it has dropped from the hip to the shoe-top. The Russian tunic paved the way for the full skirt, for in this new ankle length the circular model looks like a long full overskirt, and there is no sense of shock when one mistakes it for a tunic and then finds it is a skirt.
          The circular skirt is very easy to wear. It goes without saying that a slender woman can wear it, for she can wear anything. But short, stout women will also find it extremely becoming, for the lines are long and unbroken and it makes the figure look as small as possible at the hips. It makes all women look younger, for the shortness of the skirt gives them a quaint, girlish – almost childish – silhouette.
          The uses of the circular skirt are practically unlimited. It is so plain and simple that you could use it for a hacking suit, for a walking skirt, for traveling, country or sporting purposes. You can see at a glance its possibilities for golf, tramping and skating, can’t you? But the skirt is so new and so unusual, after the endless chain of narrow dresses we’ve been wearing for seasons past, that the French dressmakers did not have the practical side of it in mind when they introduced it. They are using it for their most elegant afternoon suits and dresses and for their newest evening gowns. Probably it would not have been so immediately successful if it had not been shown in its most attractive and engaging forms at first. We might have held back from a circular skirt in tweed as too common-sense to be particularly alluring, but a circular skirt in rose-pink velvet with a silver girdle is so attractive that it can not be lightly dismissed from one’s mind.

          MATERIALS. The circular skirt is very easily made, but its success after it is finished depends entirely on its material. In a firm, closely woven fabric it will keep its shape fairly well. In a loose, stretchy material it will sag abominably. It would be better not to make it at all than to do it in the wrong material. Fortunately there is a long list of fabrics available, so you won’t have to give up the skirt for lack of suitable and satisfactory materials.
          For day dresses and suits you can use serge, gabardine, corded woolens, checks, plaids and stripes, and corduroy. Afternoon suits and gowns from the French dressmakers are showing the circular skirt in broadcloth, zibelline, satin cloth, duvetyn, peau de peche, velvet, velveteen and plush. For evening gowns and very elegant afternoon dresses the circular skirt is made in velvet, taffeta, satin, charmeuse and corded silks. The use of velvet for evening gowns is quite new this year. It makes a very rich-looking dress, and it is also very serviceable, especially in black. In light evening colors velvet is beautiful, and it is being used for dancing frocks and debutantes’ dresses. Velvet and the silk and satin materials do not come wide enough to cut without piecing. With them you will have a triangular-shaped piece at the lower part of the back seam. But if the piecing is done carefully and is nicely pressed, it won’t be noticed in the least. The French dressmakers do not object to piecing at all, even in their most elegant gowns. In velvet and corduroy the piecing will not even show if you do it nicely. The nap hides it in the velvet and the rib in the corduroy. The wool materials are wide, so you don’t have to piece them.
          I am advising you to make this skirt with the foundation. You would have to wear a petticoat under it anyway, and a foundation is much neater and more satisfactory. You can use satin, silk or a good quality lining material for the foundation skirt.

           Your material, of course, should never be bought until you have your pattern. This rule applies not only to this skirt, but to everything you make. The reasons are obvious. In the first place, until you have your pattern you don’t know what width material you can use for it. Suppose, for example, you had bought a twenty-two-inch silk or velvet before you bought this particular pattern. As soon as you got the pattern you would see by the table of quantities that it could not be cut form anything narrower than a thirty-six-inch material, and that fifty inches would be better still. If you joined the widths of your narrow silk you would have seams running around your skirt in an absolutely impossible manner. You’d either have to lay aside your material and buy something else or choose another pattern that could be cut from narrow silk – a thing that is almost impossible to find these days.
          That is the most important reason for buying your pattern before you buy your material. But you must also remember that until you have your pattern you can’t tell how much material you will need. It is very annoying not to have enough, for besides the bother of repeating your shopping there is the danger of not being able to get more of your material. And on the other hand, you don’t want too much, for good materials are too expensive to be wasted.

         THE PATTERN. When you buy your pattern be sure to have your hip and waist measures taken very carefully. Buy the pattern by your hip measure, as it is easier to alter it at the waist than at the hip.
          After you have your pattern you can get your material, for the table of quantities on the envelope will tell you exactly how much you will need.
          If you are using a woolen material, it must be carefully sponged before you make it up. Otherwise it will spot and shrink. Most shops will do the sponging for you. If they won’t, you can do it very easily yourself. Wool materials usually come folded through the center, with the right side inside. Lay the material on your ironing-table still folded. Cut off the selvedge, for it will not shrink with the rest of the material. Take a piece of clean unbleached muslin, dip it in water and wring it out as dry as-possible. Spread it over your material and press with a hot iron until the muslin is almost dry. Remove the muslin and press the material until it is entirely dry. Turn over your material, still folded, and sponge the other half in the same way.
          Before you cut into your material be sure that the pattern is the right length for you. Measure your figure from the normal waistline at the center front to within five or six inches of the floor. Remember that this skirt must be worn very short. The pattern itself will make a skirt forty-one inches long from the normal waistline to the lower edge. If the pattern is too long or too short for you, alter it at the lower edge of piece 5 and pieces 1 and 2. If it is too long, turn up the lower edge. If it is too short, mark a new line for the lower edge on your material after you have pinned the pattern in place.

          If in buying your pattern you had to take a size that was too large or too small for you at the waist, you must make a slight alteration in the yoke pattern. If the pattern is too small for you, slash the yoke pattern from its upper edge to about three inches from the lower edge. Make about three slashes. (Ill. No. 1.) In pinning the yoke pattern on the material spread the upper edge until it is the right size. (Ill. No. 1.)
          If the pattern is too large for you at the waist, make three dart-shaped plaits in the yoke pattern, letting the plaits begin at the upper edge of the yoke and taper to nothing three inches above the lower edge. (Ill. No. 2.) The size of the plaits depends on the size of the alteration you make.

          CUTTING. Illustration 3 shows you how to lay your skirt pattern (pieces 4 and 5) on material fifty inches wide, with the edges marked with triple perforations on a crosswise fold of the material. This is the most economical way of cutting the pattern in this width material. Velvet should be cut lengthwise, as it will have to be pieced. The nap should run up in every piece in velvet.
          In cutting the foundation pieces, 1 and 2 should be laid on the material with the edges marked with triple perforations on a lengthwise fold. The belt, piece 3, is cut from silk or cotton belting two inches wide. The stay is a piece of half-inch elastic a quarter of a yard long.
          Pin the pattern securely in place, using fine steel pins for velvet, plush, silk or satin, as ordinary pins mark these materials badly. Cut the skirt with sharp dressmaking shears, following the pattern edges exactly and clipping all the notches, making the notches as small as possible and have them show.

          TAILOR'S TACKS. Before removing the pattern, mark all the working perforations with tailor’s tacks, using different colored thread for the different kinds of perforations so that you won’t confuse them afterward. A tailor’s tack is a stitch taken through the center of each perforation. Long loops of thread are left between the perforations. The loops are cut before the pattern is removed. The halves of the skirt are separated and the loops clipped, leaving a bit of thread in each half to mark the perforation. This is the neatest and cleanest way of marking the skirt.

          THE FOUNDATION SKIRT. Baste together the side seams of your foundation skirt with the notches matching in a three-eighths-of-an-inch seam. (Ill. No. 4.) Bring the V-shaped lines of dart perforations together and baste through the center of the perforations, beginning at the bottom of the dart. Only take up a thread or two of the material when you start, or the dart will “pout” at the bottom.
          Slash a placket opening at the center back of the skirt at the line of small single perforations. Run the elastic stay in the casing and tack each end of the elastic securely to the skirt. (Ill. No. 4.)
          The elastic being tighter than the casing, it draws the superfluous width of the skirt to the back, keeping the silhouette of the foundation skirt narrow.

          THE INSIDE BELT. Take up the darts in the inside belt, bringing the V-shaped lines of dart perforations together, and baste and stitch them. Turn in the ends one inch and try the belt on. (Ill. No. 5.) Let out or take in the hems if it isn’t the right size for you. Turn under the raw edge of the hems and stitch them to the belt. Sew three hooks to the right end of the belt and three eyes to the left end. Place the hooks about a quarter of an inch in from the end of the belt and sew them through the rings and under the bill. (Ill. No. 6.) Let the eyes extend far enough beyond the end of the belt to fasten easily, and sew them through the rings and to the edge of the belt.
          Mark the center front of the belt with cross-stitches so that you can always put the skirt on straight. (Ill. No. 6.)
          Sew loops of tape to the sides of the belt to hang the skirt up by. (Ill. No. 6.)
          Baste the foundation skirt to the lower edge of the inside belt with their center fronts together, and the upper edge of the foundation three-eights of an inch above the lower edge of the belt. Try the skirt on. It fits snugly at the waist and smoothly, but not snugly at the hips. If it is too large for you, take in the seams and darts. If it is too small at the waistline, let out the darts a trifle.
          Stitch the seams and darts and press them open, slashing the darts first. Bind their edges with silk binding ribbon sewed on by hand.

          THE PLACKET. The right side of the placket should be faced with a straight piece of the foundation material two inches and one-quarter wide and as long as the placket. Sew it to the right placket edge in a three-eighths-of-an-inch seam, turn it over to the wrong side of the skirt and baste and hem it to the skirt. (Ill. No. 7.)
          The fly for the left edge of the placket should be of the foundation skirt material. It should be a straight piece three inches wide. Sew it to the left placket edge in a three-eighths-of-an-inch seam at the line of small single perforations. (Ill. No. 7.) Turn in its other long edge three-eighths of an inch and hem it to the skirt, just covering the seam. (Ill. No. 7.) Sew hooks to the right placket edge and eyes to the left, following the usual method of sewing them on.
          Stitch the foundation skirt to the belt, and cover its raw edge with binding ribbon sewed on flat.
           Try the foundation skirt on again to see that it hangs evenly at the bottom. It can either be hemmed or faced. Facing is the more economical way, as you have to buy more material than the pattern calls for if you want to allow for a hem, while a facing can usually be cut from the left-over material.
           The facing should be bias and about three inches wide, finished. Sew it to the bottom of the foundation in a three-eighths-of-an-inch seam, and turn it up on the inside of the skirt. Its upper edge can either be turned in three-eighths of and inch and hemmed or it can be covered with seam-binding ribbon sewed on flat.

          THE OUTSIDE SKIRT. Turn up the lower edge of the yoke at the line of small perforation. (Ill. No. 8.) Lay the skirt over the yoke with the double notches matching and their edges even, and baste them together. (Ill. No. 9.)
          Baste the center-back seam with the notches matching in a three-eighths-of-an-inch seam, leaving a placket opening above the notch.
          Baste the skirt to the inside belt with the upper edge of the yoke three-eighths-of-an-inch above the upper edge of the belt, and their center fronts together.
          Try the skirt on to make sure that it sets nicely before you stitch it. It fits snugly at the waistline and smoothly at the hips. If you bought the right size pattern and made the right alterations, the skirt can’t be too small for you. If it is a little too large, you can take it in a trifle at the back seam.
          Take the skirt off the belt and stitch the yoke seam one-eighth of an inch from the crease. Stitch the center-back seam just outside the basting. Press the center-back seam open and bind the edges with ribbon seam-binding.
          Finish the placket opening of the skirt just like the placket opening of the foundation. Put the skirt back on the belt as it was before. Turn over the upper edge of the yoke and sew it to the belt. Cover it with ribbon binding sewed on flat.
          Close the placket with patent fasteners sewed on about an inch and a quarter apart.

          HANGING THE SKIRT. A circular skirt is cut on the bias, and bias will always stretch more or less. Therefore it is advisable to let the skirt stretch all it will before you hang it. Otherwise it will stretch afterward, and you will have to take out the hem or facing and hang it all over again.
          The thing that makes a skirt sag is its own weight and the weight of the hem or facing at the bottom. So if you hang it up with the proper weight at the bottom for two or three days you will get all the stretch out of it. Go to your piece-bag and cut strips of material three or four inches wide and enough of them to make four or five thicknesses. Pin them to the lower edge of your skirt. (Ill. No. 11.) Take loops of tape or material and pin three of them to the upper edge of the skirt, pinning the two halves of the skirt securely together. (Ill. No. 11.) Slip the loops over hooks placed just far enough apart to hold the skirt band even. Let the skirt hang for two or three days and then you can turn up the bottom without fear of its sagging.
          This skirt is so much fuller and shorter than anything we have been wearing that you had better go back to the old way of hanging it. Cut a strip of cardboard about two inches wide and eight or ten inches long. Notch it five or six inches from one end – or more if you want a sill shorter skirt. Put your skirt on and stand on a table. Have some one mark the skirt with the marker and pins or with a needle and a long strand of thread. Take the skirt off, turn it up at the marked line, baste it and try it on again. If it hangs evenly, face it with a three-inch facing, following the same directions I have just given for facing the foundation skirt.

          THE SKIRT BRAID. Day dresses and suits should be finished with a skirt braid. Shrink your braid before using it or it will shrink of its own accord later and draw in the lower edge of your skirt. Dip the braid in water, wring it out and press it perfectly dry.
          Baste the braid to the lower edge of the skirt, with the edge of the braid about an eighth of an inch below the skirt. Sew the lower edge to the skirt with fine running stitches and hem the upper edge, taking care that the stitches do not show through on the right side. (Ill. No. 12.)