English Costume

E-text prepared by Jason Isbell, Sam W., and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
ENGLISH COSTUME PAINTED & DESCRIBED BY DION CLAYTON CALTHROP · PUBLISHED BY ADAM & CHARLES BLACK · LONDON · MCMVII
Published in four volumes during 1906.
Published in one volume, April, 1907.
AGENTS

A MAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE IV. (1820-1830)
Here you see the coat which we now wear, slightly altered, in our evening dress. It came into fashion, with this form of top-boots, in 1799, and was called a Jean-de-Bry. Notice the commencement of the whisker fashion.

The world, if we choose to see it so, is a complicated picture of people dressing and undressing. The history of the world is composed of the chat of a little band of tailors seated cross-legged on their boards; they gossip across the centuries, feeling, as they should, very busy and important. Someone made the coat of many colours for Joseph, another cut into material for Elijah’s mantle.
Baldwin, from his stall on the site of the great battle, has only to stretch his neck round to nod to the tailor who made the toga for Julius Cæsar; has only to lean forward to smile to Pasquino, the wittiest of tailors.
John Pepys, the tailor, gossips with his neighbour who cut that jackanapes coat with silver buttons so proudly worn by Samuel Pepys, his son. Mr. Schweitzer, who cut Beau Brummell’s coat, talks to Mr. Meyer, who shaped his pantaloons. Our world is full of the sound of scissors, the clipping of which, with the gossiping tongues, drown the grander voices of history.