The blouse and the teagown of to-day date their inception from the last century, but the beneficent law of evolution concedes them the grace of novelty, even while dogma tediously reiterates "There is nothing new under the sun."
EARLY VICTORIAN STYLES.
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
In costume the Victorian era was "Everything-arian," welcoming and discarding all shapes and styles of garments, and gathering in the fashions from every age, adopting with mild enthusiasm and moderated transport the most graceful and the most graceless, and impartially bestowing attention upon the slashed and puffed sleeves of the Tudors, the lace collar and wide ruff of the Stuarts, the Watteau dress, re-christened "Dolly Varden," the short waists of the Empire, the full coats and large revers of the Directoire, and the long plumes and brilliant buckles of the seventeenth century. An injustice to the word æsthetic was committed by the followers of a fashion which cried aloud for sad colours, sadder shapes, and the saddest untidiness; and amongst the ridiculous mistakes may be written down a polonaise dress looping up in unexpected places, flounced and furbelowed without bounds of reason, while extending itself from the waist over an immense bustle. There is satisfaction in remembering the reaction which took place after this in favour of the eelskin dress, setting as tightly as was convenient from neck to heel, when the woven jersey-bodice had a short spell of patronage, but, proving itself suavely unsympathetic in its treatment of any but the perfect figure, lapsed speedily into disuse. About 1882 the questionable charms of the bustle reasserted themselves, and the Watteau style of frock exercised some beneficial influence over the waist of its fair wearer.
Man's last aspiration towards dandyism gasped and died in the embrace of the stock of Count D'Orsay. Now, woman alone rules the roost of fashion, man is "no longer dressed but clothed," and under feminine autocracy, dress, whose interests are widely and publicly recognised, has reached a position of primary importance. No more are these interests represented in an unwanted corner of a monthly periodical, or in the letters of the town cousin to the country cousin, or in the counsels of perfection signed by "the old woman." They maintain various journals established in their honour, and in the field of Fashion England has risen from the ranks to leadership; while a wide plain of cheap selection opens to the proletariat the chance to beautify their outer as well as their under wear, which has emerged from the uncompromising confines of stiff long-cloth and Madeira work to the seductive limits encompassed by fine lawn and embroidery, allied to Valenciennes lace and soft ribbon.
As I write, Fashion seems a pleasantly moderate thing, and the summer-day dress of white linen, with a broad-brimmed hat encircled by the floating veil, and the evening dress of chiffon garlanded with chiffon, appear to justify my suspicion that "whatever is, is right, in the world of dress." And, when I remember that the "picture" dress of to-day was the garb of convention yesterday, I can hope that our bespangled nets and tinselled brocades will in due course be encircled with charm from the halo of the bygone. May it also, I pray, come to soften the hardest outline of our leather-trimmed tweed and serge costumes of sport, and to exercise a benign influence upon our disproportionate figures and our perky toques!