Creating a Ripple

The uniform of the day is the news of the week. Have you noticed? The WAVES have gone into white blouses for the duration of summer. These are short-sleeved cotton affairs designed to be worn with the lightweight Navy blue working uniform. However, most of us are wearing them with our nice warm wool serge suits for the obvious reason that the Official Outfitter of WAVES has not yet caught up with the season. Another reason is that a mere lone ensign hasn't a got of a chance with enlisted girls a four platoons strong in the uniform shop. So Service Dress, Blue, A, and Service Dress, Blue, B, and the Working Uniform have been scrambled up to produce the present outfit. The fellow who said that being in the Navy would simplify a woman's clothes problem had never witnessed a WAVE trying to dress according to the chart and the latest Bupers circular letter.

Contrary to the rules regarding white blouse, long-sleeved, which you are used to seeing, rank pins are worn on the collar of white blouse, short-sleeved, because suit coats of the summer working uniform may be removed. Not that we are anxious to appear in these lovely little pillow-cases. Even if the manufacturer threw in two for the price of one, we wouldn't be happy wearing these when every women's shop in Boston, and even in Cambridge, offers at a lower price a smart-fitting shirt of finer material with pretty pearl buttons which DON'T pop off the first time it is worn.

"Regs" Broken

We are amused to find that wearing the prescribed summer uniform means breaking regulations. It says here distinctly that the short sleeve shall extend two thirds of the way from elbow to wrist. As for the suits, the primary rule is that the skirt should be of the same material as the jacket and MATCHING IN COLOR. Radcliffe supply officers, garbed in what was once reserve blue, then on second thought dyed a deeper shade, hope to avoid billets in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts wherein the standard for the WAVES' Navy blue is kept. We are still awaiting the arrival of whites in "Palm Beach, tropical worsted, or similar material;" the present material is similar to nothing we have worn in a suit before