We began by saying that everybody has a right to be well dressed in the true meaning of the phrase. But, as Ruskin says in his grand “Letter to Young Girls,” “Although in a truly Christian land every young girl would be dressed beautifully and delightfully: in this entirely heathen and Baal-worshipping land of ours, not one girl in ten has either decent or healthy clothing, and you have no business, till this be amended, to wear anything fine yourself.” And Jean Ingelow, a writer with whose works you cannot too soon make acquaintance, brings this indictment against our sex—“For them mainly are the gorgeous pageants, are the costly clothes, the gold lace, the carpets of velvet pile, the diamonds and the splendours of life. The pride of life is in their souls, and mainly for them. It is luxury that stands in the way of the civilised world, so that men cannot marry young and be happy. For the earth does not produce unbounded riches for a few while yet the many can have enough. Equality is a word without meaning or possibility; but notwithstanding, squalor and destitution might be things outside our experience, as should be luxury and waste.”
This brings us to the principle that should guide our expenditure, whether the sum at our command be large or small. Of material we should buy the best and most durable within reach of our purse. We have no right to keep people employed in weaving and making up useless and perishable shoddy articles. It is a dishonour to them to do such work, and if they are forced to do it that they may get bread to eat, we are keeping them in the worst kind of slavery. That we pay them for it does not make it any better, any more than if we paid them for any other degrading and wasteful service. We insult them by taking their industry and trampling it under foot, as if they had no concern in their work, but only in their wages. How can the industrial classes retain self-respect under such circumstances? And when self-respect is lost, respect for others always goes also. Quite lately we saw a lady sitting in a dressmaker’s room watching the “setting-up” of what was considered a very grand garment. Its materials were certainly of the costliest, but it had yards of delicate silk trailing on the ground to an extent that must have ensured their speedy destruction, even on the most ceremonious occasion, and over the short front skirt hung masses of tulle, festooned by elaborate iridescent glass drops, worthy of the decoration of a South Sea Island god! Seeing our friend’s grave face, we asked her what she was thinking of, and she replied, “I am thinking of the men who wove that silk to be trodden on, and the girls who sewed those beads to be smashed. Poor things! I would rather be the grimiest maid-of-all-work toiling for real human needs, or the roughest tailor or cobbler, working to cover honest human nakedness.”
Let all dress, therefore, always be as durable as can be, both in material and mode. As to “fashion,” even that has a root of necessity and common sense, because dress must change as social habits and customs change. Ruskin advises that no garment should ever be thrown aside because unfashionable, and that no costly fashion should ever be followed. Think what that word “costly” involves. Tight lacing, heavy flouncing, open bodices, high heels, and so forth, costly of health; dead birds’ wings, and everything else costly of suffering; complicated trimmings, costly of time and human energy in a world where there are thousands of little children growing up ill taught, thousands of sick people dying ill tended, thousands of industrious folk slaving to death for a paltry pittance.
It seems to us that when a lady has once discovered the dress best suited to her age, appearance, and condition—the ideal robe in which she would wish to be painted for the eyes of unborn generations—her future study will be, not how much she can “follow the fashion,” but how little she need follow it to escape singularity. Fashion has nothing to do with a desire to be pleasant in the sight of others. Let any of our readers turn to the graceful studies of girl-life with which M. E. E. makes us so familiar, and then to the figures in any fashion-plate, and ask themselves candidly which are most likely to commend themselves to the eye of artistic taste or of domestic affection?
And here we come to the matter of making ourselves “fair to see.” This is a decided duty. We have to make ourselves attractive to those whose love we desire, and to those from whose wisdom we wish approval. But we imagine that the desire to be loved and approved has a very small share in extravagance and fantasticalness in dress. Let us speak out plainly. We seldom befrill and bedeck ourselves, and waste time and money, to please our parents or friends, but rather to spite and outshine our “dearest enemies” among our female acquaintances. Suitability of style, dainty freshness, and tasteful variety will always satisfy love; and good sense, combined with a little industry and taste, will easily secure these desirable objects. I remember the approving notice bestowed by a great divine and philanthropist on the appearance of a young literary woman, who, travelling under difficult and troublesome conditions, was provided with a very few dresses of the plainest quality and style, but who by artfully varied arrangements of muslin or lace and coquettish little additions of tasteful ribbon, managed to give her friends’ eyes an ever-new surprise and pleasure. Can there be a prettier picture than that of a modest little maiden trying how a rose-coloured bow will brighten her sober dress, to please papa—or perhaps somebody else?
And now we come to the consideration of “luxury.” If we are always to remember the ignorant and the starving, are we never to have anything whose price might have paid teachers or bought bread? Let us hear Ruskin again:—“What of fine dress your people insist upon your wearing, take and wear proudly and prettily for their sakes.” Let us never seek luxury of any sort—let us rather avoid it; but let us still accept it with delight when it comes to us by the hands of genuine love. The diamond in a girl’s engagement ring, the gold locket enclosing her mother’s portrait, the dainty filigree bracelet sent by her brother abroad, the exquisite lace set worked by her dearest friends, are on quite a different line from the fashionable jewellery and ornaments which she buys for herself or teases her relatives to buy for her—as different (with all reverence be it written) as the gift of the alabaster box of precious ointment tendered by a loving woman to her Master is different from the cases of Rimmel’s perfume which are squandered at every ball.
And thus we see that the great principle which underlies this vexed “woman’s question” of clothes is the great principle of love itself—love, serving others, considering others; love bestowing, love receiving. Such love needs no law, being itself the highest law.
THE ROMANCE OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND;
OR,
THE OLD LADY OF THREADNEEDLE STREET.
By EMMA BREWER.