NOTES ON DRESS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1256, 16 December 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOTES ON DRESS.

• Nothing has so much perplexed the arbiter* I of fashion as the extent to which the human f figure or its anatomical outlines may be rel vealed by dress, High art in modern, as [ well as in ancient, times is supposed, with- , out suggestion of impurity, to dispense with , drapery of all kinds, The games of ancient . Greece, and the more serious sports of the . Roman arena, were engaged in by unolad men, and modest maidens and chaste ma- \ trons looked upon them and were not asI hamed. Comfort and convenience, joined ; with the desire for display, modified the : forms and styles of dress ai it gradually t assumed more ample proportions, but the enr tire concealment of the body was never toles rated at Rome or Athens. The sandal : bound with thongs permitted the foot to ex* i ,pand without restraint, while the long, flow- > 'ing robe, floating aside, allowed the leg to be visible to the knee. The dress of woman [ usually displayed the feet, arms, and neok, , but never the bosom, that immodesty being 1 left to modern social custom, which prates' of ; morals while it prescribes an indecent expos sure of the female form in mixed company. I Fashion is just now laboring under the delusion that the outlines of the human figure i should be fully revealed by dress, that, in i fact, the revelation should be as complete as f is consistent with decency. Were all men r Apollos in figuro, or all woman Venuses in 1 beauty, its edicts would not be so absurd, l But they are not, in fact they are far from. • it, Regarding the matter from all sides, the t only reason for surprise is that fashion has ■ douo so little to conceal the imperfection! of s the human form, not that she has done so t much. The aesthetes affect a worship ef 1 nature and natural form, which under the : guise of adoration of the'divinely beautiful, i comes very near to the grossest sensualism, l As it is impossible for Oscar Wilde to die- , play his personal outlines by clinging drat perics after the manner of his assthetic sisters, . 1 lie does what is next to it; that is, he dona ' the low shoes, long stockings, and knee breeob.es of his great-great-grandfather,