“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,