Costume and Ornament

Turning sharply from the useful to the ornamental—from the kitchen to the boudoir—the woman who uses the Britannica will find in it not merely the interesting information to which clues are given in the chapter for the jeweller and in the section on embroidery (Ch. 66) but many other articles about costume and dress, with illustrations which make the text far clearer and more valuable. With the constant turns of Fashion’s wheel, dress, and especially women’s dress, is always reverting to an earlier style or to a more primitive and semi-barbaric style of the present day—now Empire styles, Robespierre collars, close-fitting gowns of the pseudo-Greek style of the Napoleonic era, and now a quasi-folk style, Bulgarian, or Oriental, and again a hint of the ecclesiastical surplice, dalmatic, stole, or collar. The result is that the study of the styles of the past, especially when properly illustrated, may be not only interesting but actually valuable to a woman planning a new gown or a “novel” ornament for head or throat.

The article Costume (Vol. 7, p. 224), equivalent in length to 80 pages of this Guide, is written by T. A. Joyce of the Department of Ethnography, British Museum; by Stanley Arthur Cook, editor for the Palestine Exploration Fund, on Egyptian and Semitic costume; by Henry Stuart Jones, late director of the British School at Rome, on Aegean, Greek and Roman costume; by Oswald Barron, late editor of the Ancestor, on medieval and modern costume; and by W. Alison Phillips, author of Modern Europe, etc. Its 51 illustrations are chosen with great care from original sources, tombs, wall-paintings, seals, statues and statuettes, brasses, and portraits of many periods, and they are supplemented by illustrations in other articles:—Aegean Civilization (Vol. 1, p. 245), see Plate III, Fig. 7 and Plate IV, Fig. 7, for multiple or flounced skirts and basques—like those of the early ’80’s—with short overskirt scalloped high on either side; Greek Art, Figs. 2, 3, 21, 40, 42, 75; Terracotta (Vol. 26, p. 653), see both plates and especially Fig. 4 of Tanagra and other figurines; Roman Art (Vol. 23, p. 474), see Figs. 11, 12, 16, 24, 28; Brasses, Monumental (Vol. 4, p. 434), see all illustrations; Illuminated Manuscripts (Vol. 14, p. 312), see Plates III and V; Painting (Vol. 20, p. 459), see Figs. 7, 10, 11, 14, 25, 27; Lace (Vol. 16, p. 37), see Figs. 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 33; Miniatures (Vol. 18, p. 523), see both plates. One of the most interesting sources for the text of the article Costume is in the writings of satirists, who from period to period have praised the simplicity and frugality of the preceding generation and bewailed the extravagance in style and material of dress during the satirists’ own day.

Besides this general article on costume there is special treatment of Chinese costume in the article China (Vol. 6, p. 173) and a section on costume in the article India (Vol. 14, p. 417), equivalent to 18 pages of this Guide, written by Col. Charles Grant, formerly inspector of military education in India, illustrated with 16 pen-and-ink drawings by J. Lockwood Kipling, who is best-known to most people as the father of Rudyard Kipling, and the illustrator of Kim, his son’s story of native life in India. On Celtic dress see the article Clan (Vol. 6, p. 421); on that of the Hittites the article Hittites (Vol. 13, p. 537); on modern Egyptian the article Egypt (Vol. 9, p. 31), on Persian, the article Persia (Vol. 21, p. 193), etc.

And see the following articles on costume and similar topics:

Biographical Study

A study of the lives of great women will interest any one, and if this study is pursued by means of the Britannica the reader will have the double advantage of getting full and authoritative material presented in the most attractive and excellent style. From the lists that follow of articles on women in the Britannica, interesting groups may easily be chosen, such as:

Famous American Women:—Anne Hutchinson, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Margaret O’Neill Eaton, Margaret Fuller, the Grimké sisters, Harriet Beecher Stowe.