Following Fashions Through the Ages

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 466, 22 September 1928, Page 17

Following Fashions Through the Ages

Simplicity of Plantagenet Period Echoed in Dresses of To-day—But After the Strangest Cycle of Modes!

(Written for THE SUN by HUIA MASEJ

HE whole story of clothes swings ever and again from the gay, the playful and fantastic, to the utilitarian, the sober, the responsible. For

costume is the outward indication of personality, and our Styles express our vanity, our cynicism, our exuberance, our sensuality, or our timidity, austerity or poverty of soul, and, most particularly, our economic status. Light-hearted ladies with dancing minds and feet have twinkled through thi ages in a succession of frivolous and extravagant gowns, calling forth anathemas from the serious and sighs of relief and satisfaction from their gay companions. v As both temperaments have existed in the world since the world began, go both types of clothes, forsooth. And the methods of fashioning our psychology in terms which shadowed forth the psychology of the sixteenth century was used again in the 18th, the 19th and the 20th, as the interests of the people shifted from mysticism and religion to arts and elegance, to pleasure and extravagance and excess.

So it is that the hoop skirt, which made its debut as the “vertugade” about 1530 in the time of that luxurious monarch Francois X, appears in Kngland as the "farthingale” of Queen Elizabeth, and in France again, under the Louis’s XV. and XVI. as the “Paniers;” and reappears in 1850 in the crinolines of our great-grandmothers, and, behold! is with us to-day, in modified form, in most of our delightful evening frocks, giving mlschievous-

ness with its little hoops and ruffles to our picturesque rObes de style.

All are derived from the same idea, but all are different in that each has its own special characteristics and distinctive dating. "There is nothing new under the sun,” is heard again and again, but is it true? Not directly under it, perhaps, but as the sun moves it casts its shadow before it, each time from a different angle, each shadow with a new “slant,” each a modified or distorted copy of ’’e substance. And, as every philosopher will tell you, it is not the substance which counts but the shadow —and not the shadow itself but only the newness of its aspect. To create such new significance is Art and in the realm of clothes the supreme achievement of the designer. The origin of the hoop skirt is veiled in mystery. Some say it came from England, some from Germany, some that it was invented for the theatre. There are whispers that it was to protect the good name of a Spanish queen it was designed, the “vertugade." Certainly those Spanish infantas with their sidewise glances accepted it in its most drumlike form, for we have delightful portraits showing them standing like china dolls in round box-

es, with elbows resting coyly on immense rectangular projections over their hips, paniers A coudes.

Life swelled so exuberantly in the Renaissance, after the austerities of religious dominance and the exalted ideals of the age of chivalry, that it had to burst into flower and the "vertugade” was evidence of the flowering. Women looked like enormous blossoms, full-bldwn, their human form denied by flounces and furbelows, as though they said, “We are not people! We are dolls, made for fun and frivolity and gallantry. There is only one duty in life—to be charming.”

The vogue for extravagance and decoration gathered through the years like a great wave and reached its crest in that age of excess preceding the French revolution, the era of Queen Marie Antoinette —reached its crest and broke, submerging the whole of Europe and sweeping to ruin the structure of French civilisation. The strand was strewn with many broken blossoms when the tide receded. Great pleats of paper or horsehair, buttoned to any undergarment at the hips, were used to effect the panier silhouette. Now they were worn Gnly at the sides, producing a flat front and back, now at the back as well, and again they formed a circular drum effect. Hoops, a later “improvement,” were constructed of wide rings of wood or iron with muslin to hold them together.

The waist, already laced to its smallest compass, appeared still smaller by comparison with the enormous spread below. An hour-glass shape was the effect sought, the resulting figure, with its high bust and low-cut neckline, being considered “very elegant.” Sometimes the skirt swept the floor and a train was added. Then a taste for the ankle-length skirt manifested itself, and the balloou-like structure swayed from side to side, as the wear-

er walked or went through the courtly paces of the minuet.

In Marie Antoinette’s reign the hoop reached the acme of its circumference, increased by puffy draperies, loops and festoons of chiffon, flowers, lace and ribbon. This was the age of fashion supreme, and on the very eve of the Revolution appeared in Paris the first fashion publication ever printed, the “Cabinet des Modes ou les Modes Nouvelles.’’ It was officially recognised and approved by the King, thereby fixing Paris as the centre and arbiter of styles for centuries to come and establishing the fashion magazine as a power in the world of haut ton.

After a reaction to the Empire mode of Queen Louise and the Empress Josephine, which succeeded the Revolution, in 1850, skirts again expanded, and the fashion of adding as many ruffles as possible made their total area a thing of amazement. They were now called “crinolines,” crin being a French word for horsehair, and they measured often ten, yards in circumference. The Empress Eugene appeared at a ball in a gown the skirt of which boasted 103 ruffles—and all put on by hand, of course!

The “bertha” was employed on evening dresses, as it so often is to-day, to top off the r6be de style. Our rdbe de style comes with this difference, however, as does every style now that fashion is no longer set by some king or favourite but by mercial artists and couturieres: it is but one among a number of modes which the woman may as she wishes adopt or disregard. In an age of

machinery and motors, when multitudes of garments are made "ready-to-wear” and the doors of vehicles are of a width to admit a person but not a puncheon, there is some brake upon any mob-madness to follow the rolling hoop to all places and occasions as once -it was followed. The spirit of our 20th century calls for ease and speed, and the vogue for sports, together with the wide-spread entrance of women into the labour markets of the world, has brought a carelessness of bearing and manner,- which is of course, expressed in clothes.

The r6b6 de style, with its delightful dignity and restraint, its sense of

coquetry and its picturesqueness, is s'uitable in our busy days, only for indoor functions of some formality. Yet the fact that it does appear, in this cycle geared to the tempo of the Charleston and Heebie-Jeebies, indicates a tendency toward dignity and formal elegance. Doubtless a lack is felt in our lives of hurry and familiarity. Maybe women are a bit wistful for the leisureliness of spacious homes and the loveliness of gracious living—and seek for some evidence of clothes expressing gentleness and beauty. Hints there are, in the lengthening of skirts, the more flowing lines, the universal use of rich velvets and rustling taffetas and other seductive fab-

rics, that the pendulum is about to swing back, away from the matter-of fact habit and hail-fellow-well-met frock to those which whisper in every line and fold the distinction of reserve and the allurement of artful charm. History and Fashion True as it is that every wearer imparts some of her individuality to her dress, it is equally true that the characteristics of an age are broadly reflected in its costume; therefore the study of costume is an essential adjunct to the historic sense. No greater contrast in fashions could be found than that between those of the closing

years of the eighteenth century and those of the end of the nineteenth. Elegance was the keynote of the eighteenth century, and fashionable attire was the prerogative of the aristocracy, but with the increasing use of machinery and the rising tide of democracy the pursuit of fashion became equally enthralling to women of all classes. Attractive-looking machine-made materials reached the home of the working woman, cheap fashion papers appeared, the illustrated journals printed photographs of fashionable women, the details of whose attire could be thus studied at leisure and copied in cheaper materials in the homes of the comparatively poor. The fashion paper,

too, with its “free” pattern gave impetus to a movement towards uniformity which bids fair to engulf women of all classes, all ages, all nations.

In the eighteenth century it was possible to be exclusive. The silk weavers and textile manufactures of Georgian England made their fabrics not for a season, but for more than a lifetime. Their rich brocades, more beautiful than anything of the kind ever made, exquisite in colour and design, superb in quality, are still a joy to handle. For all the wealth of the age .of mach-

inery, the making of such materials seems to be a lost art. The embroidered coats of the Georgian “bloods,” stiff with gold and silver thread, made of silk that has lost none of its rich quality, still glorious in colour, though a little faded with the years, might still be worn as fancy dress to-day. The needlework was as fine and artistic as the materials. ’ The Georgian women in their quiet homes, untouched by the hurry of a world in which mechanical inventions to supersede craftsmar-hip follow close on each other’s heels, unwearied by fierce competition as wage-earners, were nearly always fine needlewomen. Like Fanny Burney, they were educated in the art of “braid-stitch, cross-and-change, pinking, pointing and frilling,” and it did not appear to them to be a waste of time to put the most exquisite stitchery and embroidery into garments that were destined to last a lifetime. Feminine fashions of the nineteenth century have shown a tendency, increasing all the time, to adapt themselves to the changing conditions of life. Fashions are not arbitrarily

created nor slavishly followed; if a mode is not suitable to its surroundings it speedily dies. Elaboration is not in keeping with an age in which “speed - ;-up” is the main concern. Anything comparable with the bridal attire of Frederick the Great’s sister, which weighed one hundred pounds, would be intolerable to a generation of women most of whom are engaged In active pursuits, either of sport for pleasure or as wage-earners. Science which has led to this speeding-up of life and preached hygiene and ventilation, economics which have forced women in ever-increasing numbers into the ranks of the wage-earners, democracy which is lessening the gulf between the woman of leisure and her working sister, are directly responsible for modern fashions, which are less dictated by caprice than at any period in history. Modern life, which insists that woman should be allowed to move her limbs freely in order to swing her golf club or to catch her bus, makes it imperative that skirts should be short, that clothes should be loose and light in weight. Common sense, not viciousness, is responsible for modern fashions, and no thunder from church dignitaries nor “maiden-aunt” legislation can ever bring back the crinoline or restore for everyday wear the trailing skirts of a less active age. Enter the Sports Mode

Sports modes came into the feminine fashion world without exception in England, where the sports themselves originated, and during the ten years before the war they were impressing the fashion more and more with an English stamp and trenching upon the one-time paramount influence of France. Indeed, an article appeared in “The Times” suggesting that Englishwomen should emancipate . themselves wholly from the Parisian mode, that it was unsuited to England as the English are naturally a country-loving people, whereas the French are essentially urban. In matters of practical dress, the tailor-made and the various sports costumes, Englishwomen still set the tone, while Paris continues to dominate the salons, although the making of the mode in Paris is not confined to Parisians.

The coat and skirt was the beginning of any attempt at a sports mode, and it greatly contributed to specialisation in dress, but it had also a democratising influence. In the first place it made it possible for all women to obtain a similar cut in their dress, even if the materials w T ere different, and furthermore it gave industrialism a hold on fashion hitherto undreamed of. During the last years of the nineteenth century the “ready-made” gained widespread popularity and it was by means of the first uniform of jacket, blouse and skirt that it did so. Not only has it led to a levelling of class distinctions, but also of differences in age. The period has passed when there was such a thing as an old lady. Gone are the last grandmothers who stood at the junction of two epochs, saying; "It is due to the dignity of age that matrons and old women should dress inconspicuously and not make their clothes an advertisement of their illusions.” Materials, cuts, colours, coiffures and hats are alike for all ages. Moreover, with the coming of the slender line, Fashion has largely ignored the woman and paid her best attention to the half-grown girl, so that it is hardly surprising that extremely elderly women are seen skipping about in what appear to be children's clothes. The democratisation of dress is undoubtedly a sign of social evolution from the haughty individualism of the aristocrat to the herd instinct of the masses. It may be interesting to recall here that at the last meeting of the Social Democratic Party In Germany before the outbreak of war a proposal was put forward “to make the working woman independent of the fashion papers of the day, which are politically reactionary, by providing at the expense of party funds, for the issue of a fashion paper answering to the needs of a working class household.” Since class distinction has always been a vital element in the ever changing mode, Social Democrats, to be consistent should surely strive for its complete abolition, or at least spurn it as an outward and visible sign of unrighteous social differences? It would indeed be interesting to know

whether the supporters of this resolution intended to make fashion subordinate to a dictatorship of the proletariat. However this may be, the poor dears entered the field too late. Fashion having adopted that line herself as unerringly as when, in the eighteenth century, some twenty years before the Revolution, she declared for the simple bourgeois modes of England against the highly ornamental French styles. Cultural reforms, led by fickle women themselves, seem perhaps to have a way of stealing a march on even such mighty things as political revolutions. The tendency of dress to become uniform, and with that tendency the establishment of our beloved sports mode, was so gradual and accorded so well with the other factors of social change that its advance was little marked, and certain of the artists who took up fashion reform from the aesthetic point of view made this

aspect a part of their programme. Attempts have recently been made to introduce a uniform dress for women on social occasions corresponding with the dinner jacket of a man, but women, while they are daughters of Eve, will never permit the social picture so to lose in charm for what it would gain in unity.