MANNERS & MORALS: Resistance

MANNERS & MORALS

The furor over the new fashions rose to a fine, shrill pitch. Across the land, women by the hundreds—and city editors, too—flocked to the banners of resistance.

Their stronghold was Texas and their Joan of Arc was a Dallas housewife named Mrs. Bobbie Woodward. Mrs. Woodward, 24, and mother of two, was no Ingrid Bergman. But she had a nice pair of legs and a stubborn spirit. She saw no reason why she should hide her legs under long skirts, why her draftsman husband should be put to the expense of buying her a new wardrobe, or why the women of Texas should be pushed around by a bunch of Paris and New York designers.

"Save Eyesfrain." A month ago, Mrs. Woodward founded the Little Below the Knee Club and sent out a call to battle. The response was tremendous. By last week, the club had members in all the 48 states, in Canada and Alaska. In Dallas alone, 1,300 women signed up. San Antonio L.B.K.s issued a war cry: "The Alamo fell, but our hemlines will not."

Founder Woodward was caught up in a whirl of interviews, picture-taking, mail-opening. In the midst of it, she led an L.B.K. parade down Main Street that tied up Dallas midtown traffic for an hour and a half. Paraders carried signs saying: "Short Skirts. Save Dollars. Save Eye-strain." Short-skirted girls chased long-skirted girls with brooms. Finally, the L.B.K.s charged up to the doors of the famed Neiman-Marcus department store. Shaking brooms and fists, they cried: "Down with the long! Up with the short!"

Nothing to Hide. At the University of California's "veterans' village" in Albany, a group of young wives formed the Women's Organization to War on Styles. In a few days, the W.O.W.S. rounded up 750 members, started picketing a dress shop in bathing suits. "We Have Nothing to Hide," said their placards, "Do We Need Padding?" At Valdosta, Ga., businessmen joined the fun, chartered the League of Broke Husbands, went picketing, too. A Georgia legislator announced that he would soon introduce a bill banning long skirts. Detroit's street-railway boss declared that long skirts made the boarding of streetcars hazardous.

Despite all this todo, polls showed that, though a majority of U.S. women disliked the new styles, all but a handful planned to wear them. Oldsters recalled that there had been a furor, too, over the hobble skirt of the early 1900s and the above-the-knee skirt of the '20s, yet fashion had prevailed.