NAKED, AND NOT ASHAMED.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5010, 14 April 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

NAKED, AND NOT ASHAMED.

(From the World.) Burns’ well-known aspiration that we might see ourselves as we are beheld by our neighbors, and derive wisdom from the melancholy spectacle, must present itself forcibly to such thoughtful members of society as chance to find themselves in a ballroom, and have rather the inclination to observe and moralise than to become themselves whirling members jbf the giddy throng. Every woman present firmly believes that the dress she has herself adopted is absolutely becoming, however hideous she may declare its style to be when exhibited on the persons of her friends. And certainly the fashions now prevailing are not only somewhat startling to those embarrassed with any remnant of that old-world commodity, propriety, but demand a grace and a beauty of figure very far from being general. Formerly when a lady was of so generous a disposition as to be anxious to expose her charms to general observation, all she could do was to cut her dress lower than her neighbors were willing to do ; but modern enlightenment enables her to progress far beyond this. To say nothing of the fashion that permits her to dispense altogether with sleeves, and to exhibit to the admiring gaze of all men the vaccination marks inflicted in her infancy and at any subsequent period of panic, or the contraction of skirt that impedes the freedom of her movements, and defines the shape of her lower limbs as closely as a damp bathing-dress, there is an institution known as “ Cuirass bodice,” which, lengthened far below the waist, leaves not an indentation of the female form divine to the imagination. V: really seems the ambition of each fashionable woman to render her dress more like a skin than that of her neighbor, besides exhibiting as large a portion of the flesh as can be done without the apology for raiment absolutely dropping off. Of course, to argue against all this on the score of decency and propriety would be worse than useless ; for such words and all that they imply and entail are absolutely abhorrent to the fast women whose greatest ambition is to look like third-rate burlesque actresses ; but they may, perhaps, not be imj ervious to the suggestion that such dressing excites in the men it is designed especially to captivate a feeling very far indeed from admiration. However much men may admire actresses and applaud their most daring approaches to absolute nudity, there is not one, even of the fastest among them, who likes to see the same style imported into the society of which his moth eland his sisters are members. He has not yet come to regard those who from their position, even if not from their manners, are supposed to be ladies, precisely in the same light as the conjphies of a ballet ; and a woman who, while professing to be dressed, stands with every line and every crease of her form distinctly revealed is not to him an attractive object ; he would prefer a little of the mystery which it seems the chief endeavor of the women of the day utterly to discard. Besides this, all follow the fashion like a flock of unreasoning sheep ; the woman whose every bone stands out in bold relief cuts her dress as low as does her plump sister, and resembles nothing so much as a carefully-articulated skeleton ; the portly matron wear-s her cuirass as long and as tight, and ties her skirt round her as closely, as does her slender daughter, imagining fondly, but vainly, that she presents a precisely similar appearance ; while all are alike careless of the undoubted fact that the portion of the arm between the elbow and the shoulder is the least beautiful part of that member, being generally either too thin or too stout, and not seldom extremely red. Few things are more unlovely than a thin skinny arm unveiled by tulle or sheltering amenity of any sort, issuing hard and severe from the tiny shoulder-strap that alone withholds the indelicately low cuirass from absolute collapse. A woman who exhibited some great natural beauty might find admirers, even though the admiration might be largely mingled with reprobation ; but either the women of the day, blinded by vanity, conceive themselves to be gifted with faultless forms, or they have read, without comprehending, the story of Phryne, and believe the fascination to have lain in the exposure rather than in the rare and startling beauty disclosed All these may be called small and insignificant matters, but like straws they show the force of the current, and indicate as marked a declension in manners as the style of dress does in morals. Of course, many women, especially very young ones, put on their dresses because it is the fashion, and really do not consider either the indecency or the suggestivenoss of their appearance ; but it is otherwise with many, and especially with those who are responsible for setting the fashions of the day. At present a ballroom forcibly suggests a number of actresses rehearsing the toilettes of OrpMe aux Enfers, or some equally cUcollcte piece, excepting indeed that it has not yet become the fashion to exhibit the ankles, and that interminable trains still survive to entangle and trip up the footsteps of the unwary. Many and grievous are the falls consequent thereon, and in these days when a lady falls her skirts are far too closely swathed around her for it to bo possible for her to rise unassisted. So she remains in any position, graceful or the reverse, in which she may happen to fall, until help arrives, her partner not unfrequently being more occupied in lamenting his bruises and anathematising the delinquent train than in helping her to recover herself. Certainly, if a little of the redundant drapery that floats uselessly on the floor could be judiciously applied to other portions of the costume, comfort, decency, and appearance would all profit immensely thereby.