GOOD LOOKS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1925, Page 3

GOOD LOOKS

THE INFLUENCE OF FASHION.

(John Blunt in “ Daily Mail.”)

Air AY alter Stonemnn, compiler of the photographic record of famous men for the National Portrait Gallery, says that a comparison between the photographs of 50 years ago and to-day shows that modern .men are, in general, much better-looking than their grandfathers. It this is really the case then I am afraid that a number of men I know must have had quite painfully plain grandfathers.- but I must confess that I leel very sceptical about the truth of the assertion. I quite agree that a modern photograph makes a man appear handsomer than the photographs that were taken 50 years ago. But is not this mainly due, partly to the development of photography and partly to the fact that we no linger appreciate the beauty of whiskers and of mid-A’ic-torian clothes? OUR GRANDFATHERS. I can’t help thinking that if our grandfathers had dressed as we dress and curbed the luxuriance of their hair as we do, and if, further, they had been photographed in natural attitudes and not with one elbow leaning on a broken column placed behind a plush sofa, while with the other hand they toyed with a bunch of gold seals, they would have looked very much as we do. But even if the type of face is constantly changing—and certaainly tho beauties of Charles ll’s Court, as depicted by Sir Peter Lely, appear to us to fall far short of modern ideas of feminine loveliness—is there any real criterion that it is changing for the hotter?

AA’e admire the modern type because it is the modern type, hut 1 am not at all sure that our grandfathers, assuming that they were different in reality, were any less good-looking than we are. I hope not, for their sakes, for. without being unduly pessimistic. I think that a good many of us could do with more than a little improvement. “HORRORS” OF 10 YEARS AGO. In any case, there is no standard of values beyond the mere fashion of the moment. Clothes have an extraordinary effect on personal appearence, and ns the fashions in clothes, at least, arc everlasting altering, one need not go back anything like 50 years to see people who look positive frights in our eyes. I venture to think that the average woman who studied the fashion plates of only 10 years ago vould be horrified at the notion of any woman ever dressed in such a style. I believe, on the whole, that it is satisfactory that people should usually imagine that the modern fashions in clothes and looks are the best. Il may make them feel foolishly superior ,4o the past, but. on the other hand, it makes life comfortable and contented, THE TASTE OF THE AGE. Taste is relative to the age in which we live. And, scarcely perceiving it, our own taste alters as the taste of the age alters. It is only when a fashion becomes out ol date that it appears ludicrous and only when it is long out of date that we can at least judge it with any dogreec ol impartiality. In 100 years from now. for all T know a Victorian nobleman with muttonchop whiskers and baggy trousers may look to our descendants as romantic and handsome a figure as a Cavalier with bowing locks and lace 3‘ulllcs looks to us. And our handsome type, thinfaced. clean-shaven arrayed in plus fours and a Fair Isle jersey, may seem to tin- voting bloods of that future era a mere figure of fun.