LADIES PAST AND PRESENT.
Many are still alive who can recollect those extraordinary gowns, with waists under the arms, and those equally extraordinary bonnets, which came over the face like cowls upon very smoky chimeys ; those dresses which clung so close to their wearers that they looked as if they had been dragged through a horse pond, and which were so short that one would think that all the ladies of that age had, with one consent, folowed the example of St. Martin, and cut off half their garments to cover the poor. Go on to about 1830, and see how the bonnets rose menacing- to heaven, and spread out to the east and to the west, and how these clingicg garmnets had turned plethoric in the sleeves. These, of course, are sights which must be painful to every well regulated mind in 1863 ; yet each fashion in its turn received implicit credit. Was it then good dressing. Certainly not. Then come down to ten years ago, and you will find that the close clinging dresses have filled out and expanded ; the sleeves were vandyked, the great bows went out of fashion, while the head was covered with a small and modest bonnet. You ask if that is good dressing. I say it
is. Women dressed Well ten years ago, but they would not let well alone. They had got rid of St. Martin's gowns ; they had got rid of bonnets which expanded to the east and to the west, and which rose to the zenith ; they had got variety of color. Having all these advantages they yet listened to some powerful but tasteless adviser, and so then they made their gowns stiff with cages of whalebone and iron, reviving the costumes of Elizabeth and Marie Antoinette, which, we thanked our stars, had marched off, never, as we fondly hoped, to re- appear. But here are the old antediluvian hoops again ; and the small graceful bonnet is changed for one which pokes up like a coal scoop. . It was formerly a coal scuttle, but now you will agree with me it is more like a coal scoop. So there our ladies are. Ten years ago you were well dressed, ladies ; but you would not let well alone, and now you are dressed a I' Imperatrice. — Lecture on Art, by Beresford Hope.
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Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 89, 11 September 1863, Page 6 (Supplement)
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391LADIES PAST AND PRESENT. Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 89, 11 September 1863, Page 6 (Supplement)
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