GOING BACK TO PATCHES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1402, 30 March 1912, Page 4

GOING BACK TO PATCHES.

W« take to powder■■ and paint ki.jidly, provided they cannot lie detected; but we havo kept away from patches, though fashion has from-time-to time decreed them (says.an Knglish writer). The belles of past- generations have considered their high heels, their well-carried ■ fans, and" their well-posed patches perhaps the most ' important items, in their coquetry. -Dut ■ thoi-'e were days when no woman would have appeared without powder on her face, '■• and though they admitted their beaux to ' their dressing-rooms to look'.on at tho 'mysteries of dressing, the face h;vl been properly powdered before they were let in, ' Mine.'do Stael was much censured for giving nn audience before' she had pro-, perly "powdered." The Jews and Romans used gold dust on their hair; and blue, red, and green powders wore employed by ■ some of our Saxon predecessors, In Plan- \ tagenet days Queen" Jlatilda gave an itiipetus to embroidery;, and richness of at-, tire developed in horned head-dresses for .the women, and petticoat breeches for tho . men were the direction Vanity took. As ' far back as the/ thirteenth century small Ijooklets' smeared with vermilion wero ready to be torn out to (jivo colouring, to iho face. Diana do Poitiers was almost the only woman of her day who abjured rouge. The Charles II beauties took to patches kindly; not just the round moucho. adorned tho face", but Maltese crosses,': rings, stars, moons, and even-coach and.";' horses ornamented (?) the face. Those good dames must never havo laughed, cried, or even smiled, though they carried their patch boxes in caso of a catastrophe (o replace those'that were dislodged. In ' the days of Queen Anne a woman's tics wero disclosed by her patches, the ' Whigs patching on one side, the Tories oh. the other. The patch was designed .to call ■ attention to a mischievous eye,-a coquettish dimple, and a whito brow. ~ .