THE PRESENT ÆSTHETIC CRAZE IN LONDON.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 830, 27 July 1881, Page 2

THE PRESENT ÆSTHETIC CRAZE IN LONDON.

Most amusing accounts are given of the new craze which has seized on a certain section of London society. It seems for some time past, sundry young men and women have betaken themselves to the "showing of their shapes "as Jack Tar calls it, in the most fantastical costnmea of the medieval ages, The women exhibit themselves in tight-fitting garments, devoid of all shape and color, cliuging to the form and showing the contour"of the figure with quite as much precision as the fleshings of the ballet girl; the hair cut short and frizzed over the eyes and dyed of a deep orange brown; the throat encircled by a double row of large amberl beads, from which depends a medieva ornament; add a looking-glass hanging to the side, as in the pictures of the Venetian ladies by Paul Veronese. The female aesthete is in general sallow and half-starved, woe begone in expression, dry lipped, and always lookin" thirsty and exhausted, She affects the colorless raiment as ; beheld in the preRaphaelite pictures—olive green skirt long aud trailing on the ground, but so tight as to show the angles of the knee joints" when she is seated; the bodice is of deep, dull orange color, laced with the palest blue, the sleeves, tieht fitting to the elbows hang to the feet, and are made of different color and material from the rest of the attire. A pale, dim fawn-color, is in general most patronised, and is lined with the brownish green seldom beheld in nature save on the back of the toad. 1 The" beautiful lesthete has in general a dingy look, which is attributable to the efforts made to attain to that dulness of coloring in which alone resides perfection accord'mg to hor ideas, and which in some cases has to bo procured by artificial means. She sighs and looks vacantly around from beneath the shock of stiff frizzled hair, dyed of a reddish brown, according to the law she has made unto herself of, having no defind color on any portion of her frame, • ■■■■'■■ K

But while the female assthete is simply ridiculous, the male of the species is absolutely offensive. He lisps and ambles; —his locks flow uncombed over his oollar but, when no. one is by, he is not above investigating the contents of a tankard of Baas's ale of which he partakes freely. He generally carries an artificial lily in in his hand, at which he sniffs pathetically now and then. He has been caricatured unmercifully in ttio illustrated papers, and even pn the stage, but he heeds not. He goes'on lisping and sniffing, well aware that this new method of getting into notice and emerging from the ranks of obscurity to •which his own capacity has hitherto confined him ia the easiest and cheapest of all.