On Taking Clothes Seriously
By J. B. MORTON.
IT is often said by those mysterious people who are
called social critics that we live in an age which takes nothing seriously. This is not true. The business of dressing is taken with deadly seriousness, at least by men, and I propose to call as evidence. the woman who, last week, said to a County Court Judge : " You know yourself that you cannot wear a bowler hat with plus fours." The whole point of her remark is that it is strictly true. If it were not, the Judge would think nothing of arriving at his club in a bowler hat and plus fours, to ask the porter for his letters. He would, without embarrassment, appear at a first night of a play in football shorts and a straw hat. He would, without the flicker of an eyelid, dine in public with a Turkish fez on his head
and a seaman's jersey beneath his coat. But everybody except, apparently, the social critic knows that these are
precisely the things which the Judge would never con- template. It would be to cross the border between dress and fancy-dress ; which is what almost every age but our own has done with a certain amount of gaiety.
From time to time some tailor, supported by a writer of fashion notes, makes a timid demand for a touch of fantasy in men's clothes, a splash of colour here, and a wisp of lace there. But there is no response, for the simple reason that everybody knows the tailor is behaving as though clothes were a joke. And there is nobody to point out that all the dignity of dressing in a certain way vanishes when the game is taken too seriously.
The defence for the old custom of wearing certain clothes on stated occasions and at stated times is that in this manner you bring ceremonial into life. But when ceremonial becomes mere convention, the defence breaks down. If a roomful of gentlemen in evening dress went through all the elaborate ritual of bowing, managing a sword, twirling a handkerchief, touching the lace at the wrist, then life would be richer for their gravity, and one who came into their midst in eccentric garments would be committing a kind of offence, and not merely a breach of manners or good taste. But when the gravity remains and the meaning has disappeared, the thing becomes absurd. Men are no longer taking it seriously, but too seriously. And there is all the world of difference.
Dignity having departed from common life to-day, I see no reason why this matter of clothing should be treated with misplaced reverence. There is no law on the Statute Book to prevent the Judge, outside his Court, from walking about in a crimson bowler and yellow plus fours. And the chances are that when he grew used to the idea he would enjoy it. He would, for one thing, be able to reply to the woman's statement, " Oh, can't I ? " and to.make her realize what she misses by being the ser- vant of fashion. You may tell me that I am going to extremes. I shall reply that we all go to extremes to-day. The alternative to a dull uniform for daily life seems to be, at the moment, stark nakedness. Is there no room in between the wearers of lounge-suits and the wearers of nothing at all, for a wearer of scarlet and gold—or, at least, of bowler hats and plus fours ?
I once read an amusing story about a man, normally well dressed, who, in order to win a bet, went about for a day without a tie. His adventures proved beyond any shadow of doubt that what we take seriously to-day is clothing. You may crack your jokes about almost any other department of human affairs. You may have your cranky opinions about food or war or marriage or art or science. You may treat a betrothal as a jest, write lunatic verse, paint hideous pictures, design repulsive buildings— in short, play the fool as you please—'but not in this matter of dress. An artist can be shabby and unshaved ; but if he wore his braces outside his coat the vogue for him in drawing-rooms would end as suddenly as it began. A divorce can be as witty as he pleases about his intimate life, but he must not go to the theatre without a collar. A tub-thumper in Hyde Park may treat religion as a joke, but if he wears dress-clothes and thigh-boots he will be arrested as a maniac*
Business men, who have less humour and therefore less sense of proportion than other people, would find it difficult to deny that the whole -secret of their success or failure lies in the choice of clothes. No clerk would dare to dress like a writer. (I exclude novelists, who are business men.) Those agonizing advertisements, Amer- ican- in flavour, which address homilies to young men anxious to succeed, are all based on the supposition that what holds down a good job is not the man but his slanting pockets, his waist-line, his type of boot-sole or the texture of his tie.
Again, what is it that deceives widows and makes young girls so trusting " He was a well-dressed man." It is the ruffian's clothes they take seriously, not every- thing they have been taught about human nature.
As for those who talk about breaking free from the tyranny of clothes, and dressing comfortably and hygienically, they are the worst offenders of all. For the Soliffire half-light of martyrdom hovers round the word hygiene. Health, which was given to man to make hint light-hearted, descends like a dead weight upon dress reformers. Their shirts must be open wide at the throat, their knees must be exposed, and so on. And in a world where we are all more or less distinguishable by our uniforms, these pioneers who have determined to break loose are more conspicuous than a crowd of aldermen. The self-conscious attempt to be unconventional has ended by fastening upon them a convention more ludi- crous than ever.
Therefore, I do beg all those social critics, lecturers, dons, schoolmistresses, philosophers and moralizers, whenever they arc prompted, for pay or for notoriety, to chastise the age, not to forget that there is still some- thing which is not affected by our incurable frivolity. Though it is possible that a jest about clothes would be passed by the Censor of plays, and might not lead to the banning of a book by the public libraries, yet even the cleverest and most flippant of our writers have so far shirked the peril. We take our clothes even more seriously than our pleasures.
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