THE MADNESS OF CLOTHES
To dress well is a social duty. Every educated self-respecting woman is bound to clothe her person as neatly, as tastefully and becomingly as she can. But just as a virtue when carried to excess develops into a vice, so the art of dressing well, when allowed to overstep its legitimate uses and expenditure, easily runs into folly and madness. The reckless extravagance of women’s dress at the present day is little short of criminal insanity. A feverish desire to outvie one another in the manner and make of their garments appears to possess every feminine creature whose lot in life places her outside positive penury. The inordinately wealthy, the normally rich, the well-to-do middle class and the shabby genteel are all equally infected by the same hysterical frenzy. And it is a frenzy which is humoured and encouraged on all sides by those who should have the sense, the intelligence and the foresight to realize the danger of such a tendency, and the misery to which in many cases it is surely bound to lead.
Latterly there have been certain growlings and mutterings of discontent from husbands who have had to pay certain unexpectedly long bills for their wives’ “creations in costume”—but, as a matter of fact, it is really the men who are chiefly to blame for the wicked waste of money they afterwards resent and deplore. They are the principal instigators of the mischief,—the aiders and abettors of the destruction of their own credit and good name. For they openly show their admiration for women’s clothes more than for the women clothed,—that is to say, they are more easily captured by art than by nature. No group of male flatterers is ever seen round a woman whose dress is un-stylish or otherwise “out-of-date.” She may have the sweetest face in the world, the purest nature and the truest heart, but the “dressed” woman, the dyed, the artistically “faked” woman will nearly always score a triumph over her so far as masculine appreciation and attention are concerned.
The “faked” woman has everything on her side. The Drama supports her. The Press encourages her. Whole columns in seemingly sane journals are devoted to the description of her attire. Very little space is given to the actual criticism of a new play as a play, but any amount of room is awarded to glorified “gushers” concerning the actresses’ gowns. Of course it has to be borne in mind that the “writing up” of actresses’ gowns serves a double purpose. First, the “creators” of the gowns are advertised, and may in their turn advertise,—which in these days of multitudinous rival newspapers, is a point not to be lost sight of. Secondly, the actresses themselves are advertised and certain gentlemen with big noses who move “behind the scenes,” and are the lineal descendants of Moses and Aaron, may thereby be encouraged to speculate in theatrical “shares.” Whereas criticism of the play itself does no good to anybody nowadays, not even to the dramatic author. For if such criticism be unfavourable, the public say it is written by a spiteful enemy,—if eulogistic, by a “friend at court,” and they accept neither verdict. They go to see the thing for themselves, and if they like it they keep on going. If not, they stay away, and there’s an end.
But to the gowns there is no end. The gowns, even in an un-successful play, are continuously talked of, continuously written about, continuously sketched in every sort of pictorial, small and great, fashionable or merely provincial. And the florid language,—or shall we say the ‘fine writing’?—used to describe clothes generally, on and off the stage, is so ravingly sentimental, so bewilderingly turgid, that it can only compare with the fervid verbosity of the early eighteenth century romancists, or the biting sarcasm of Thackeray’s Book of Snobs, from which the following passage, descriptive of ‘Miss Snobky’s’ presentation gown, may be aptly quoted:—
“Habit de Cour composed of a yellow nankeen illusion dress, over a slip of rich pea-green corduroy, trimmed en tablier with bouquets of Brussels sprouts, the body and sleeves handsomely trimmed with calimanco, and festooned with a pink train and white radishes. Head-dress, carrots and lappets.”
By way of a modern pendant to the above grotesque suggestion, one extract from a lengthy “clothes” article recently published in a daily paper will suffice:
“Among the numerous evening and dinner gowns that the young lady has in her corbeille, one, a l’Impératrice Eugénie, is very lovely. The foundation is of white Liberty, with a tulle overdress on which are four flounces of Chantilly lace arranged in zig-zags, connected together with shaded pink gloria ribbons arranged in waves and wreaths. This is repeated on the low corsage and on the long drooping sleeves of the high bodice.
“A richer toilette is of white Liberty silk, with a flounce of magnificent Brussels lace festooned by leaves of the chestnut, formed of white satin wrought in iris beads and silver on white tulle. The whole gown is strewn with like leaves of graduating sizes, and the low corsage has a berthe of Brussels lace ornamented with smaller chestnut leaves as are also the sleeves.” And so on, in unlimited bursts of enthusiasm.
I cannot say I am in the least sorry when “modistes” who ‘create’ costumes at forty, fifty and even one hundred and two hundred guineas per gown, are mulcted of some of their unlawful profits by defaulting creditors. In nine cases out of ten they richly deserve it. They are rightly punished, when they accept, with fulsome flattery and servile obsequiousness a “title” as sufficient guarantee for credit, and in the end find out that Her Grace the Duchess, or Miladi the Countess is perhaps more wickedly reckless and unprincipled than any plain Miss, or Mrs. ever born, and that these grandes dames frequently make use of both rank and position to cheat their tradespeople systematically. The tradespeople are entirely to blame for trusting them, and this is daily and continuously proved. But the touching crook-knee’d worship of mere social rank still remains an ingredient of the mercantile nature,—it is inborn and racial,—a kind of microbe in the blood generated there in old feudal times, when, all over the world, pedlars humbly sought the patronage and favour of robber chieftains, and unloaded their packs in the ‘Castle hall’ for the pleasure of the fair ladies who were kept at home in “durance vile” by their rough, unwashen lords. And so perhaps it has chanced through long custom and heritage, that at this present day there is nothing quite so servile in all creation as the spectacle of the ‘modiste’ in attendance on a Duchess, or a ‘ladies’ tailor’ bending himself double while deferentially presuming to measure the hips of a Princess. It is quaint,—it is pitiful,—it is intensely, deliciously comic. And when the price of the garment is never clearly stated, and the bill never sent in for years lest offence is given to ‘Her Grace’ or ‘Her Highness’—by firms that will, nevertheless, have no scruple in sending dunning letters and legal threats to un-titled ladies, who may possibly keep them waiting a little for their money, but whose position and credit are more firmly established than those of any ‘great’ personages with handles to their names, it is not without a certain secret satisfaction that one hears of such fawning flunkeys of trade getting well burnt in the fires of loss and disaster. For in any case, it may be taken for granted that they always charge a double, sometimes treble price for a garment or costume, over and above what that garment or costume is really worth, and one may safely presume they base all their calculations on possible loss. It is no uncommon thing to be told that such and such an evening blouse or bodice copied ‘from the Paris model’ will cost Forty Guineas—“We might possibly do it for Thirty Five,”—says the costumier meditatively, studying with well-assumed gravity the small, flimsy object he is thus pricing, a trifle made up of chiffon, ribbon, and tinsel gew-gaws, knowing all the while that everything of which it is composed could be purchased for much less than ten pounds. Twenty-five guineas, forty-five guineas, sixty-five guineas are quite common prices for gowns at any of the fashionable shops to-day. One cannot, of course, blame the modistes and outfitting firms for asking these absurd fancy prices if they can get them. If women are mad, it is perhaps wise, just, and reasonable to take financial advantage of their madness while it lasts. Certainly no woman of well-balanced brain would give unlimited prices for gowns without most careful inquiry as to the correct value of the material and trimming used for them,—and the feminine creature who runs into the elaborate show-rooms of Madame Zoë or Berenice, or Faustina, and orders frocks by the dozen, saying chirpingly: “Oh, yes! You know how they ought to be made! Your taste is always perfect! Make them very pretty, won’t you?—much prettier than those you made for Lady Claribel! Yes!—thanks! I’ll leave it all in your hands!” this woman, I say, is a mere lunatic, gibbering nonsense, who could not, if she were asked, tell where twice two making four might possibly lead her in the sum-total of a banking account.
Not very long ago there was held a wonderful “symposium” of dress at the establishment of a certain modiste. It was intensely diverting, entertaining and instructive. A stage was erected at one end of a long room, and on that stage, with effective flashes of lime-light played from the “wings” at intervals, and the accompaniment of a Hungarian band, young ladies wearing “creations” in costume, stood, sat, turned, twisted and twirled, and finally walked down the room between rows of spectators to show themselves and the gowns they carried, off to the best possible advantage. The whole thing was much better than a stage comedy. Nothing could surpass the quaint peacock-like vanity of the girl mannequins who strutted up and down, moving their arms about to exhibit their sleeves and swaying their hips to accentuate the fall and flow of flounces and draperies. It was a marvellous sight to behold, and it irresistibly reminded one of a party of impudent children trying on for fun all their mother’s and elder sisters’ best “long dresses” while the unsuspecting owners were out of the way. There was a “programme” of the performance fearfully and wonderfully worded, the composition, so we were afterwards “with bated breath” informed, of Madame la Modiste’s sister, a lady, who by virtue of having written two small skits on the manners, customs and modes of society, is, in some obliging quarters of the Press called a “novelist.” This programme instructed us as to the proper views we were expected to take of the costumes paraded before us, as follows:
FOR THE DINNER PARTY
Topas
Elusive Joy
Pleasure’s Thrall
Red Mouth of a Venomous Flower
The “Red Mouth of a Venomous Flower” was a harmless-looking girl in a bright scarlet toilette,—neither the toilette nor the sensational title suited her. But perhaps the “Cult of Chiffon” presented the most varied and startling phases to a properly receptive mind. Thus it ran:
THE CULT OF CHIFFON
The Dirge O’er the Death of Pleasure
The Fire Motif
The Meaning of Life is Clear
Moss and Starlight
Incessant Soft Desire
A Frenzied Song of Amorous Things
A Summer Night Has a Thousand Powers
Faint gigglings shook the bosoms of the profane as the “Incessant Soft Desire” glided into view, followed by “A Frenzied Song of Amorous Things,”—indeed it would have been positively unnatural and inhuman had no one laughed. Curious to relate, there were quite a large number of “gentlemen” at this remarkable exhibition of feminine clothes, many of them well known and easily recognizable. Certain flaneurs of Bond Street, various loafers familiar to the Carlton “lounge,” and celebrated Piccadilly-trotters, formed nearly one half of the audience, and stared with easy insolence at the “Red Mouth of a Venomous Flower” or smiled suggestively at “Incessant Soft Desire.” They were invited to stare and smile, and they did it. But there was something remarkably offensive in their way of doing it, and perhaps if a few thick boots worn on the feet of rough but honest workmen had come into contact with their smooth personalities on their way out of Madame Modiste’s establishment, it might have done them good and taught them a useful lesson. Needless to say that the prices of the Madame Modiste who could set forth such an exhibition of melodramatically designated feminine apparel as “The Night has a Thousand Eyes,” or “Spring’s Delirium,” were in suitable proportion to a “frenzied song of amorous things.” Such amorous things as are “created” in her establishment are likely to make husbands and fathers know exactly what “a frenzied song” means. When the payment of the bills is concerned, they will probably sing that “frenzied song” themselves.
It is quite easy to dress well and tastefully without spending a very great deal of money. It certainly requires brain—thought—foresight—taste—and comprehension of the harmony of colours. But the blind following of a fashion because Madame This or That says it is “chic” or “le dernier cri,” or some parrot-like recommendation of the sort, is mere stupidity on the part of the followers. To run up long credit for dresses, without the least idea how the account is ever going to be paid, is nothing less than a criminal act. It is simply fraud. And such fraud re-acts on the whole community.
Extravagant taste in dress is infectious. Most of us are impressed by the King’s sensible and earnest desire that the Press should use its influence for good in fostering amity between ourselves and foreign countries. If the Press would equally use its efforts to discourage florid descriptions of dress in their columns, much of the wild and wilful extravagance which is frequently the ruin of otherwise happy homes, might be avoided. When Lady A sees her loathëd rival Lady B’s dress described in half a column of newspaper “gush” she straightway yearns and schemes for a whole column of the same kind. When simple country girls read the amazing items of the “toilettes” worn by some notorious “demi-mondaine,” they begin to wonder how it is she has such things, and to speculate as to whether they will ever be able to obtain similar glorified apparel for themselves. And so the evil grows, till by and by it becomes a pernicious disease, and women look superciliously at one another, not for what they are, but merely to estimate the quality and style of what they put on their backs. Virtue goes to the wall if it does not wear a fashionable frock. Vice is welcomed everywhere if it is clothed in a Paris “creation.” Nevertheless, Ben Jonson’s lines still hold good:
Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder’d, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
“All is not sweet, all is not sound,” when women think little or nothing of ordering extravagant costumes which they well know they will never be able to pay for, unless through some dishonourable means, such as gambling at Bridge for example. Madame Modiste is quite prepared for such an exigency, for she does not forget to show “creations” in clothes which, she softly purrs, are “suitable for Bridge parties.” They may possibly be called—“The Tricky Trump”—or “The Dazzling of a Glance too long” or “The Deft Impress of a Finger nail”! One never knows!
Any amount of fashion papers find their way into the average British household, containing rabid nonsense such as the following:
“There were wonderful stories afloat about Miss B’s dresses. Rumour has it that a dressmaker came over specially from New York to requisition the services of the most important artistes in Paris, and gold lace and hand embroidery were used with no frugal hand; yet, despite this and the warm welcome accorded her by an English audience, Miss B does not seem to have made up her mind to stay with us long, for it is said the end of June will see the end of her season. We have sketched her in her pink chiffon wrap, which is made in the Empire shape covered with chiffon and decorated with bunches of chiffon flowers and green leaves held with bows of pink satin—a most dainty affair, full of delicate detail and pre-eminently becoming.”
“Despite this,”—is rich indeed! Despite the fact that “gold lace and hand-embroidery” were used “with no frugal hand,” Miss B is determined to leave “the gay, the gay and glittering scene,” and deprive us of her “pink chiffon wrap in the Empire shape”! A positively disastrous conclusion! Nay, but hearken to the maudlin murmurs of the crazed worshippers of Mumbo-Jumbo “Fashion”—
“Do you yearn for a grey muslin dress? Half my ‘smart girl’ acquaintances are buying grey muslins as though their lives depended on it. I fell in love with one of them that was in bouilloné gathers all round the skirt to within eight inches of the hem, while the yoke had similar but smaller bouillonés run through, well below the shoulder-line, with a wide chiné ribbon knotted low in front. Beneath this encircling ribbon the bodice pouched in blouse fashion over a chiné waist-ribbon to match, with long pendant ends one side; the sleeves were a distinct novelty, being set in a number of small puffs below one big one, a chiné ribbon being knotted around the arm between each puff.”
“Do you ‘yearn’ for a grey muslin dress?” O ye gods! One is reminded of a comic passage in the “Artemus Ward” papers, where it is related how a lady of the “Free Love” persuasion rushed at the American humorist, brandishing a cotton umbrella and crying out: “Dost thou not yearn for me?” to which adjuration Artemus replied, while he “dodged” the umbrella—“Not a yearn!”
“I should like,”—says one of the poor imbecile “dress” devotees, “the skirt finished off with a wadded hem, or perhaps a few folds of satin, but otherwise it should be left severely plain. These satin, brocade, or velvet dresses should stand or fall by their own merits, and never be over-elaborated.”
True! And is it “a wadded hem” or a padded room that should “finish off” these people who spread the madness of clothes far and wide till it becomes a positively dangerous and immoral infection? One wonders! For there is no more mischievous wickedness in society to-day than the flamboyant, exuberant, wilful extravagance of women’s dress. It has far exceeded the natural and pretty vanity of permissible charm, good taste and elegance. It has become a riotous waste,—an ugly disease of moral principle, ending at last in the disgrace and death of many a woman’s good name.