REFORM IN WOMEN'S DRESS.
TN our recent article on "Reform in Woman's Dress," we said .1 we would try and trace some of the characteristics of the English as a nation which might be translated into a mode of .dress which would create an English standard of taste, stamped with the characteristic of English feelings, and take the place of French fashions, which are doubtless very positively. evolved out of the French character. As we have said before, the French fire-work kind of brilliancy, backed by great industry, patience, and natural aptitude for perfection of finish, have achieved a unique position for all the fashions the French choose to invent. When Paris starts a fashion, the milliners of all civilised coun- tries are ready to import it all over Europe and America. But on us English, we do not think French inventions sit with much grace. We are too different from the French to -adapt with any success the style which best suits them. The English character and mind, being, as compared with the French, simple, vague, and slow ; imaginative, rather than -fanciful ; constant and stable in feeling, rather than quickly sympathetic ; proud, rather than vain ; and though proud, de- oidedly more modest and less self-confident than the French, we invent when we do exert ourselves, and push out our creative facul- ties on entirely different lines, so to speak, from those on which the French invent; but too often our modesty, vagueness, simplicity, and slowness acting together ensnare us into an undue admira- tion of a French quality or achievement, for the very reason that we do not possess the one and cannot readily accomplish the other. Trench vanity, on the contrary, as a rule admires French quali- ties and French achievements because they are French. We are apt to surrender our national taste not because the taste we adopt is superior, but because the weak side of our simplicity is deluded into believing theoretically in the taste which thinks so much of itself. That we are not discriminating in the manner in which we follow French fashions is shown by the fact that we do not copy what is really admirable in their work, and that we exaggerate almost to distortion the most fantastic inventions in French dress. Many a Paris milliner will keep an outrg form of the fashions for her English and American custo- mers, and we in England often imitate the frills and fur- belows of French trimmings, but we do not make a point of imitating the neatness and perfection of the work, nor are we clever in fitting the wearing of the garment appropriately to the occasion, so that often we see an idea which starts from the Paris milliner in the form of an elaborate and artful piece of needlework, swept about dirty London streets in a slovenly, untidy form. Probably our power of per- fecting the details of Dress will always fail as long as we
tate another nation's :inventions, for the same reason that in higher kinds of art it is so rare to find a copyist of any work of art capable of rendering even the most technical qualities of finish with real skill of elaboration, the interest felt by the in- ventor himself being the only power sufficiently strong to inspire the patience and ability necessary for perfect complete- ness in the detail. But we believe that, were we to sharpen our inventive qualities and overcome the vagueness which results in an indiscriminate following of fashions which in no way fit into our national characteristics, weaving into such inventions a better side of our modesty and simplicity than we have shown in doing more than justice to another nation's taste, we might achieve the invention of costumes at once beautiful and Eng- lish in character.
In the art of decoration and furnishing, such an achieve- ment has taken plate. The firm known by the name of Morris, and inspired by the poet, with the aid of other less distinctly original firms, has purified and simplified the taste of house decoration and furniture, removing it from French vagaries and luxuries, and giving to many houses a homelike beauty which is at once essentially English, refined, and interesting. In this decorative work, we trace the better side of the charac- teristics of the English qualities, simplicity, modesty, and a suggestion of imagination, shown in exquisite renderings of the curves in nature, and the subtleties and intricacies of her tones and colours harmonised into distinct and beautiful decorative inventions. With such work we can all clothe our houses, be the houses large or small ; and we should like this same process to be applied to the clothing of our bodies, which certainly are generally better made and worthier of a finer and more artistic treatment than are our modern buildings. When we think for a moment how beautiful is the mechanism of even the least "well made" human figure, how marvellously and subtly is such mechanism planned on the highest laws of beauty, and then think how we treat it by submitting it to the distor- tion produced by the foolish inventions of fashion, we cannot vaunt greatly the common-sense of our modern civilisa- tion; and from the point of view of beauty, such a want of taste is something like what it would be were we to decorate Westminster Abbey or Giotto's Tower in Florence by filling it with Palais-Royal gim-cracks ;—only in this case we should be simply desecrating and spoiling the effect of beautiful inventions of Art,—whereas in the other we are deforming a natural structure, injuring it per- manently for many of its uses. Perhaps none of us have realised the extent of the harm which sowing such bad seed will reach, but we may feel certain that in no way can we ever interfere unintelligently with any of Nature's laws without sooner or later suffering for such interference. Tightening the figure where it is most essential it should have perfect free- dom, tilting up the heels, and in so doing displacing the natural position of every vertebra of the spine, and strang- ling the throat till congestion of parts most intimately con- nected with the eyes and brain must be the result, are all such interferences with Nature's intentions ; and to any sensi- tive eye, taught by a knowledge of the human figure to see in what it is that the special beauty of the structure consists, such interferences are not only very ugly, but monstrous and ridiculous. As a rule, however, we have allowed.our eyes to become accustomed to certain forms in the figure which these fashions create, but which a most elementary study of it
must prove to be not at all akin to those which Nature intended.
In desiring a reform in Dress, we do not mean that individual taste should not be most fully exercised, for the good reason that, as those houses are the most interesting which suggest the character and occupations of their inhabitants, so also the dress, which in a measure translates the individuality of its wearer, must always have the most charm for those who care for the individual. In all matters, surely the worst reason for doing anything is because everybody else does it. Bat still, in dress, as in all other matters, for individual liberty of taste to work successfully, such liberty must be based on intelligent laws. At present, these laws are those of a fashion which, we contend, is anything but intelligent, and which leads many English women to adopt a style of costume that misrepresents the nicest parts of their character, and which sits but ill on any but
the fast Cosmopolitan set who sacrifice distinction and all character in appearance, it would seem, to the desire of looking to belong to no country in particular. It may be most important to live, using Mr. 3f. Arnold's expression, at all points, provided always the points be genuine points, consistent with our own nature, not outside it, —having a root in the necessities of -our own characters, not merely points which result from our adopting foreign manners and opinions. Were we energetic enough to be really genuine in our likes and dislikes, probably our English taste in dress would be capable of a development in its English character which might hold its own in the pre- sent day with the taste which inspires the best literature, art, architecture, decoration, and furniture. There is nothing more English in essential characteristics than are our best writers, Tennyson, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, and so forth; or our best artists, Watts, Borne Jones, and Millais (when he is worthy of Millais); our best house architects, Webb, Stephenson, Norman, Shaw ; or our best decorator, Morris. The work of all -these is essentially harmonious with the best English feeling, and surely it would be well were our Dress also in harmony with such national culture as accentuates the better side of our English character,—the modesty, dignity, and imagina- tion which we English at our best possess. Surely human beings, being the most interesting elements in life, ought to study the art of dress, which affects their appearance so materially, sufficiently to keep pace with the taste of their houses and furniture, if any good results attend beauty in ex- ternal matters at all. We cannot here enter into the minntias of any scheme for re-dressing the English public ; we can only suggest that such a re-dressing is advisable which would put an end to the unhealthy, distorting, and ugly forms which are, through all changes of fashion, steadily adhered to, and that the good side of our English characteristics should be woven into such a re-dressing. For instance, could not garments be invented at once convenient, modest, and beautiful, which should _give an arrangement of folds (folds being in themselves lovely, as means of giving varied light and shade, and graceful intri- cacies of line), instead of the light, foldless dress, expanded and stretched over the form, falsified by a depraved idea of the human figure which is much more immodest than nature left to herself without any garments at all would be, just as the expres- sion of natural truths when partially screened and hinted at by innuendos is less decent than when expressed for useful pur- poses simply and directly ? Again, instead of the complications of frills and trimmings and pointless elaborations of all sorts, which smother modern costume without adding one line of beauty or one atom of comfort, could not the time and thought expended on such trimmings be used to make the folds of the garments hang beautifully and to some purpose, and so as to retain the appearance of simplicity lathe most finished garment? Probably- the easiest way in which a better fashion could be introduced would be for a good milliner to carry out the form of a costume invented by some one possessing an intelligent knowledge of the human figure and an appreciation of its beauty, and for two or three beautiful women of influence to adopt it. We should be surprised were there not found many enlightened enough to follow _their exam ple. The real difficulty would be to make the public ad- here steadily to any one or two forms, however satisfactory. The love of change is so general, that no form could ever be successfully carried out that did not, in a measure, adapt itself to individual taste; but we shall never be safe from ugly and unhealthy forms of costume if, through all the vagaries of individual taste, some principles based on the laws of beauty and sense are not adhered to. It would simplify the difficulties much, were it possible to gratify the love of change by varying the ornamenta- tion, and not the form of the garments. Perhaps there is no line in which ornamentation could be carried out with more variety and beauty, and in so doing more scope could be given for our imagination, and with (what is of so much importance) more in- terest to the worker, than the art of embroidery by hand. How much more wholesome for mind, and therefore for body, would be such an employment as embroidering, carrying out beautiful designs in lovely-coloured silks and crewels on the stuffs which are now neither rare nor expensive, but yet beautiful, compared to the occupation of the many milliners' girls who sit hour after hour, day after day, week after week, working the sewing- machine, in order to produce thousands and thousands of yards of monotonous frills and furbelows, made to be worn out as quickly, and in the process to collect as much dust as possible, the highest aim of such manufacture being -to produce the effect of smartness and elaboration P Were the same workwomen employed the same number of hours in embroideiing beautiful designs, in delightful colours and delicate tones, we should not only have much
of the world dressed in really beautiful garments, which would, moreover, remain beautiful as long as the threads held together, but we should have found a means of encouraging good design and a field of industry for the many art students who fail to support themselves as artists, bat might, by making appropriate designs for embroidering dresses, do Art a better turn than by producing sixth-rate pictures. As the months and seasons come round, designs might be made from the flowers belonging to the time of year, so as to make the dresses appro- priate to the seasons. This, in our changeable climate, is impos- sible, except by the colour and the ornament, for the substance of the material cannot vary very much. Of course, a really beautiful dress embroidered with artistic designs would be a much more costly production than are the merely showy dresses now generally worn; but any one possessing fine taste would, of course, sacrifice quantity for quality, and as embroidery is the most lasting kind of ornament a dress can have, even the quantity would soon be supplied, as dresses would last so much the longer. And were clothes made really beautiful, the passion for incessant change in dress would, we hope, much diminish. We have allowed our manner of living to be invaded by French fickle- ness, by their passion for producing an effect, —their love of change for the sake of change, and of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. The form all this takes in dress is to make the passing fashion imperative, but ever-changing, uniting the de- fects of both monotony and change, of want of originality and yet constant thought, and worst of all, substituting for real beauty that most unrefined of qualities known commonly as claque. Fashion ought to be the means of propagating the beautiful and the sensible; at present, it is used as an end in itself.
We have never adopted generally a French fashion of dress for our English children, feeling instinctively that the grace of childhood is too imperative in its simplicity for us to dare to shackle it with the artificialities of French inventions, however daintily carried out. To the ordinary English mind, a French child dressed in the fashion is a comical little object. It Las, to our minds, also something of the pathos of a young foal put cruelly early into harness. But it is when our young girls are growing up, developing from children into women, that fashion necessitates their being put into harness, it is then that the operation of "fining down" the figure by stays begins ; that the free action and natural balance are re- stricted and destroyed; that, instead of giving every function a chance of free development, the incessant, gradual pressure is used of whalebone and steel where Nature has not even allowed the hardness of any bony structure to press. Of course, Nature's form can only be materially alttred where there are no bones to resist, but the want of sense shown in the desire to alter her form cannot be too urgently denounced. Happily, Punch has lately taken up the cause of beauty and good-taste in this matter, in a most practical and convincing form; and in Mr. Du Manner's and Mr. Sambourne's inimitable drawings we have the absurdities of fashion saliently shown, though hardly caricatured; and find hints at improvements in dress perfectly moderate in taste and artistic in treatment.
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