IDIOSYNCRASIES IN COSTUME

NATIONALITY IN COSTUME >>

pendant was made of the stone and a setting given it which turned out to be too

trifling in character. The consequence was, the stone lost in value as a Rubens'

canvas would, if placed in an art nouveau frame.

Whether it is a precious stone, a valued painting or a woman's costume--the effect

produced depends upon the character of its setting.

CHAPTER XXV

IDIOSYNCRASIES IN COSTUME

ASHIONS in dress as in manners, religion, art, literature and drama,

are all powerful because they seize upon the public mind.

The Chelsea group of revolutionary artists in New York doubtless see,--

perhaps but dimly, the same star that led Goethe and Schiller on, in the storm and

stress period of their time. We smile now as we recall how Schiller stood on the

street corners of Leipzig, wearing a dressing-gown by day to defy custom; but the

youth of Athens did the same in the last days of Greece. In fact then the darlings of

the gilded world struck attitudes of abandon in order to look like the Spartans. They

refused to cut their hair and they would not wash their hands, and even boasted of

their ragged clothes after fist fights in the streets. Yes, the gentlemen did this.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a cult that wore furs in Summer

and thin clothes in Winter, to prove that love made them strong enough to resist the

elements! You will recall the Euphuists of England, the Precieuses of France and

the Illuminati of the eighteenth century, as well as Les Merveilleux and Les

Encroyables. The rich during the Renaissance were great and wise collectors but

some followed the fashion for collecting manuscripts even when unable to read

them. It is interesting to find that in the fourth and fifth centuries it was fashionable

to be literary. Those with means for existence without labour, wrote for their own

edification, copying the style of the ancient poets and philosophers.

As early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Venetian women were shown the

Paris fashions each Ascension Day on life-size dolls, displayed by an enterprising

importer.

It is true that fashions come and go, not only in dress, but how one should sit, stand,

and walk; how use the hands and feet and eyes. To squint was once deemed a

modest act. Women of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries stood with their

abdomens out, and so did some in 1916! There are also fashions in singing and

speaking.

The poses in portraits express much. Compare the exactly prim Copley miss, with a

recent portrait by Cecilia Beaux of a young girl seated, with dainty satin-covered

feet outstretched to full extent of the limbs, in casual impertinence,--our age!

To return to the sixteenth century, it is worthy of note that some Venetian belles

wore patines--that is, shoes with blocks of wood, sometimes two feet high,

fastened to the soles. They could not move without a maid each side! As it was an

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