an she of the boudoir age.

Since a boudoir is of all rooms the most personal, we take it for
granted that its decoration is eloquent with the individuality and taste
of its owner. Walls, floors, woodwork, upholstery, hangings, cushions
and _objects d'art_ furnish the colour for my lady's background, and
will naturally be a scheme calculated to set off her own particular
type. Here we find woman easily made decorative in negligee or tea gown,
and it makes no difference whether fashion is for voluminous, flowing
robes, ruffled and covered with ribbons and lace, or the other extreme,
those creations of Fortuny, which cling to the form in long crinkled
lines and shimmer like the skin of a snake. The Fortuny in question, son
of the great Spanish painter, devotes his time to the designing of the
most artistic and unique tea gowns offered to modern woman. We first saw
his work in 1910 at his Paris atelier. His gowns, then popular with
French women, were made in Venice, where M. Fortuny was at that time
employing some five hundred women to carry out his ideas as to the
dyeing of thin silks, the making and colouring of beads used as
garniture, and the stenciling of designs in gold, silver or colour. The
lines are Grecian and a woman in her Fortuny tea gown suggests a Tanagra
figure, whether she goes in for the finely pleated sort, kept tightly
twisted and coiled when not in use, to preserve the distinguishing fine
pleats, or one with smooth surface and stenciled designs. These Fortuny
tea gowns slip over the head with no opening but the neck, with its silk
shirring cord by means of which it can be made high or low, at will;
they come in black, gold and the tones of old Venetian dyes. One could
use a dozen of them and be a picture each time, in any setting, though
for the epicure they are at their best when chosen with relation to a
special background. The black Fortunys are extraordinarily chic and look
well when worn with long Oriental earrings and neck chains of links or
beads, which reach--at least one strand of them--half-way to the knees.

The distinction which this long line of a chain or string of pearls
gives to the figure of any woman is a point to dwell upon. Real pearls
are desirable, even if one must begin with a short necklace; but where
it can be afforded, woman cannot be urged too strongly to wear a string
extending as near to and as much below the waist-line as possible. A
long string of pearls gives great elega