A man knows silk by the sound of it and diamonds by the shine. He will say that his heroine “was richly dressed in silk.” Little does he wot of the difference between taffeta at eighty-five cents a yard and broadcloth at four dollars. Still less does he know that a white cotton shirt-waist represents financial ease, and a silk waist of festive colouring represents poverty, since it takes but two days to “do up” a white shirt-waist in one sense, and thirty or forty cents to do it up in the other!
One listens with wicked delight to men’s discourse upon woman’s clothes. Now and then a man will express his preference for a tailored gown, as being eminently simple and satisfactory. Unless he is married and has seen the bills for tailored gowns, he also thinks they are inexpensive.
It is the benedict, wise with the acquired knowledge of the serpent, who begs his wife to get a new party gown and let the tailor-made go until next season. He also knows that when the material is bought, the expense has scarcely begun, whereas the ignorant bachelor thinks that the worst is happily over.
In A Little Journey through the World Mr. Warner philosophised thus: “How a woman in a crisis hesitates before her wardrobe, and at last chooses just what will express her innermost feelings!”
If all a woman’s feelings were to be expressed by her clothes, the benedicts would immediately encounter financial shipwreck. On account of the lamentable scarcity of money and closets, one is eternally adjusting the emotion to the gown.
Some gown, seen at the exact psychological moment, fixes forever in a man’s mind his ideal garment. Thus we read of blue calico, of pink-and-white print, and more often still, of white lawn. Mad colour combinations run riot in the masculine fancy, as in the case of a man who boldly described his favourite costume as “red, with black ruffles down the front!”
Of a hat, a man may be a surpassingly fine critic, since he recks not of style. Guileful is the woman who leads her liege to the millinery and lets him choose, taking no heed of the price and the attendant shock until later.
A normal man is anxious that his wife shall be well dressed because it shows the critical observer that his business is a great success. After futile explorations in the labyrinth, he concerns himself simply with the fit, preferring always that the clothes of his heart’s dearest shall cling to her as lovingly as a kid glove, regardless of the pouches and fulnesses prescribed by Dame Fashion.
In the writing of books, men are at their wits’ end when it comes to women’s clothes. They are hampered by no restrictions—no thought of style or period enters into their calculations, and unless they have a wholesome fear of the unknown theme, they produce results which further international gaiety.