CONCERNING MEN'S DRESS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—As
two men have given their opinions upon the article in your paper about men's dress, perhaps you will allow an old woman to give hers. I am inclined to believe your contributor did write with her tongue in her cheek, as I cannot imagine such a farrago of nonsense being written seriously. Picture to yourself men shooting over ploughed fields, or deer stalking, in loose, low-necked red shirts and " light weight flexible shoes of vivid (sic) leather !" or hunting in raspberry marocain (what is that ?) blouse and red military breeches ! and a fur cap ! I am afraid I cannot claim such an intimate acquaintance with men's underclothes as this lady seems to possess, but judging from my husband's and sons' garments I should say they could hardly be looser or more comfortable. I don't know how underwear can be " comic," but can quite understand how the lady's sug- gestions for outside wear can be " comic," and I should suggest should be worn with a fool's cap and bells. The opinions she expresses about women's dress are too many to be discussed here, but I should like toremark that anything more contrary to artistic sense is scarcely possible. Imagine Reynolds, Lawrence or any other artist painting a shapeless figure supported on two legs, very often of the bedpost order, with flat irons for feet. The decency she writes of few will be able to see. In the evening, the backs are bare nearly to the waist and the fronts only upheld by narrow shoulder straps, and as a man remarked to me of the lady he sat next at a dinner : " She had very little on, and that little I expected to slip off every minute." In the morning their backs are covered, but their arms and legs are bare to all intents and purposes, and when playing tennis a good deal above the knees is displayed to an admiring (?) public.—I am, Sir, &c., AN OLD WOMAN.
Previous page
