The Heritage of Dress: Being Notes on the History and Evolution of Clothes

by Wilfred Mark Webb

The other part of the body which nowadays appears to be deformed to the greatest extent is the foot. It seems to be considered absolutely necessary, if one is to appear elegant, for one’s toes to be pointed in such a way that the apex of the angle is in the middle of the foot instead of on the inner side; and although the two points are probably unconnected, we might here mention the idea that in a perfect foot the second toe ought to be longer than the great toe. This would make the extreme end of the foot a little nearer the middle line, and in Art the second toe is represented as being the longest in accordance with the Greek canon. These proportions were copied from the Egyptian representations, and the original is probably to be found in the negroes, according to Sir William Flower. The latter points out that the longer our big toe is, the further we are removed from apes; and he found, too, that amongst hundreds of bare and therefore undeformed feet of children in Perthshire, which he examined, he was not able to find one in which the second toe was the longest. These children would, of course, belong to the lower classes, and it would be interesting to know whether the same thing holds good in higher social circles when the foot remains normal. It may be well to remember that Sir William Flower was a surgeon, for Mr. Heather Bigg, who tilts with the gymnastic practitioner once more on the subject of boots and stockings, expresses somewhat different ideas upon the question. He alludes to the two classes of people in the British Isles who habitually discard boots and stockings—the fisher-folk and factory girls in some of the large Scotch cities. He says that he scarcely likes to be ungallant about the latter, but commends the adult feet of both of these classes to the inspection of those who would draft their children into the “bare-footed brigade.” He continues as follows: The truth is that the feet of those who have been unbooted till they have reached adult life are splayed and spread, large-jointed, and very generally deformed from all approach to the ideal foot as it is depicted by the greatest painters, or modelled by the greatest sculptors.

We have seen that the ideal foot of the sculptors is probably not a true ideal from an evolutionary point of view, and there is no doubt but that the ideal foot would be the one produced under natural conditions in which we cannot include boots and stockings. We should take it, however, that the stones of the seashore and the floor of a factory are not the ideal surfaces on which to habitually tread.

There is no doubt but that the deformities caused by shoes are often very great, and Sir William Flower sums up the matter in the following sentences:—“The English mother or nurse who thrusts the tender feet of a young child into stiff, unyielding, pointed shoes or boots, often regardless of the essential difference in form of right and left at a time when freedom is especially needed for their proper growth and development, is the exact counterpart of the Chinook Indian woman, applying her bandages and boards to the opposite end of her baby’s body, only with considerably less excuse; for a distorted head apparently less affects health and comfort than cramped and misshapen feet, and was also esteemed of more vital importance to preferment in Chinook society. Any one who recollects the boots of the late Lord Palmerston will be reminded that a wide expanse of shoe leather is in this country, even during the prevalence of an opposite fashion, quite compatible with the attainment of the highest political and social eminence.”[58]

After all, it is generally what our eyes are accustomed to that we consider to be right and fitting. The broad-toed shoes that were adopted in the reign of Henry VIII look clumsy to us; but so did the pneumatic tyres of bicycles after we had got used to the look of the narrow solid ones. It is not so much the wearing of boots of course, but the kind of boots that has to be considered.

The high heels of shoes add to the evil effects of the pointed toes, and a copy of a drawing from an advertisement figured by Sir William Flower recalls strongly the stunted foot of a Chinese woman which the wearer of the shoe would be one of the first probably to anathematize. This brings us to the malformation which has been caused through many centuries in a country that can claim a good deal of civilization, and is produced by special bandages after a long and very painful course of treatment.

There is very little evidence of alteration in the form of the head having been practised in this country, though one or two skulls have been found, and there is a tradition that the custom prevailed not very long ago in Norfolk. In France, however, it was well known until recent years, and even it may not have now become extinct. There are plenty of records in the works of early writers with regard to the practice, and some of the North-American Indians still follow the fashion of their fathers. The Chinook Indians flatten the skull between boards so that they get the name of Flat-heads, and other tribes produce an elongated skull by constructing bandages of deer hide. Deformation of the head seems to have little effect on the free-living American Indians, but the same statement does not hold good among Europeans. According to the reports of French physicians, they have traced all kinds of troubles to the practice.

If we have little evidence of head-deforming in this country by means of compression, we meet occasionally with prehistoric skulls which have been trepanned, and have had inserted into them a small piece of extraneous bone. It is curious that such an operation could have been successfully made when there were probably no instruments of metal with which it could be done, and one might well ask what object could possibly have been in view, especially as the individual so treated had met with no accident that could have rendered the operation necessary. It appears, however, that the piece of bone was probably that of some dead relative, the idea being that the incorporation of it in the head of the young man would give him the qualities of the chief who had departed. It is this notion which probably led to cannibalism. When a brave warrior was slain, his conqueror thought that by eating a small piece of him he might add his adversary’s prowess to his own, and no doubt when a respected relative died it was thought that his good qualities would pass to those who ate a portion of him.

Besides the alterations that have been permanently made in the shape of the body, there are many curious instances where clothes themselves have been utilized for the purpose of apparently altering its shape. We have seen that Punch’s curious figure is due to a costume, while the stuffed breeches adopted in the reign of James I, the great farthingale of Elizabeth’s reign, the hooped petticoat of Queen Anne’s, and the crinoline of the nineteenth century are instances of fashions that originated with or without apparent reasons.

Just as Mrs. Aria discovered what she terms the ancestress of the straight-fronted specialité corset on a bas-relief of a female figure from one of the mysterious forest cities in South America, so Mr. Rhead has reminded us of the festal dress of Otaheite which Captain Cook figured in his “Geography.”

Our grandmothers in their crinoline may have looked like walking hay-cocks; but the young women of Otaheite who carry presents from one person of rank to another look as if they were issuing from an immense drum. It is nothing new to make up deficiencies with padding that is intended to deceive, and while at one time our countrywomen may have made themselves flat-chested with the help of leaden weights, some, judging from articles which we now see displayed in the shops, are willing to call to their aid artificial contrivances which give the appearance of plumpness to their bust.