Apart from the universal jazz band and jazz dancing, another Americanism seems to be descending upon London restaurants and dance clubs. It is the appearance of women in evening dress accompanied by men in ordinary day-time suits.

This curious mixture of dress has long astonished European visitors to the United States. At theatres or dances you find the women in the most elaborate of low-cut evening frocks while their menfolk are wearing office suits. Apart from society circles in certain big towns like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, the average American man does not dream of putting on even his “tuxedo” – the American for dinner jacket – except on formal occasions. The small-town American woman on the other hand will wear her evening frock, which is the copy of some Paris model that has been duplicated by the thousand and distributed throughout the entire United States, on every possible, and perhaps quite unsuitable, occasion.



The idea is that the leisured American woman has plenty of time to change, while her overworked husband has not a moment to go home and put on evening clothes. Whatever maybe the reason the effect is ugly and gives a couple, particularly if they are dancing an unbalanced and inappropriate effect. Of course the rules at certain of London’s most exclusive dance clubs, which insist upon evening dress, make this ugly habit impossible. But the smaller where evening clothes are not insisted upon, and at restaurants this curious combination of clothes is becoming more and more frequent.

No one in France dreams of making the same mistake. Men in evening dress at theatres are far rarer than in England, but no Frenchwoman ever has the bad taste to appear in a low evening dress while her companion is unchanged. Why, therefore, should we adopt this ugly American habit?

