Pl. 8.Not satisfied with the bustle in the upper part of the skirt, some ladies of the present day have returned to the old practice of wearing hoops, to make the dresses stand out at the base. These are easily recognized in the street by the “swagging”—no other term will exactly convey the idea—from side to side of the hoops, an effect which is distinctly visible as the wearer walks along. It is difficult to imagine what there is soattractive in the fardingale and hoop, that they should have prevailed, in some form or other, for so many years, and that they should have maintained their ground in spite of the cutting, though playful, raillery of the “Spectator,” and the jeers and caricatures of less refined censors of the eccentricities of dress. They were not recommended either by beauty of line or convenience, but by the tyrant Fashion, and we owe some gratitude to George IV., who banished the last relics of this singular fashion from the court dress, of which, until his time, it continued to form a part. Who could imagine that there would be an attempt to revive the hoop petticoat in the nineteenth century? We invite our readers to contrast the lines of the drapery in the figures after Vandyck, (Figs. 60and61,) and those in the modern Greek costume, (Figs. 51 and 54,) with that of a lady in a hoop, after a satirical painter, Hogarth, (Fig. 68,) and two figures from a design by Jules David, in “Le Moniteur de la Mode,” a modern fashionable authority in dress. (Figs. 69 and 70.)There can be no doubt which is the most graceful. The width of the shoulders and the tight waist of the latter, will not escape the notice of our readers.CHAPTER V.THE FEET.TThesame bad taste which insists upon a small waist, let the height and proportions of the figure be what they will, decrees that a small foot is essential to beauty.Size is considered of more importance than form; and justly so if it is asine qua nonthat the foot must be small, because the efforts that are made to diminish its size generally render it deformed. We have before mentioned that to endeavor to diminish the size of the human body in a particular part, is like tying a string round the middle of a pillow; it only makes it larger at the extremities. It is so with the waist, it is so with the foot. If it be crippled in length, or in width across the toes, it spreads over the instep and sides. The Italiansand other nations of the south of Europe have smaller hands and feet than the Anglo-Saxons; and as this fact is generally known, it is astonishing that people of sense should persist in crippling themselves merely for the reputation of having small feet. Here again we have to complain of poets and romance writers; ladies would not have pinched their feet into small shoes, if these worthies had not sung the praises of “tiny feet.”“Her feet, beneath her petticoat,Like little mice, stole in and out,As if they feared the light.”Nor are painters—portrait painters, we mean, and living ones too—it is needless however, to mention names—entirely free from blame for thus ministering to vanity and false taste. They have sacrificed truth to fashion in painting the feet smaller than they could possibly be in nature.But it is not only with the endeavor to cripple their dimensions that we are inclined to quarrel. We objectin tototo the shape of the shoe, which bears but little resemblance to that of the foot. We haveheard persons say that they could never see any beauty in a foot. No wonder, when they saw none but those that were deformed by corns and bunions. How unlike is such a foot to the beautiful little—for little it really is in this case—fat foot of a child, before its beauty has been spoiled by shoes, or even to those of the barefooted children one sees so frequently in the street. Were it not for these opportunities of seeing nature we, in this country, should have but little idea of the true shape of the human foot, except what we learn from statues. According to a recent traveller, we must go to Egypt to see beautiful feet. It is impossible, he says, to see any thing more exquisite than the feet and hands of the female peasants. The same beauty is conspicuous in the Hindoo women.Let us compare now the shape of the foot with that of the sole of a shoe. When the foot is placed on the ground, the toes spread out, the great toe is in a straight line with the inner side of the foot, and there is an opening between this and the second toe. The ancients availed themselves ofthis opening to pass through it one of the straps that suspended the sandal.The moderns on the contrary press the toes closely together, in order to confine them within the limits of the shoe; the consequence is, that the end of the great toe is pressed towards the others, and out of the straight line, the joint becomes enlarged, and thus the foundation is laid for a bunion; while the toes, forced one upon another, become distorted and covered with corns.One of the consequences of this imprisonment of our toes is, that, from being squeezed so closely together, they become useless. Let any one try the experiment of walking barefooted across the room, and while so doing look at the foot. The toes, when unfettered by the shoes, spread out and divide from one another, and the body rests on a wider and firmer base. We begin to find we have some movement in our toes; yet, how feeble is their muscular power, compared with that of persons who are unaccustomed to the use of shoes!The Hindoo uses his toes in weaving; the Australiansavage is as handy (if the term can be applied to feet) with this member, as another man is with his hands; it is the unsuspected instrument with which he executes his thefts. The country boy, who runs over the roof of a house like a cat, takes off his shoes before he attempts the hazardous experiment; he has a surer hold with his foot on the smooth slates and sloping roof. The exercise of the muscles of the foot has the effect of increasing the power of those of the calf of the leg; and the thinner the sole, and the more pliant the materials of which the shoe is made, the more the power is developed.Dancing masters, who habitually wear thin shoes, have the muscles of the leg well developed, while ploughmen, who wear shoes with soles an inch thick, have very little calf to their leg. The French sabot is, we consider, better than the closely fitting shoe of our country people; because it is so large, that it requires some muscular exertion to keep it in its place. We have frequently seen French boys running in sabots, the foot rising at every stepalmost out of the unyielding wooden shoe. Wooden clogs and pattens are as bad as the thick shoes of the country people. When clogs are necessary, the sole should be made of materials which will yield to the motion of the foot. The American Indian's moccasins are a much better covering for the foot than our shoes.If thick soles are objectionable by impeding the free movement of the limb, what shall we say to the high heel which was once so popular, and which threatens again to come into fashion? It is to be hoped, however, when the effects of wearing high heels are duly considered, that this pernicious custom will not make progress. It is well for their poor unfortunate votaries, that the introduction of certain fashions is gradual; that both mind and body—perhaps we should be more correct in saying the person of the wearer and the eye of the spectator—are, step by step, prepared for the extreme point which certain fashions attain; they have their rise, their culminating point, and their decline. The attempt to exchange the short waists, worn somethirty or forty years ago, for the very long waists seen during the past year, would have been unsuccessful; the transition would have been too great—too violent; the change was effected, but it was the work of many years. The same thing took place with regard to the high head-dresses which were so deservedly ridiculed by Addison, and in an equally marked degree with respect to high heels. The shoes in the cut, after Gainsborough, (Fig. 71,) are fair specimens of what were in fashion in his time. Let the reader compare the line of the sole with that of the human foot placed, as nature intended it, flat on the ground. The heel was in some cases four and a half inches high; the line, therefore, must have been in this case, a highly inclined plane, undulating in its surface, like the “line of beauty” of Hogarth. The position of the foot is that of a dancer resting on the toes, excepting that the heel is supported, and the strain over the instep and contraction of the muscles of the back of the leg and heel must be considerable; so much so we are told, that the contraction of the latter becomeshabitual; consequently, those persons who have accustomed themselves to the use of high heels, are never afterwards able to do without them. It is said that “pride never feels pain;” we should think the proverb was made for those who wear high heels, for we are told, although we cannot speak from personal experience, that the pain on first wearing shoes of this kind, in which the whole weight of the body seems to thrust the toes forward into the shoe, is excruciating; nothing but fashion could reconcile one to such voluntary suffering. The peas in the shoes of the pilgrims could scarcely be more painful.Pl. 9.It was with some surprise that we found among M. Stackelberg's graceful costumes of modern Greece a pair of high-heeled shoes, (Fig. 72,) which might rival in ugliness and inconvenience any of those worn in England.We have known an instance where the lady's heels were never less than an inch and a half high. We were sorry to observe some of these high-heeled shoes in the great exhibition, and still more so, to see that shoes with heels an inch high are likely to befashionable this season. Could we look forward to this height as the limit of the fashion, we might reconcile ourselves to it for a time; but, judging from past experience, there is reason to fear that the heel will become continually higher, until it attains the elevation of former years. Not content with imprisoning our feet in tight shoes, and thereby distorting their form and weakening their muscular power, we are guilty of another violence towards nature. Nature has made our toes to turn inwards; when man is left to himself the toes naturally take this direction, though in a much less degree than in the infant. The American Indian will trace a European by his footprints, which he detects by the turning out of the toes; a lesson we are taught in our childhood, and especially by our dancing master. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, “The gestures of children, being all dictated by nature, are graceful; affectation and distortion come in with the dancing master.” Now, observe the consequence of turning out the toes. The inner ankle is bent downwards towards the ground, and the knees are drawn inwards,producing the deformity called knock-kneed; thus the whole limb is distorted, and consequently weakened; there is always a want of muscular power in the legs of those who turn their toes very much outwards. It must be remarked, however, that women, from the greater breadth of the frame at the hips, naturally turn the toes out more than men. In this point also, statues may be studied with advantage. Where form only is considered, it is generally safer to refer to examples of sculpture than painting; because in the latter, the artist is apt to lose sight of this primary object in his attention to color and form; besides, it is the sculptor only, who makes an exact image of a figure which is equally perfect, seen from all points of view. The painter makes only a pictorial or perspective representation of nature, as seen from one point of view only.What pains we take to distort and disfigure the beautiful form that nature has bestowed upon the human race! Now building a tower on the head, then raising the heel at the expense of the toe; atone time confining the body in a case of whalebone, and compressing it at the waist like an hour glass; at another, surrounding it with the enormous and ungraceful hoop, till the outline of the figure is so altered, that a person can scarcely recognize her own shadow as that of a human being.CHAPTER VI.REMARKS ON PARTICULAR COSTUMES.WWemust now offer a few brief remarks upon certain costumes which appear to us most worthy of our attention and study, for their general elegance and adaptation to the figure.Of the modern Greek we have already spoken. The style of dress which has been immortalized by the pencil of Vandyck is considered among the most elegant that has ever prevailed in this country. It is not, however, faultless. The row of small curls around the face, however becoming to some persons, is somewhat formal; and although the general arrangement of the hair, which preserves the natural size and shape of the head, is more graceful than that of the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, we think it would have been more pleasing had it left visiblethe line which divides the hair from the forehead. With regard to the dress itself, it is apparent, in the first place, that the figures are spoiled by stays; secondly, that the dress is cut too low in front; and thirdly, that the large sleeves sometimes give too great width in front to the shoulders. These defects are, in some degree, counterbalanced by the graceful flow of the ample drapery, and of the large sleeves, which are frequently widest at their lower part, and by the gently undulating line which unites the waist of the dress with the skirt. The Vandyck dress, with its voluminous folds, is, however, more appropriate to the inhabitants of palaces, than to the ordinary occupants of this working-day world. The drapery is too wide and flowing for convenience. The annexed cut, (Fig. 73,) representing Charlotte de la Tremouille, the celebrated Countess of Derby, exhibits some of the defects and many of the beauties of the Vandyck dress.Lely's half-dressed figures may be passed over without comment; they are draped, not dressed. Kneller's are more instructive on the subject ofcostume. The dress of Queen Anne, (Fig. 74,) in Kneller's portrait, is graceful and easy. The costume is a kind of transition between the Vandyck and Reynolds style. The sleeves are smaller at the shoulder than in the former, and larger at the lower part than in the latter; in fact, they resemble those now worn by the modern Greeks. The dress is cut higher round the bust, and is longer in the waist than the Vandycks, while the undulating line uniting the body and skirt is still preserved. While such good examples were set by the painters—who were not, however, the inventors of the fashions they painted—it is astonishing that these graceful styles of dress should have been superseded in real life by the lofty head-dresses and preposterous fashions which prevailed during the same period and long afterwards, and which even the ironical and severe remarks of Addison, in the “Spectator,” were unable to banish from the circles of fashion.Speaking of the dresses of ladies during the reigns of James II. and William III., Mr. Planché, in his “History of British Costumes,” says, “The tower orcommode was still worn, and the gowns and petticoats flounced and furbelowed, so that every part of the garment was in curl;” and a lady of fashion “looked like one of those animals,” says the “Spectator,” “which in the country we call a Friesland hen.” But in 1711 we find Mr. Addison remarking, “The whole sex is now dwarfed and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once nearly seven foot high, that at present want some inches of five. How they come to be thus curtailed I cannot learn; whether the whole sex be at present under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their head-dresses in order to surprise us with something in that kind which shall be entirely new: though I find most are of opinion they are at present like trees lopped and pruned, that will certainly sprout up and flourish with greater heads than before.”The costume of the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as treated by this great artist, though less splendid, appears to us, with the exception of the head-dress,nearly as graceful, and far more convenient than the Vandyck dress. It is more modest, more easy, and better adapted to show the true form of the shoulders, while the union of the body of the dress with the skirt is effected in the same graceful manner as in the Vandyck portraits. The materials of the drapery in the latteraregenerally silks and satins; of the former, it is frequently muslin and stuff of a soft texture, which clings more closely to the form. That much of the elegance of both styles of dress is to be attributed to the skill and good taste of the painters, is evident from an examination of portraits by contemporary artists. Much also may be ascribed to the taste of the wearer.There are some people who, though habited in the best and richest clothes, never appear well dressed; their garments, rumpled and untidy, look as if they had been pitched on them, like hay, with a fork; while others, whose dress consists of the most homely materials, appear well dressed, from the neatness and taste with which their clothes are arranged.Pl. 10.Many of the costumes of Gainsborough's portraitsare elegant and graceful, with the frequent exception of the extravagant head-dress and the high-heeled shoes. The easy and very pleasing figure, (Fig. 75,) after this accomplished artist, is not exempt from the above defects.In our next illustration, (Fig. 76,) Gainsborough has not been so happy. The lady is almost lost in her voluminous and fluttering drapery, and the dishevelled hair and the enormous hat give to the figure much of the appearance of a caricature.Leaving now the caprices of fashion, we must notice a class of persons who, from a religious motive, have resisted for two hundred years the tyranny of fashion, and, until recently, have transmitted the same form of dress from mother to daughter for nearly the same period of years. The ladies of the Society of Friends, or, as they are usually called, “Quakers,” are still distinguished by the simplicity and neatness of their dress—the quiet drabs and browns of which frequently contrast with the richness of the material—and by the absence of all ornament and frippery. Every part of their dressis useful and convenient; it has neither frills, nor flounces, nor trimmings to carry the dirt and get shabby before the dress itself, nor wide sleeves to dip in the plates and lap up the gravy and sauces, nor artificial flowers, nor bows of ribbons. The dress is long enough for decency, but not so long as to sweep the streets, as many dresses and shawls are daily seen to do. Some few years back the Quaker ladies might have been reproached with adhering to the letter, while they rejected the spirit, of their code of dress by adhering too literally to the costume handed down to them. The crowns of their caps were formerly made very high, and for this reason it was necessary that the crowns of their bonnets should be high enough to admit the cap crown; hence the peculiarly ugly and remarkable form of this part of the dress. The crown of the cap has, however, recently been lowered, and the Quaker ladies, with much good sense, have not only modified the form of their bonnets, but have also adopted the straw and drawn silk bonnet in their most simple forms. In the style of their dress, also, theyoccasionally approach so near the fashions generally worn, that they are no longer distinguishable by the singularity of their dress, but by its simplicity and chasteness.We venture now to devote a few words to the Bloomer costume, (Fig. 77,) although we are aware that we are treading on tender ground, especially as the costume involves a sudden and complete change in the dress. Independently of its merits or demerits, there are several reasons why it did not succeed in this country. In the first place, as we have before observed, it originated in America, and was attempted to be introduced through the middle ranks. In the second place, the change which it endeavored to effect was too sudden. Had the alteration commenced with the higher classes, and the change been effected gradually, its success might possibly have been different. Thirdly, the large hat, so well adapted to the burning sun of America, was unnecessary, and remarkable when forming a part of the costume of adult ladies in this country, although we have seen that hats quite as large wereworn during the time of Gainsborough. Another reason for the ill success of the Bloomer costume is to be found in the glaring and frequently ill-assorted colors of the prints of it, which were every where exposed in the shop windows. By many sober-minded persons, the large hat and glaring colors were looked upon as integral parts of the costume. The numerous caricatures also, and the injudicious attempts to make it popular by getting up “Bloomer Balls,” contributed to render the costume ridiculous and unpopular.Setting aside the hat, the distinguishing characteristics of the costume are the short dress, and a polka jacket fitting the body at the throat and shoulders, and confined at the waist by a silken sash, and the trousers fastened by a band round the ankle, and finished off with a frill. On the score of modesty there can be no objection to the dress, since the whole of the body is covered. On the ground of convenience it recommends itself to those who, having the superintendence of a family, are obliged frequently to go up and down stairs, on whichoccasions it is always necessary to raise the dress before or behind, according to circumstances. The objection to the trousers is not to this article of dress being worn, since that is a general practice, but to their being seen. Yet we suspect few ladies would object on this account to appear at a fancy ball in the Turkish costume.The disadvantages of the dress are its novelty—for we seldom like a fashion to which we are entirely unaccustomed—and the exposure which it involves of the foot, the shape of which, in this country, is so frequently distorted by wearing tight shoes of a different shape from the foot. The short dress is objectionable in another point of view, because, as short petticoats diminish the apparent height of the person, none but those who possess tall and elegant figures will look well in this costume; and appearance is generally suffered to prevail over utility and convenience. If to the Bloomer costume had been added the long under-dress of the Greek women, or had the trousers been as full as those worn by the Turkish and East Indian women,the general effect of the dress would have been much more elegant, although perhaps less useful. Setting aside all considerations of fashion, as we always do in looking at the fashions which are gone by, it was impossible for any person to deny that the Bloomer costume was by far the most elegant, the most modest, and the most convenient.CHAPTER VII.ORNAMENT—ECONOMY.OOrnament, although not an integral part of dress, is so intimately connected with it, that we must devote a few words to the subject.Under the general term of ornament we shall include bows of ribbon, artificialflowers,feathers, jewels, lace, fringes, and trimmings of all kinds. Some of these articles appear to be suited to one period of life, some to another. Jewels, for instance, though suitable for middle age, seem misplaced on youth, which should always be characterized by simplicity of apparel; while flowers, which are so peculiarly adapted to youth, are unbecoming to those advanced in years; in the latter case there is contrast without harmony; it is like uniting May with December.The great principle to be observed with regard to ornament is, that it should be appropriate, and appear designed to answer some useful purpose. A brooch, or a bow of ribbon, for instance, should fasten some part of the dress; a gold chain should support a watch or an eyeglass. Trimmings are useful to mark the borders or edges of the different parts of the dress; and in this light they add to the variety, while by their repetition they conduce to the regularity of the ornamentation.Pl. 11.Ornament is so much a matter of fashion, that beyond the above remarks it scarcely comes within the scope of our subject. There is one point, however, to which the present encouragement of works of design induces us to draw the attention of our readers. We have already borrowed from the beautiful work of M. de Stackelberg, some of the female figures in illustration of our views with regard to dress; we have now to call the attention of our readers to the patterns embroidered on the dresses. These are mostly of classic origin, and prove that the descendants of the Greeks have still sufficientgood taste to appreciate and adopt the designs of their glorious ancestors. The figures in the plates being too small to show the patterns, we have enlarged some of them from the original work, in order to show the style of design still cultivated among the peasants of Greece, and also because we think the designs may be applied to other materials besides dress. Some of them appear not inappropriate to iron work. When will our people be able to show designs of such elegance?Fig. 78is an enlarged copy of the embroidery on the robe of the peasant from the environs of Athens, (Fig. 47.) It extends, as will be seen, half way up the skirt.Fig. 79is from the sleeve of the same dress.Fig. 80is the pattern embroidered on the sleeve of the pelisse.Fig. 81is the pattern from the waist to the hem of the skirt of an Athenian peasant's dress, (Fig. 51.)Fig. 82is the border to the shawl;Fig. 83, the sleeve of the last-mentioned dress;Fig. 84, the design on the apron of the Arcadian peasant, (Fig. 48.)Fig. 85is the border of the same dress.Fig. 86is the pattern round the hem of the longunder-dress of the Athenian peasant, (Fig. 51;)Fig. 87, the border of a shawl, or something of the kind.Fig. 88is another example. The brocade dress of Sancta Victoria (Fig. 64) offers a striking contrast to the simple elegance of the Greek designs. It is too large for the purpose to which it is employed, and not sufficiently distinct; and, although it possesses much variety, it is deficient in regularity; and one of the elements of beauty in ornamental design, namely, repetition, appears to be entirely wanting. In these respects, the superiority of the Greek designs is immediately apparent. They unite at once symmetry with regularity, and variety with repetition.Pl. 12.The examination of these designs suggests the reflection that when we have once attained a form of dress which combines ease and elegance with convenience, we should tax our ingenuity in inventing ornamental designs for decorating it, rather than seek to discover novel forms of dress.The endless variety of textile fabrics which our manufacturers are constantly producing, the variety,also, in the colors, will, with the embroidery patterns issued by our schools of design, suffice to appease the constant demand for novelty, which exists in an improving country, without changing the form of our costume, unless to adopt others which reason and common sense point out as superior to that in use. We are told to try all things, and to hold fast to that which is good. The maxim is applicable to dress as well as to morals.The subject of economy in dress, an essential object with many persons, now claims our attention. We venture to offer a few remarks on this head. Our first recommendation is to have but few dresses at a time, and those extremely good. If we have but few dresses, we wear them, and wear them out while they are in fashion; but if we have many dresses at once, some of them become quite old-fashioned before we have done with them. If we are rich enough to afford the sacrifice, the old-fashioned dress is got rid of; if not, we must be content to appear in a fashion that has long beensuperseded; and we look as if we had come out of the tombs, or as if one of our ancestors had stepped out of her picture frame, and again walked the earth.As to the economy of selecting the best materials for dresses, we argue thus: Every dress must be lined and made up, and we pay as much for making and lining an inferior article, as we do for one of the best quality. Now, a good silk or merino will wear out two bad ones; therefore, one good dress, lining and making, will cost less than two inferior ones, with the expenses of lining and making them. In point of appearance, also, there is no comparison between the two; the good dress will look well to the last, while one of inferior quality will soon look shabby. When a good silk dress has become too shabby to be worn longer as a dress, it becomes, when cut up, useful for a variety of purposes; whereas an inferior silk, or one purely ornamental, is, when left off, good for nothing.Plain dresses, that is to say, those of a single color, and without a pattern, are more economicalas well as more quiet in their appearance than those of various colors. They are also generally less expensive, because something is always paid for the novelty of the fashion; besides, colored and figured dresses bear the date on the face of them, as plainly as if it was there in printed characters. The ages of dress fabrics are known by the pattern; therefore dresses of this description should be put on as soon as purchased, and worn out at once, or they will appear old-fashioned. There is another reason why vari-colored dresses are less economical than others. Where there are several colors, they may not all be equally fast, and if only one of them fades the dress will lose its beauty. Trimmings are not economical; besides their cost in the first instance, they become shabby before the dress, and if removed, they generally leave a mark where they have been, and so spoil the appearance of the dress.Dresses made of one kind of material only, are more durable than those composed of two; as, for instance, of cotton and silk, of cotton and worsted,or of silk and worsted. When the silk is merely thrown on the face of the material, it soon wears off. This is also the case in those woollen or cotton goods which have a silken stripe.The question of economy also extends to colors, some of which are much more durable than others. For this we can give no rule, except that drabs and other “Quaker colors,” as they are frequently called, are amongst the most permanent of all colors. For other colors we must take the word of the draper. There is no doubt, however, but that the most durable colors are the cheapest in the end. In the selection of colors, the expense is not always a criterion; something must be paid for fashion and novelty, and perhaps for the cost of the dye. The newest and most expensive colors are not always those which last the longest.It is not economical to have the dresses made in the extremity of the fashion, because such soon become remarkable; but the fashions should be followed at such a distance, that the wearer may not attract the epithet of old-fashioned.We conclude this part of our subject with a few suggestions relative to the selection of different styles and materials of dress.The style of dress should be adapted to the age of the wearer. As a general rule, we should say that in youth the dress should be simple and elegant, the ornaments being flowers. In middle age, the dress may be of rich materials, and more splendid in its character; jewels are the appropriate ornaments. In the decline of life, the materials of which the dress is composed may be equally rich, but with less vivacious colors: the tertiaries and broken colors are particularly suitable, and the character of the whole costume should be quiet, simple, and dignified. The French, whose taste in dress is so far in advance of our own, say, that ladies who arecinquante ans sonnés, should neither wear gay colors, nor dresses of slight materials, flowers, feathers, or much jewelry; that they should cover their hair, wear high dresses and long sleeves.Tall ladies may wear flounces and tucks, but they are less appropriate for short persons. As a generalrule, vertical stripes make persons appear taller than they really are, but horizontal stripes have a contrary effect. The latter, Mr. Redgrave says, are not admissible in garment fabrics, “since, crossing the person, the pattern quarrels with all the motions of the human figure, as well as with the form of the long folds in the skirts of the garment. For this reason,” he continues, “large and pronounced checks, however fashionable, are often in bad taste, and interfere with the graceful arrangement of the drapery.” Is it to show their entire contempt for the principles of design that our manufacturers introduced last year not only horizontal stripes of conspicuous colors, but checks and plaids of immense size, as autumnal fashions for dress fabrics? We had hoped that the ladies would have shown the correctness of their taste by their disapproval of these unbecoming designs, but the prevalence of the fashion at the present time is another evidence of the triumph of fashion over good taste.A white and light-colored dress makes the wearersappear larger, while a black or dark dress causes them to appear smaller than they actually are. A judicious person will, therefore, avail herself of these known effects, by adopting the style of dress most suitable to her stature.To sum up, in a few words, our impressions on this subject, we should say that the best style of dress is that which, being exactly adapted to the climate and the individual, is at once modest, quiet, and retiring, harmonious in color and decoration, and of good materials.We conclude with the following admirable extract from Tobin's “Honeymoon,” which we earnestly recommend to the attention of our fair readers.I'll have no glittering gewgaws stuck about youTo stretch the gaping eyes of idiot wonder,And make men stare upon a piece of earth,As on the star-wrought firmament—no feathers,To wave as streamers to your vanity;Nor cumbrous silk, that with its rustling soundMakes proud the flesh that bears it. She's adornedAmply, that in her husband's eye looks lovely—The truest mirror that an honest wifeCan see her beauty in!Julia.I shall observe, sir.Duke.I should like well to see you in the dress I last presented you.Julia.The blue one, sir?Duke.No, love,—the white. Thus modestly attired,A half-blown rose stuck in thy braided hair,With no more diamonds than those eyes are made of,No deeper rubies than compose thy lips,Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them,With the pure red and white, which that same handWhich blends the rainbow, mingles in thy cheeks;This well-proportioned form (think not I flatter)In graceful motion to harmonious sounds,And thy free tresses dancing in the wind,Thou'lt fix as much observance, as chaste damesCan meet without a blush.We look forward hopefully to a day when art-education will be extended to all ranks; when a knowledge of the beautiful will be added to that of the useful; when good taste, based upon real knowledge and common sense, will dictate our fashions in dress as in other things. We have schools of art to reform our taste in pottery, hardware, and textile fabrics, not to speak of the higher walks of art, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The handle of a jug, the stem of a wine glass, thedesign for dress silks or lace veils, will form the subjects of lectures to the students of the various schools of design; disquisitions are written on the important question whether the ornamental designs should represent the real form of objects, or only give a conventional representation of them; while the study of the human figure, the masterpiece of creation, is totally neglected, except by painters and sculptors. We hope that the study of form will be more extended, that it will be universal, that it will, in fact, enter into the general scheme of education, and that we shall hereafter see as much pains bestowed in improving by appropriate costume the figure which nature has given us, as we do now in distorting it by tight stays, narrow and high-heeled shoes, and all the other deformities and eccentricities of that many-faced monster, fashion. The economy of the frame, and the means of preserving it in health and beauty, should form an integral part of education. There can be no true beauty without health; and how can we hope to secure health if we are ignorant of the means ofpromoting it, or if we violate its precepts by adopting absurd and pernicious fashions? Surely it is not too much to hope that dressmakers will hereafter attend the schools of design, to study the human form, and thence learn to appreciate its beauties, and to clothe it with appropriate dress, calculated to display its beauties to the greatest advantage, and to conceal its defects—the latter with the reservation we have already noticed. We hope, also, that the shoemaker will learn to model the shoe upon the true form of the foot.Manufacturers are now convinced of the importance and utility of schools of design; and whether the article hereafter to be produced be a cup and saucer, a fender, a pattern for a dress, or for furniture, for a service of plate or a diamond tiara, it is thought proper that the pupil, as a preliminary course that cannot be dispensed with, should commence with the study of the human figure. Yet is not dress an art-manufacture as well as a cup and saucer, or a teaboard? Is there less skill and talent, less taste required to clothe the form whichwe are told is made after God's own image, than to furnish an apartment? Why should not dressmakers and tailors attend the schools of design, as well as those artisans who are intended to be employed in what are called art-manufactures? Why should not shoemakers be taught the shape and movements of the foot? If this were the case, we are satisfied that an immediate and permanent improvement would be the consequence in our style of dress. Would any person acquainted with the human form, and especially with the little round form of an infant, have sent to the Great Exhibition an infant's robe shaped like that in our cut.Fig. 89. An infant with a waist “growing fine by degrees and beautifully less”!—was there ever such a deformity? We believe that many portrait painters stipulate that they should be allowed to dictate the dress, at least as regards the arrangement of the colors, of their sitters; the reason of this is, that the painter's selection of dress and color is based upon the study of the figure and complexion of the individual, or the knowledge of the effects of contrastand harmony of lines, tissues, and colors, while the models which are presented for his imitation too frequently offer to his view a style of dress, both as regards form and color, which set the rules of harmony at defiance. Now, only suppose that the dressmaker had the painter's knowledge of form and harmony of lines and colors, what a revolution would take place in dress? We should no longer see the tall and the short, the slender and the stout, the brown and the fair, the old and the young, dressed alike, but the dress would be adapted to the individual; and we believe that, were the plan of study we recommend generally adopted, this purpose might always be effected without the sacrifice of what is now the grand desideratum in dress—novelty.The reasons why the art of dressmaking has not hitherto received the attention which it deserves, are to be sought for in the constitution of society. The branches of manufacture which require a knowledge of design, such as calico printing, silk and ribbon weaving, porcelain and pottery, andhardware manufactures, are conducted on a large scale by men of wealth and talent, who, if they would compete successfully with rival manufacturers, find it necessary to study and apply to their own business all the improvements in science, with which their intercourse with society gives them an opportunity of becoming acquainted. It is quite otherwise with dressmaking. A woman is at the head of every establishment of this kind, a woman generally of limited education and attainments, from whom cannot be expected either liberality of sentiment or enlarged views, but who possibly possesses some tact and discrimination of character, which enables her to exercise a kind of dictatorial power in matters of dress over her customers; these customers are scarcely better informed on the subject than herself.The early life of the dressmaker is spent in a daily routine of labor with the needle, and when she becomes a mistress in her turn, she exacts from her assistants the same amount of daily labor that was formerly expected from herself. Work, work,work with the needle from almost childhood, in the same close room from morning to night, and not unfrequently from night to morning also, is the everlasting routine of the monotonous life of the dressmakers. They are working for bread, and have no leisure to attend to the improvement of the mind, and the want of this mental cultivation is apparent in the articles they produce by their labor. When one of the young women who attends these establishments to learn the trade, thinks she has had sufficient experience, she leaves the large establishment, and sets up in business on her own account. In this new situation she works equally hard, and has, therefore, no time for improving her mind or taste. Of the want of this, however, she is not sensible, because she can purchase for a trifle all the newest patterns, and the thought never enters her poor little head, that the same fashion may not suit all her customers. This defective education of the dressmakers, or rather their want of knowledge of the human form, is one of the great causes of the prevalence of the old fashion of tightlacing; it is so much easier to make a closely-fitting body suit over a tight stay than it is on the pliant and yielding natural form, in which, if one part be drawn a little too tight, or the contrary, the body of the dress is thrown out of shape. Supposing, on the other hand, the fit to be exact, it is so difficult to keep such a tight-fitting body in its place on the figure without securing its form by whalebones, that it is in vain to expect the stays to become obsolete until the tight-fitting bodice is also given up.This will never take place until not only the ladies who are to be clothed, but the dressmakers, shall make the human form their study, and direct their efforts to set off their natural advantages by attending to the points which are their characteristic beauties. A long and delicate throat, falling shoulders, not too wide from point to point, a flat back, round chest, wide hips—these are the points which should be developed by the dress. Whence it follows, that every article of dress which shortens the throat, adds height or width to the shoulders,roundness to the back, or flatness to the chest, must be radically wrong in principle, and unpleasant and repulsive in effect. In the same manner, whatever kind of dress adds to the height of a figure already too tall and thin, or detracts from the apparent height of the short and stout, must be avoided. These things should form the study of the dressmaker.As society is now constituted, however, the dressmaker has not, as we have already observed, leisure to devote to studies of the necessity and importance of which she is still ignorant. The reform must be begun by the ladies themselves. They must acquire a knowledge of form, and of the principles of beauty and harmony, and so exercise a controlling influence over the dressmakers. By this means, a better taste will be created, and the dressmakers will at length discover their deficiency in certain guiding principles, and will be driven at last to resort to similar studies. But in this case a startling difficulty presents itself—the poor dressmaker is at present over-worked: how can she findleisure to attend the schools of design, or even pursue, if she had the ability, the necessary studies at home? A girl is apprenticed to the trade at the age of thirteen or fourteen; she works at it all her life, rising early, and late taking rest; and what is the remuneration of her daily toil of twelve hours? Eighteen pence, or at most two shillings a day, with her board![3]As she reckons the value of the latter at a shilling, it follows, that the earnings of a dressmaker, in the best period of her life, who goes out to work, could not exceed fifteen shillings, or, at the most, eighteen shillings a week, if she did not—at the hazard of her health, which, indeed, is frequently sacrificed—work at home before she begins, and after she has finished, her day's work abroad. The carpenter or house painter does not work harder, or bring to bear on his employment greater knowledge, than the poor dressmaker; yet he has four shillings sixpence a day,without his board, while she has only what is equivalent to two shillings sixpence, or three shillings. What reason can be assigned why a woman's work, if equally well done, should not be as well paid as that of a man? A satisfactory reason has yet to be given; the fact, however, is indisputable, that women are not in general so well paid for their labor as men.Although these remarks arose naturally out of our subject, we must not digress too far. To return to the dressmaker. If the hours of labor of these white slaves who toil in the dressmaking establishments were limited to ten or twelve hours, as in large factories, two consequences would follow: the first is, that more hands would be employed, and the second, that the young women would have time to attend schools, and improve their minds. If they could also attend occasional lectures on the figure, and on the harmony of color and costume with reference to dress, the best effects would follow.Those dressmakers who are rich enough, and, we may add, many ladies also, take in some book offashions with colored illustrations, and from this they imbibe their notions of beauty of form and elegance of costume. How is it possible, we would ask, for either the dressmaker or the ladies who employ them to acquire just ideas of form, or of suitable costume, when their eyes are accustomed only to behold such deformed and unnatural representations of the human figure as those in the accompanying plates?Figs. 90 and 91.Is it any wonder that small waists should be admired, when the books which aspire to be the handmaids and mirrors of fashion present to their readers such libels on beauty of form? Now, suppose that lithographed drawings of costumes issued occasionally from the schools of design, is it not reasonable to suppose that, with the knowledge which the students have acquired of the human figure, the illustrations would be more accurate imitations of nature? An eye accustomed to the study of nature can scarcely bear to contemplate, much less to imitate, the monsters of a depraved taste which disgrace the different publications that aspire to makeknown the newest fashions. Many of the illustrations of these publications, although ill proportioned, are executed in a certain stylish manner which takes with the uneducated, and the mechanical execution of the figures is also good. This, however, is so far from being an advantage, that it only renders them the more dangerous; like the song of the siren, they lead only to evil.We are told that many of the first Parisian artists derive a considerable part of their income from drawing the figures in the French books of fashion and costume, and that, in the early part of his career, Horace Vernet, the president of the French Academy, did not disdain to employ his talents in this way. We cannot, however, refrain from expressing our surprise and honest indignation that artists of eminence, especially those who, like the French school, have a reputation for correct drawing, and who must, therefore, be so well acquainted with the actual as well as ideal proportions of the female figure, should so prostitute their talents as to employ them in delineating the ill-proportionedfigures which appear in books of fashions. It is no small aggravation of their offence, in our eyes, that the figures should be drawn in such graceful positions, and with the exception of the defective proportions, with so much skill. These beauties only make them more dangerous; the goodness of their execution misleads the unfortunate victims of their fascination. What young lady, unacquainted with the proportions of the figure, could look on these prints of costumes and go away without the belief that a small waist and foot were essential elements of beauty? So she goes home from her dressmaker's, looks in the glass, and not finding her own waist and foot as small as those in the books of fashion, gives her stay-lace an extra tightening pull, and, regardless of corns, squeezes her feet into tight shoes, which makes the instep appear swollen. Both the figures in our last plates were originally drawn and engraved by Jules David, and Reville, in “Le Moniteur de la Mode,” which is published at Paris, London, New York, and St. Petersburg. Let our readers look atthese figures, and say whether the most determined votary of tight lacing ever succeeded in compressing her waist into the proportions represented in these figures.We should like to hear that lectures were given occasionally, by a lady in the female school of design, on the subjects of form, and of dress in its adaptation to form and to harmony of color. We have no doubt that a lady competent to deliver these lectures will readily be found. After a course of these lectures, we do not hesitate to predict that illustrations of fashion emanating from this source would be, in point of taste, every thing that could be desired. We venture to think that the students of the female school may be as well and as profitably employed in designing costumes, as in inventing patterns for cups and saucers or borders for veils. Until some course, of the nature we have indicated, is adopted, we cannot hope for any permanent improvement in our costume.
Pl. 8.
Pl. 8.
Not satisfied with the bustle in the upper part of the skirt, some ladies of the present day have returned to the old practice of wearing hoops, to make the dresses stand out at the base. These are easily recognized in the street by the “swagging”—no other term will exactly convey the idea—from side to side of the hoops, an effect which is distinctly visible as the wearer walks along. It is difficult to imagine what there is soattractive in the fardingale and hoop, that they should have prevailed, in some form or other, for so many years, and that they should have maintained their ground in spite of the cutting, though playful, raillery of the “Spectator,” and the jeers and caricatures of less refined censors of the eccentricities of dress. They were not recommended either by beauty of line or convenience, but by the tyrant Fashion, and we owe some gratitude to George IV., who banished the last relics of this singular fashion from the court dress, of which, until his time, it continued to form a part. Who could imagine that there would be an attempt to revive the hoop petticoat in the nineteenth century? We invite our readers to contrast the lines of the drapery in the figures after Vandyck, (Figs. 60and61,) and those in the modern Greek costume, (Figs. 51 and 54,) with that of a lady in a hoop, after a satirical painter, Hogarth, (Fig. 68,) and two figures from a design by Jules David, in “Le Moniteur de la Mode,” a modern fashionable authority in dress. (Figs. 69 and 70.)There can be no doubt which is the most graceful. The width of the shoulders and the tight waist of the latter, will not escape the notice of our readers.
CHAPTER V.THE FEET.
Thesame bad taste which insists upon a small waist, let the height and proportions of the figure be what they will, decrees that a small foot is essential to beauty.
Size is considered of more importance than form; and justly so if it is asine qua nonthat the foot must be small, because the efforts that are made to diminish its size generally render it deformed. We have before mentioned that to endeavor to diminish the size of the human body in a particular part, is like tying a string round the middle of a pillow; it only makes it larger at the extremities. It is so with the waist, it is so with the foot. If it be crippled in length, or in width across the toes, it spreads over the instep and sides. The Italiansand other nations of the south of Europe have smaller hands and feet than the Anglo-Saxons; and as this fact is generally known, it is astonishing that people of sense should persist in crippling themselves merely for the reputation of having small feet. Here again we have to complain of poets and romance writers; ladies would not have pinched their feet into small shoes, if these worthies had not sung the praises of “tiny feet.”
“Her feet, beneath her petticoat,Like little mice, stole in and out,As if they feared the light.”
“Her feet, beneath her petticoat,Like little mice, stole in and out,As if they feared the light.”
Nor are painters—portrait painters, we mean, and living ones too—it is needless however, to mention names—entirely free from blame for thus ministering to vanity and false taste. They have sacrificed truth to fashion in painting the feet smaller than they could possibly be in nature.
But it is not only with the endeavor to cripple their dimensions that we are inclined to quarrel. We objectin tototo the shape of the shoe, which bears but little resemblance to that of the foot. We haveheard persons say that they could never see any beauty in a foot. No wonder, when they saw none but those that were deformed by corns and bunions. How unlike is such a foot to the beautiful little—for little it really is in this case—fat foot of a child, before its beauty has been spoiled by shoes, or even to those of the barefooted children one sees so frequently in the street. Were it not for these opportunities of seeing nature we, in this country, should have but little idea of the true shape of the human foot, except what we learn from statues. According to a recent traveller, we must go to Egypt to see beautiful feet. It is impossible, he says, to see any thing more exquisite than the feet and hands of the female peasants. The same beauty is conspicuous in the Hindoo women.
Let us compare now the shape of the foot with that of the sole of a shoe. When the foot is placed on the ground, the toes spread out, the great toe is in a straight line with the inner side of the foot, and there is an opening between this and the second toe. The ancients availed themselves ofthis opening to pass through it one of the straps that suspended the sandal.
The moderns on the contrary press the toes closely together, in order to confine them within the limits of the shoe; the consequence is, that the end of the great toe is pressed towards the others, and out of the straight line, the joint becomes enlarged, and thus the foundation is laid for a bunion; while the toes, forced one upon another, become distorted and covered with corns.
One of the consequences of this imprisonment of our toes is, that, from being squeezed so closely together, they become useless. Let any one try the experiment of walking barefooted across the room, and while so doing look at the foot. The toes, when unfettered by the shoes, spread out and divide from one another, and the body rests on a wider and firmer base. We begin to find we have some movement in our toes; yet, how feeble is their muscular power, compared with that of persons who are unaccustomed to the use of shoes!
The Hindoo uses his toes in weaving; the Australiansavage is as handy (if the term can be applied to feet) with this member, as another man is with his hands; it is the unsuspected instrument with which he executes his thefts. The country boy, who runs over the roof of a house like a cat, takes off his shoes before he attempts the hazardous experiment; he has a surer hold with his foot on the smooth slates and sloping roof. The exercise of the muscles of the foot has the effect of increasing the power of those of the calf of the leg; and the thinner the sole, and the more pliant the materials of which the shoe is made, the more the power is developed.
Dancing masters, who habitually wear thin shoes, have the muscles of the leg well developed, while ploughmen, who wear shoes with soles an inch thick, have very little calf to their leg. The French sabot is, we consider, better than the closely fitting shoe of our country people; because it is so large, that it requires some muscular exertion to keep it in its place. We have frequently seen French boys running in sabots, the foot rising at every stepalmost out of the unyielding wooden shoe. Wooden clogs and pattens are as bad as the thick shoes of the country people. When clogs are necessary, the sole should be made of materials which will yield to the motion of the foot. The American Indian's moccasins are a much better covering for the foot than our shoes.
If thick soles are objectionable by impeding the free movement of the limb, what shall we say to the high heel which was once so popular, and which threatens again to come into fashion? It is to be hoped, however, when the effects of wearing high heels are duly considered, that this pernicious custom will not make progress. It is well for their poor unfortunate votaries, that the introduction of certain fashions is gradual; that both mind and body—perhaps we should be more correct in saying the person of the wearer and the eye of the spectator—are, step by step, prepared for the extreme point which certain fashions attain; they have their rise, their culminating point, and their decline. The attempt to exchange the short waists, worn somethirty or forty years ago, for the very long waists seen during the past year, would have been unsuccessful; the transition would have been too great—too violent; the change was effected, but it was the work of many years. The same thing took place with regard to the high head-dresses which were so deservedly ridiculed by Addison, and in an equally marked degree with respect to high heels. The shoes in the cut, after Gainsborough, (Fig. 71,) are fair specimens of what were in fashion in his time. Let the reader compare the line of the sole with that of the human foot placed, as nature intended it, flat on the ground. The heel was in some cases four and a half inches high; the line, therefore, must have been in this case, a highly inclined plane, undulating in its surface, like the “line of beauty” of Hogarth. The position of the foot is that of a dancer resting on the toes, excepting that the heel is supported, and the strain over the instep and contraction of the muscles of the back of the leg and heel must be considerable; so much so we are told, that the contraction of the latter becomeshabitual; consequently, those persons who have accustomed themselves to the use of high heels, are never afterwards able to do without them. It is said that “pride never feels pain;” we should think the proverb was made for those who wear high heels, for we are told, although we cannot speak from personal experience, that the pain on first wearing shoes of this kind, in which the whole weight of the body seems to thrust the toes forward into the shoe, is excruciating; nothing but fashion could reconcile one to such voluntary suffering. The peas in the shoes of the pilgrims could scarcely be more painful.
Pl. 9.
Pl. 9.
It was with some surprise that we found among M. Stackelberg's graceful costumes of modern Greece a pair of high-heeled shoes, (Fig. 72,) which might rival in ugliness and inconvenience any of those worn in England.
We have known an instance where the lady's heels were never less than an inch and a half high. We were sorry to observe some of these high-heeled shoes in the great exhibition, and still more so, to see that shoes with heels an inch high are likely to befashionable this season. Could we look forward to this height as the limit of the fashion, we might reconcile ourselves to it for a time; but, judging from past experience, there is reason to fear that the heel will become continually higher, until it attains the elevation of former years. Not content with imprisoning our feet in tight shoes, and thereby distorting their form and weakening their muscular power, we are guilty of another violence towards nature. Nature has made our toes to turn inwards; when man is left to himself the toes naturally take this direction, though in a much less degree than in the infant. The American Indian will trace a European by his footprints, which he detects by the turning out of the toes; a lesson we are taught in our childhood, and especially by our dancing master. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, “The gestures of children, being all dictated by nature, are graceful; affectation and distortion come in with the dancing master.” Now, observe the consequence of turning out the toes. The inner ankle is bent downwards towards the ground, and the knees are drawn inwards,producing the deformity called knock-kneed; thus the whole limb is distorted, and consequently weakened; there is always a want of muscular power in the legs of those who turn their toes very much outwards. It must be remarked, however, that women, from the greater breadth of the frame at the hips, naturally turn the toes out more than men. In this point also, statues may be studied with advantage. Where form only is considered, it is generally safer to refer to examples of sculpture than painting; because in the latter, the artist is apt to lose sight of this primary object in his attention to color and form; besides, it is the sculptor only, who makes an exact image of a figure which is equally perfect, seen from all points of view. The painter makes only a pictorial or perspective representation of nature, as seen from one point of view only.
What pains we take to distort and disfigure the beautiful form that nature has bestowed upon the human race! Now building a tower on the head, then raising the heel at the expense of the toe; atone time confining the body in a case of whalebone, and compressing it at the waist like an hour glass; at another, surrounding it with the enormous and ungraceful hoop, till the outline of the figure is so altered, that a person can scarcely recognize her own shadow as that of a human being.
CHAPTER VI.REMARKS ON PARTICULAR COSTUMES.
Wemust now offer a few brief remarks upon certain costumes which appear to us most worthy of our attention and study, for their general elegance and adaptation to the figure.
Of the modern Greek we have already spoken. The style of dress which has been immortalized by the pencil of Vandyck is considered among the most elegant that has ever prevailed in this country. It is not, however, faultless. The row of small curls around the face, however becoming to some persons, is somewhat formal; and although the general arrangement of the hair, which preserves the natural size and shape of the head, is more graceful than that of the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, we think it would have been more pleasing had it left visiblethe line which divides the hair from the forehead. With regard to the dress itself, it is apparent, in the first place, that the figures are spoiled by stays; secondly, that the dress is cut too low in front; and thirdly, that the large sleeves sometimes give too great width in front to the shoulders. These defects are, in some degree, counterbalanced by the graceful flow of the ample drapery, and of the large sleeves, which are frequently widest at their lower part, and by the gently undulating line which unites the waist of the dress with the skirt. The Vandyck dress, with its voluminous folds, is, however, more appropriate to the inhabitants of palaces, than to the ordinary occupants of this working-day world. The drapery is too wide and flowing for convenience. The annexed cut, (Fig. 73,) representing Charlotte de la Tremouille, the celebrated Countess of Derby, exhibits some of the defects and many of the beauties of the Vandyck dress.
Lely's half-dressed figures may be passed over without comment; they are draped, not dressed. Kneller's are more instructive on the subject ofcostume. The dress of Queen Anne, (Fig. 74,) in Kneller's portrait, is graceful and easy. The costume is a kind of transition between the Vandyck and Reynolds style. The sleeves are smaller at the shoulder than in the former, and larger at the lower part than in the latter; in fact, they resemble those now worn by the modern Greeks. The dress is cut higher round the bust, and is longer in the waist than the Vandycks, while the undulating line uniting the body and skirt is still preserved. While such good examples were set by the painters—who were not, however, the inventors of the fashions they painted—it is astonishing that these graceful styles of dress should have been superseded in real life by the lofty head-dresses and preposterous fashions which prevailed during the same period and long afterwards, and which even the ironical and severe remarks of Addison, in the “Spectator,” were unable to banish from the circles of fashion.
Speaking of the dresses of ladies during the reigns of James II. and William III., Mr. Planché, in his “History of British Costumes,” says, “The tower orcommode was still worn, and the gowns and petticoats flounced and furbelowed, so that every part of the garment was in curl;” and a lady of fashion “looked like one of those animals,” says the “Spectator,” “which in the country we call a Friesland hen.” But in 1711 we find Mr. Addison remarking, “The whole sex is now dwarfed and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once nearly seven foot high, that at present want some inches of five. How they come to be thus curtailed I cannot learn; whether the whole sex be at present under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their head-dresses in order to surprise us with something in that kind which shall be entirely new: though I find most are of opinion they are at present like trees lopped and pruned, that will certainly sprout up and flourish with greater heads than before.”
The costume of the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as treated by this great artist, though less splendid, appears to us, with the exception of the head-dress,nearly as graceful, and far more convenient than the Vandyck dress. It is more modest, more easy, and better adapted to show the true form of the shoulders, while the union of the body of the dress with the skirt is effected in the same graceful manner as in the Vandyck portraits. The materials of the drapery in the latteraregenerally silks and satins; of the former, it is frequently muslin and stuff of a soft texture, which clings more closely to the form. That much of the elegance of both styles of dress is to be attributed to the skill and good taste of the painters, is evident from an examination of portraits by contemporary artists. Much also may be ascribed to the taste of the wearer.
There are some people who, though habited in the best and richest clothes, never appear well dressed; their garments, rumpled and untidy, look as if they had been pitched on them, like hay, with a fork; while others, whose dress consists of the most homely materials, appear well dressed, from the neatness and taste with which their clothes are arranged.
Pl. 10.
Pl. 10.
Many of the costumes of Gainsborough's portraitsare elegant and graceful, with the frequent exception of the extravagant head-dress and the high-heeled shoes. The easy and very pleasing figure, (Fig. 75,) after this accomplished artist, is not exempt from the above defects.
In our next illustration, (Fig. 76,) Gainsborough has not been so happy. The lady is almost lost in her voluminous and fluttering drapery, and the dishevelled hair and the enormous hat give to the figure much of the appearance of a caricature.
Leaving now the caprices of fashion, we must notice a class of persons who, from a religious motive, have resisted for two hundred years the tyranny of fashion, and, until recently, have transmitted the same form of dress from mother to daughter for nearly the same period of years. The ladies of the Society of Friends, or, as they are usually called, “Quakers,” are still distinguished by the simplicity and neatness of their dress—the quiet drabs and browns of which frequently contrast with the richness of the material—and by the absence of all ornament and frippery. Every part of their dressis useful and convenient; it has neither frills, nor flounces, nor trimmings to carry the dirt and get shabby before the dress itself, nor wide sleeves to dip in the plates and lap up the gravy and sauces, nor artificial flowers, nor bows of ribbons. The dress is long enough for decency, but not so long as to sweep the streets, as many dresses and shawls are daily seen to do. Some few years back the Quaker ladies might have been reproached with adhering to the letter, while they rejected the spirit, of their code of dress by adhering too literally to the costume handed down to them. The crowns of their caps were formerly made very high, and for this reason it was necessary that the crowns of their bonnets should be high enough to admit the cap crown; hence the peculiarly ugly and remarkable form of this part of the dress. The crown of the cap has, however, recently been lowered, and the Quaker ladies, with much good sense, have not only modified the form of their bonnets, but have also adopted the straw and drawn silk bonnet in their most simple forms. In the style of their dress, also, theyoccasionally approach so near the fashions generally worn, that they are no longer distinguishable by the singularity of their dress, but by its simplicity and chasteness.
We venture now to devote a few words to the Bloomer costume, (Fig. 77,) although we are aware that we are treading on tender ground, especially as the costume involves a sudden and complete change in the dress. Independently of its merits or demerits, there are several reasons why it did not succeed in this country. In the first place, as we have before observed, it originated in America, and was attempted to be introduced through the middle ranks. In the second place, the change which it endeavored to effect was too sudden. Had the alteration commenced with the higher classes, and the change been effected gradually, its success might possibly have been different. Thirdly, the large hat, so well adapted to the burning sun of America, was unnecessary, and remarkable when forming a part of the costume of adult ladies in this country, although we have seen that hats quite as large wereworn during the time of Gainsborough. Another reason for the ill success of the Bloomer costume is to be found in the glaring and frequently ill-assorted colors of the prints of it, which were every where exposed in the shop windows. By many sober-minded persons, the large hat and glaring colors were looked upon as integral parts of the costume. The numerous caricatures also, and the injudicious attempts to make it popular by getting up “Bloomer Balls,” contributed to render the costume ridiculous and unpopular.
Setting aside the hat, the distinguishing characteristics of the costume are the short dress, and a polka jacket fitting the body at the throat and shoulders, and confined at the waist by a silken sash, and the trousers fastened by a band round the ankle, and finished off with a frill. On the score of modesty there can be no objection to the dress, since the whole of the body is covered. On the ground of convenience it recommends itself to those who, having the superintendence of a family, are obliged frequently to go up and down stairs, on whichoccasions it is always necessary to raise the dress before or behind, according to circumstances. The objection to the trousers is not to this article of dress being worn, since that is a general practice, but to their being seen. Yet we suspect few ladies would object on this account to appear at a fancy ball in the Turkish costume.
The disadvantages of the dress are its novelty—for we seldom like a fashion to which we are entirely unaccustomed—and the exposure which it involves of the foot, the shape of which, in this country, is so frequently distorted by wearing tight shoes of a different shape from the foot. The short dress is objectionable in another point of view, because, as short petticoats diminish the apparent height of the person, none but those who possess tall and elegant figures will look well in this costume; and appearance is generally suffered to prevail over utility and convenience. If to the Bloomer costume had been added the long under-dress of the Greek women, or had the trousers been as full as those worn by the Turkish and East Indian women,the general effect of the dress would have been much more elegant, although perhaps less useful. Setting aside all considerations of fashion, as we always do in looking at the fashions which are gone by, it was impossible for any person to deny that the Bloomer costume was by far the most elegant, the most modest, and the most convenient.
CHAPTER VII.ORNAMENT—ECONOMY.
Ornament, although not an integral part of dress, is so intimately connected with it, that we must devote a few words to the subject.
Under the general term of ornament we shall include bows of ribbon, artificialflowers,feathers, jewels, lace, fringes, and trimmings of all kinds. Some of these articles appear to be suited to one period of life, some to another. Jewels, for instance, though suitable for middle age, seem misplaced on youth, which should always be characterized by simplicity of apparel; while flowers, which are so peculiarly adapted to youth, are unbecoming to those advanced in years; in the latter case there is contrast without harmony; it is like uniting May with December.
The great principle to be observed with regard to ornament is, that it should be appropriate, and appear designed to answer some useful purpose. A brooch, or a bow of ribbon, for instance, should fasten some part of the dress; a gold chain should support a watch or an eyeglass. Trimmings are useful to mark the borders or edges of the different parts of the dress; and in this light they add to the variety, while by their repetition they conduce to the regularity of the ornamentation.
Pl. 11.
Pl. 11.
Ornament is so much a matter of fashion, that beyond the above remarks it scarcely comes within the scope of our subject. There is one point, however, to which the present encouragement of works of design induces us to draw the attention of our readers. We have already borrowed from the beautiful work of M. de Stackelberg, some of the female figures in illustration of our views with regard to dress; we have now to call the attention of our readers to the patterns embroidered on the dresses. These are mostly of classic origin, and prove that the descendants of the Greeks have still sufficientgood taste to appreciate and adopt the designs of their glorious ancestors. The figures in the plates being too small to show the patterns, we have enlarged some of them from the original work, in order to show the style of design still cultivated among the peasants of Greece, and also because we think the designs may be applied to other materials besides dress. Some of them appear not inappropriate to iron work. When will our people be able to show designs of such elegance?Fig. 78is an enlarged copy of the embroidery on the robe of the peasant from the environs of Athens, (Fig. 47.) It extends, as will be seen, half way up the skirt.Fig. 79is from the sleeve of the same dress.Fig. 80is the pattern embroidered on the sleeve of the pelisse.Fig. 81is the pattern from the waist to the hem of the skirt of an Athenian peasant's dress, (Fig. 51.)Fig. 82is the border to the shawl;Fig. 83, the sleeve of the last-mentioned dress;Fig. 84, the design on the apron of the Arcadian peasant, (Fig. 48.)Fig. 85is the border of the same dress.Fig. 86is the pattern round the hem of the longunder-dress of the Athenian peasant, (Fig. 51;)Fig. 87, the border of a shawl, or something of the kind.Fig. 88is another example. The brocade dress of Sancta Victoria (Fig. 64) offers a striking contrast to the simple elegance of the Greek designs. It is too large for the purpose to which it is employed, and not sufficiently distinct; and, although it possesses much variety, it is deficient in regularity; and one of the elements of beauty in ornamental design, namely, repetition, appears to be entirely wanting. In these respects, the superiority of the Greek designs is immediately apparent. They unite at once symmetry with regularity, and variety with repetition.
Pl. 12.
Pl. 12.
The examination of these designs suggests the reflection that when we have once attained a form of dress which combines ease and elegance with convenience, we should tax our ingenuity in inventing ornamental designs for decorating it, rather than seek to discover novel forms of dress.
The endless variety of textile fabrics which our manufacturers are constantly producing, the variety,also, in the colors, will, with the embroidery patterns issued by our schools of design, suffice to appease the constant demand for novelty, which exists in an improving country, without changing the form of our costume, unless to adopt others which reason and common sense point out as superior to that in use. We are told to try all things, and to hold fast to that which is good. The maxim is applicable to dress as well as to morals.
The subject of economy in dress, an essential object with many persons, now claims our attention. We venture to offer a few remarks on this head. Our first recommendation is to have but few dresses at a time, and those extremely good. If we have but few dresses, we wear them, and wear them out while they are in fashion; but if we have many dresses at once, some of them become quite old-fashioned before we have done with them. If we are rich enough to afford the sacrifice, the old-fashioned dress is got rid of; if not, we must be content to appear in a fashion that has long beensuperseded; and we look as if we had come out of the tombs, or as if one of our ancestors had stepped out of her picture frame, and again walked the earth.
As to the economy of selecting the best materials for dresses, we argue thus: Every dress must be lined and made up, and we pay as much for making and lining an inferior article, as we do for one of the best quality. Now, a good silk or merino will wear out two bad ones; therefore, one good dress, lining and making, will cost less than two inferior ones, with the expenses of lining and making them. In point of appearance, also, there is no comparison between the two; the good dress will look well to the last, while one of inferior quality will soon look shabby. When a good silk dress has become too shabby to be worn longer as a dress, it becomes, when cut up, useful for a variety of purposes; whereas an inferior silk, or one purely ornamental, is, when left off, good for nothing.
Plain dresses, that is to say, those of a single color, and without a pattern, are more economicalas well as more quiet in their appearance than those of various colors. They are also generally less expensive, because something is always paid for the novelty of the fashion; besides, colored and figured dresses bear the date on the face of them, as plainly as if it was there in printed characters. The ages of dress fabrics are known by the pattern; therefore dresses of this description should be put on as soon as purchased, and worn out at once, or they will appear old-fashioned. There is another reason why vari-colored dresses are less economical than others. Where there are several colors, they may not all be equally fast, and if only one of them fades the dress will lose its beauty. Trimmings are not economical; besides their cost in the first instance, they become shabby before the dress, and if removed, they generally leave a mark where they have been, and so spoil the appearance of the dress.
Dresses made of one kind of material only, are more durable than those composed of two; as, for instance, of cotton and silk, of cotton and worsted,or of silk and worsted. When the silk is merely thrown on the face of the material, it soon wears off. This is also the case in those woollen or cotton goods which have a silken stripe.
The question of economy also extends to colors, some of which are much more durable than others. For this we can give no rule, except that drabs and other “Quaker colors,” as they are frequently called, are amongst the most permanent of all colors. For other colors we must take the word of the draper. There is no doubt, however, but that the most durable colors are the cheapest in the end. In the selection of colors, the expense is not always a criterion; something must be paid for fashion and novelty, and perhaps for the cost of the dye. The newest and most expensive colors are not always those which last the longest.
It is not economical to have the dresses made in the extremity of the fashion, because such soon become remarkable; but the fashions should be followed at such a distance, that the wearer may not attract the epithet of old-fashioned.
We conclude this part of our subject with a few suggestions relative to the selection of different styles and materials of dress.
The style of dress should be adapted to the age of the wearer. As a general rule, we should say that in youth the dress should be simple and elegant, the ornaments being flowers. In middle age, the dress may be of rich materials, and more splendid in its character; jewels are the appropriate ornaments. In the decline of life, the materials of which the dress is composed may be equally rich, but with less vivacious colors: the tertiaries and broken colors are particularly suitable, and the character of the whole costume should be quiet, simple, and dignified. The French, whose taste in dress is so far in advance of our own, say, that ladies who arecinquante ans sonnés, should neither wear gay colors, nor dresses of slight materials, flowers, feathers, or much jewelry; that they should cover their hair, wear high dresses and long sleeves.
Tall ladies may wear flounces and tucks, but they are less appropriate for short persons. As a generalrule, vertical stripes make persons appear taller than they really are, but horizontal stripes have a contrary effect. The latter, Mr. Redgrave says, are not admissible in garment fabrics, “since, crossing the person, the pattern quarrels with all the motions of the human figure, as well as with the form of the long folds in the skirts of the garment. For this reason,” he continues, “large and pronounced checks, however fashionable, are often in bad taste, and interfere with the graceful arrangement of the drapery.” Is it to show their entire contempt for the principles of design that our manufacturers introduced last year not only horizontal stripes of conspicuous colors, but checks and plaids of immense size, as autumnal fashions for dress fabrics? We had hoped that the ladies would have shown the correctness of their taste by their disapproval of these unbecoming designs, but the prevalence of the fashion at the present time is another evidence of the triumph of fashion over good taste.
A white and light-colored dress makes the wearersappear larger, while a black or dark dress causes them to appear smaller than they actually are. A judicious person will, therefore, avail herself of these known effects, by adopting the style of dress most suitable to her stature.
To sum up, in a few words, our impressions on this subject, we should say that the best style of dress is that which, being exactly adapted to the climate and the individual, is at once modest, quiet, and retiring, harmonious in color and decoration, and of good materials.
We conclude with the following admirable extract from Tobin's “Honeymoon,” which we earnestly recommend to the attention of our fair readers.
I'll have no glittering gewgaws stuck about youTo stretch the gaping eyes of idiot wonder,And make men stare upon a piece of earth,As on the star-wrought firmament—no feathers,To wave as streamers to your vanity;Nor cumbrous silk, that with its rustling soundMakes proud the flesh that bears it. She's adornedAmply, that in her husband's eye looks lovely—The truest mirror that an honest wifeCan see her beauty in!Julia.I shall observe, sir.Duke.I should like well to see you in the dress I last presented you.Julia.The blue one, sir?Duke.No, love,—the white. Thus modestly attired,A half-blown rose stuck in thy braided hair,With no more diamonds than those eyes are made of,No deeper rubies than compose thy lips,Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them,With the pure red and white, which that same handWhich blends the rainbow, mingles in thy cheeks;This well-proportioned form (think not I flatter)In graceful motion to harmonious sounds,And thy free tresses dancing in the wind,Thou'lt fix as much observance, as chaste damesCan meet without a blush.
I'll have no glittering gewgaws stuck about youTo stretch the gaping eyes of idiot wonder,And make men stare upon a piece of earth,As on the star-wrought firmament—no feathers,To wave as streamers to your vanity;Nor cumbrous silk, that with its rustling soundMakes proud the flesh that bears it. She's adornedAmply, that in her husband's eye looks lovely—The truest mirror that an honest wifeCan see her beauty in!Julia.I shall observe, sir.Duke.I should like well to see you in the dress I last presented you.Julia.The blue one, sir?Duke.No, love,—the white. Thus modestly attired,A half-blown rose stuck in thy braided hair,With no more diamonds than those eyes are made of,No deeper rubies than compose thy lips,Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them,With the pure red and white, which that same handWhich blends the rainbow, mingles in thy cheeks;This well-proportioned form (think not I flatter)In graceful motion to harmonious sounds,And thy free tresses dancing in the wind,Thou'lt fix as much observance, as chaste damesCan meet without a blush.
We look forward hopefully to a day when art-education will be extended to all ranks; when a knowledge of the beautiful will be added to that of the useful; when good taste, based upon real knowledge and common sense, will dictate our fashions in dress as in other things. We have schools of art to reform our taste in pottery, hardware, and textile fabrics, not to speak of the higher walks of art, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The handle of a jug, the stem of a wine glass, thedesign for dress silks or lace veils, will form the subjects of lectures to the students of the various schools of design; disquisitions are written on the important question whether the ornamental designs should represent the real form of objects, or only give a conventional representation of them; while the study of the human figure, the masterpiece of creation, is totally neglected, except by painters and sculptors. We hope that the study of form will be more extended, that it will be universal, that it will, in fact, enter into the general scheme of education, and that we shall hereafter see as much pains bestowed in improving by appropriate costume the figure which nature has given us, as we do now in distorting it by tight stays, narrow and high-heeled shoes, and all the other deformities and eccentricities of that many-faced monster, fashion. The economy of the frame, and the means of preserving it in health and beauty, should form an integral part of education. There can be no true beauty without health; and how can we hope to secure health if we are ignorant of the means ofpromoting it, or if we violate its precepts by adopting absurd and pernicious fashions? Surely it is not too much to hope that dressmakers will hereafter attend the schools of design, to study the human form, and thence learn to appreciate its beauties, and to clothe it with appropriate dress, calculated to display its beauties to the greatest advantage, and to conceal its defects—the latter with the reservation we have already noticed. We hope, also, that the shoemaker will learn to model the shoe upon the true form of the foot.
Manufacturers are now convinced of the importance and utility of schools of design; and whether the article hereafter to be produced be a cup and saucer, a fender, a pattern for a dress, or for furniture, for a service of plate or a diamond tiara, it is thought proper that the pupil, as a preliminary course that cannot be dispensed with, should commence with the study of the human figure. Yet is not dress an art-manufacture as well as a cup and saucer, or a teaboard? Is there less skill and talent, less taste required to clothe the form whichwe are told is made after God's own image, than to furnish an apartment? Why should not dressmakers and tailors attend the schools of design, as well as those artisans who are intended to be employed in what are called art-manufactures? Why should not shoemakers be taught the shape and movements of the foot? If this were the case, we are satisfied that an immediate and permanent improvement would be the consequence in our style of dress. Would any person acquainted with the human form, and especially with the little round form of an infant, have sent to the Great Exhibition an infant's robe shaped like that in our cut.Fig. 89. An infant with a waist “growing fine by degrees and beautifully less”!—was there ever such a deformity? We believe that many portrait painters stipulate that they should be allowed to dictate the dress, at least as regards the arrangement of the colors, of their sitters; the reason of this is, that the painter's selection of dress and color is based upon the study of the figure and complexion of the individual, or the knowledge of the effects of contrastand harmony of lines, tissues, and colors, while the models which are presented for his imitation too frequently offer to his view a style of dress, both as regards form and color, which set the rules of harmony at defiance. Now, only suppose that the dressmaker had the painter's knowledge of form and harmony of lines and colors, what a revolution would take place in dress? We should no longer see the tall and the short, the slender and the stout, the brown and the fair, the old and the young, dressed alike, but the dress would be adapted to the individual; and we believe that, were the plan of study we recommend generally adopted, this purpose might always be effected without the sacrifice of what is now the grand desideratum in dress—novelty.
The reasons why the art of dressmaking has not hitherto received the attention which it deserves, are to be sought for in the constitution of society. The branches of manufacture which require a knowledge of design, such as calico printing, silk and ribbon weaving, porcelain and pottery, andhardware manufactures, are conducted on a large scale by men of wealth and talent, who, if they would compete successfully with rival manufacturers, find it necessary to study and apply to their own business all the improvements in science, with which their intercourse with society gives them an opportunity of becoming acquainted. It is quite otherwise with dressmaking. A woman is at the head of every establishment of this kind, a woman generally of limited education and attainments, from whom cannot be expected either liberality of sentiment or enlarged views, but who possibly possesses some tact and discrimination of character, which enables her to exercise a kind of dictatorial power in matters of dress over her customers; these customers are scarcely better informed on the subject than herself.
The early life of the dressmaker is spent in a daily routine of labor with the needle, and when she becomes a mistress in her turn, she exacts from her assistants the same amount of daily labor that was formerly expected from herself. Work, work,work with the needle from almost childhood, in the same close room from morning to night, and not unfrequently from night to morning also, is the everlasting routine of the monotonous life of the dressmakers. They are working for bread, and have no leisure to attend to the improvement of the mind, and the want of this mental cultivation is apparent in the articles they produce by their labor. When one of the young women who attends these establishments to learn the trade, thinks she has had sufficient experience, she leaves the large establishment, and sets up in business on her own account. In this new situation she works equally hard, and has, therefore, no time for improving her mind or taste. Of the want of this, however, she is not sensible, because she can purchase for a trifle all the newest patterns, and the thought never enters her poor little head, that the same fashion may not suit all her customers. This defective education of the dressmakers, or rather their want of knowledge of the human form, is one of the great causes of the prevalence of the old fashion of tightlacing; it is so much easier to make a closely-fitting body suit over a tight stay than it is on the pliant and yielding natural form, in which, if one part be drawn a little too tight, or the contrary, the body of the dress is thrown out of shape. Supposing, on the other hand, the fit to be exact, it is so difficult to keep such a tight-fitting body in its place on the figure without securing its form by whalebones, that it is in vain to expect the stays to become obsolete until the tight-fitting bodice is also given up.
This will never take place until not only the ladies who are to be clothed, but the dressmakers, shall make the human form their study, and direct their efforts to set off their natural advantages by attending to the points which are their characteristic beauties. A long and delicate throat, falling shoulders, not too wide from point to point, a flat back, round chest, wide hips—these are the points which should be developed by the dress. Whence it follows, that every article of dress which shortens the throat, adds height or width to the shoulders,roundness to the back, or flatness to the chest, must be radically wrong in principle, and unpleasant and repulsive in effect. In the same manner, whatever kind of dress adds to the height of a figure already too tall and thin, or detracts from the apparent height of the short and stout, must be avoided. These things should form the study of the dressmaker.
As society is now constituted, however, the dressmaker has not, as we have already observed, leisure to devote to studies of the necessity and importance of which she is still ignorant. The reform must be begun by the ladies themselves. They must acquire a knowledge of form, and of the principles of beauty and harmony, and so exercise a controlling influence over the dressmakers. By this means, a better taste will be created, and the dressmakers will at length discover their deficiency in certain guiding principles, and will be driven at last to resort to similar studies. But in this case a startling difficulty presents itself—the poor dressmaker is at present over-worked: how can she findleisure to attend the schools of design, or even pursue, if she had the ability, the necessary studies at home? A girl is apprenticed to the trade at the age of thirteen or fourteen; she works at it all her life, rising early, and late taking rest; and what is the remuneration of her daily toil of twelve hours? Eighteen pence, or at most two shillings a day, with her board![3]As she reckons the value of the latter at a shilling, it follows, that the earnings of a dressmaker, in the best period of her life, who goes out to work, could not exceed fifteen shillings, or, at the most, eighteen shillings a week, if she did not—at the hazard of her health, which, indeed, is frequently sacrificed—work at home before she begins, and after she has finished, her day's work abroad. The carpenter or house painter does not work harder, or bring to bear on his employment greater knowledge, than the poor dressmaker; yet he has four shillings sixpence a day,without his board, while she has only what is equivalent to two shillings sixpence, or three shillings. What reason can be assigned why a woman's work, if equally well done, should not be as well paid as that of a man? A satisfactory reason has yet to be given; the fact, however, is indisputable, that women are not in general so well paid for their labor as men.
Although these remarks arose naturally out of our subject, we must not digress too far. To return to the dressmaker. If the hours of labor of these white slaves who toil in the dressmaking establishments were limited to ten or twelve hours, as in large factories, two consequences would follow: the first is, that more hands would be employed, and the second, that the young women would have time to attend schools, and improve their minds. If they could also attend occasional lectures on the figure, and on the harmony of color and costume with reference to dress, the best effects would follow.
Those dressmakers who are rich enough, and, we may add, many ladies also, take in some book offashions with colored illustrations, and from this they imbibe their notions of beauty of form and elegance of costume. How is it possible, we would ask, for either the dressmaker or the ladies who employ them to acquire just ideas of form, or of suitable costume, when their eyes are accustomed only to behold such deformed and unnatural representations of the human figure as those in the accompanying plates?Figs. 90 and 91.Is it any wonder that small waists should be admired, when the books which aspire to be the handmaids and mirrors of fashion present to their readers such libels on beauty of form? Now, suppose that lithographed drawings of costumes issued occasionally from the schools of design, is it not reasonable to suppose that, with the knowledge which the students have acquired of the human figure, the illustrations would be more accurate imitations of nature? An eye accustomed to the study of nature can scarcely bear to contemplate, much less to imitate, the monsters of a depraved taste which disgrace the different publications that aspire to makeknown the newest fashions. Many of the illustrations of these publications, although ill proportioned, are executed in a certain stylish manner which takes with the uneducated, and the mechanical execution of the figures is also good. This, however, is so far from being an advantage, that it only renders them the more dangerous; like the song of the siren, they lead only to evil.
We are told that many of the first Parisian artists derive a considerable part of their income from drawing the figures in the French books of fashion and costume, and that, in the early part of his career, Horace Vernet, the president of the French Academy, did not disdain to employ his talents in this way. We cannot, however, refrain from expressing our surprise and honest indignation that artists of eminence, especially those who, like the French school, have a reputation for correct drawing, and who must, therefore, be so well acquainted with the actual as well as ideal proportions of the female figure, should so prostitute their talents as to employ them in delineating the ill-proportionedfigures which appear in books of fashions. It is no small aggravation of their offence, in our eyes, that the figures should be drawn in such graceful positions, and with the exception of the defective proportions, with so much skill. These beauties only make them more dangerous; the goodness of their execution misleads the unfortunate victims of their fascination. What young lady, unacquainted with the proportions of the figure, could look on these prints of costumes and go away without the belief that a small waist and foot were essential elements of beauty? So she goes home from her dressmaker's, looks in the glass, and not finding her own waist and foot as small as those in the books of fashion, gives her stay-lace an extra tightening pull, and, regardless of corns, squeezes her feet into tight shoes, which makes the instep appear swollen. Both the figures in our last plates were originally drawn and engraved by Jules David, and Reville, in “Le Moniteur de la Mode,” which is published at Paris, London, New York, and St. Petersburg. Let our readers look atthese figures, and say whether the most determined votary of tight lacing ever succeeded in compressing her waist into the proportions represented in these figures.
We should like to hear that lectures were given occasionally, by a lady in the female school of design, on the subjects of form, and of dress in its adaptation to form and to harmony of color. We have no doubt that a lady competent to deliver these lectures will readily be found. After a course of these lectures, we do not hesitate to predict that illustrations of fashion emanating from this source would be, in point of taste, every thing that could be desired. We venture to think that the students of the female school may be as well and as profitably employed in designing costumes, as in inventing patterns for cups and saucers or borders for veils. Until some course, of the nature we have indicated, is adopted, we cannot hope for any permanent improvement in our costume.