JEWELRY AS DECORATION

<< FOOTWEAR

WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER BOUDOIR >>

If you want to wear light spats, stop and think whether your heavy ankles will not

look more trim in boots with light, glove-fitting tops and black vamps.

We have seen women with such slender ankles and shapely insteps, that white

slippers or low shoes might be worn with black or coloured stockings. But it is

playing safe to have your stockings match your slippers or shoes.

Buckles and bows on slippers and pumps can destroy the line of a shoe and hence a

foot, or continue and accentuate line. There are fashions in buckles and bows, but

unless you bend the fashion until it allows nature's work to appear at its best, it will

destroy artistic intention.

Some people buy footwear as they buy fruit; they like what they see, so they get it!

You know so many women, young and old, who do this, that our advice is, try to

recall those who do not. Yes, now you see what we aim at; the women you have in

mind always continue the line of their gowns with their feet. You can see with your

mind's eye how the slender black satin slippers, one of which always protrudes

from the black evening gown, carry to its eloquent finish the line from her head

through torso, hip to knee, and knee down through instep to toe,--a line so

frequently obstructed by senseless trimmings, lineless hats, and footwear wrong in

colour and line.

If your gown is white and your object to create line, can you see how you defeat

your purpose by wearing anything but white slippers or shoes?

At a recent dinner one of the young women who had sufficient good taste to wear

an exquisite gown of silk and silver gauze, showing a pale magenta ground with

silver roses, continued the colour scheme of her designer with silver slippers,

tapering as Cinderella's, but spoiled the picture she might have made by breaking

her line and enlarging her ankles and instep with magenta stockings. This could

have been avoided by the use of silver stockings or magenta slippers with magenta

stockings.

When brocades, in several colours, are chosen for slippers, keep in mind that the

ground of the silk must absolutely match your costume. It is not enough that in the

figure of brocade is the colour of the dress. Because so distorting to line, figured

silks and coloured brocades for footwear are seldom a wise choice.

To those who cannot own a match in slippers for each gown, we would suggest that

the number of colours used in gowns be but few, getting the desired variety by

varying shades of a colour, and then using slippers a trifle higher in shade than the

general colour selected.

CHAPTER VIII

JEWELRY AS DECORATION

HE use of jewelry as colour and line has really nothing to do with its intrinsic

worth. Just as when furnishing a house, one selects pictures for certain rooms with

regard to their decorative quality alone, their colour with relation to the colour

scheme of the room (The Art of Interior Decoration), so jewels should be

selected either to complete costumes, or to give the keynote upon which a

costume is built. A woman whose artist-dressmaker turns out for her a

marvellous green gown, would far better carry out the colour scheme

with some semi-precious stones than insist upon wearing her priceless rubies.

On the other hand, granted one owns rubies and they are becoming, then plan a

gown entirely with reference to them, noting not merely the shade of their colour,

but the character of their setting, should it be distinctive.

One of the most picturesque public events in Vienna each year, is a bazaar held for

the benefit of a charity under court patronage. To draw the crowds and induce them

to give up their money, it has always been the custom to advertise widely that the

ladies of the Austro-Hungarian court would conduct the sale of articles at the

various booths and that the said noble ladies would wear their family jewels. Also,

that there be no danger of confusing the various celebrities, the names of those

selling at each booth would be posted in plain lettering over it. Programmes are

sold, which also inform patrons as to the name and station of each lovely vendor of

flowers and sweets. It is an extraordinary occasion, and well worth witnessing

once. The jewels worn are as amazing and fascinating as is Hungarian music. There

is a barbaric sumptuousness about them, an elemental quality conveyed by the

Oriental combining of stones, which to the western European and American, seem

incongruous. Enormous pearls, regular and irregular, are set together in company

with huge sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds, cut in the antique way.

Looking about, one feels in an Arabian Nights' dream. On the particular occasion to

which we refer, the most beautiful woman present was the Princess Metternich, and

in her jewels decorative as any woman ever seen.

The women of the Austrian court, especially the Hungarian women, are notably

beautiful and fascinating as well. It is the Magyar élan, that abandon which prompts

a woman to toss her jewelled bangle to a Gypsy leader of the orchestra, when his

violin moans and flashes out a czardas.

But the rule remains the same whether your jewels are inherited and rich in

souvenirs of European courts, or the last work of Cartier. They must be a

harmonious part of a carefully designed costume, or used with discretion against a

background of costumes planned with reference to making them count as the sole

decoration.

We recall a Spanish beauty, representative of several noble strains, who was an

artist in the combining of her gems as to their class and colour. Hers was that rare

gift,--infallible good taste, which led her to contribute an individual quality to her

temporary possessions. She counted in Madrid, not only as a beautiful and brilliant

woman, but as a decorative contribution to any room she entered. It was not

uncommon to meet her at dinner, wearing some very chic blue gown, often of

velvet, the sole decoration of which would be her sapphires, stones rare in

themselves, famous for their colour, their matching, the manner in which they were

cut, and their setting,--the unique hand-work of some goldsmith of genius. It is

impossible to forget her distinguished appearance as she entered the room in a

princess gown, made to show the outline of her faultless figure, and cut very low.

Against the background of her white neck and the simple lines of her blue gown,

the sapphires became decoration with artistic restraint, though they gleamed from a

coronet in her soft, black hair, encircled her neck many times and fell below her

waist line, clasped her arms and were suspended from her ears in long, graceful

pendants. They adorned her fingers and they composed a girdle of indescribable

beauty.

PLATE XI

MARIE ANTOINETTE IN A PORTRAIT BY

MADAME VIGÉE LE BRUN, one of the

greatest portrait painters of the eighteenth

century. Here we see the lovely queen of

Louis XVI in the type of costume she made

her own which is still referred to as the Marie

Antoinette style.

This portrait is in the Musée National,

Versailles.

Courtesy of Braun & Co., New York, London

& Paris

Bourbon France Marie Antoinette Portrait by

Madame Vigée Le Brun

Later, the same night, one would meet this woman at a ball, and discover that she

had made a complete change of costume and was as elegant as before, but now all

in red, a gown of deep red velvet or some wonderful soft satin, unadorned save by

her rubies, as numerous and as unique as her sapphires had been.

There were other women in Madrid wearing wonderful jewels, one of them when

going to court functions always had a carriage follow hers, in which were

detectives. How strange this seems to Americans! But this particular woman in no

way illustrated the point we would make, for she had lost control of her own lines,

had no knowledge of line and colour in costume, and when wearing her jewels,

looked very much like the show case of a jeweller's shop.

Jewelry must be worn to make lines, continue or terminate lines, accentuate a good

physical point, or hide a bad one. Remember that a jewel like any other object d'art,

is an ornament, and unless it is ornamental, and an added attraction to the wearer, it

is valueless in a decorative way. For this reason it is well to discover, by

experimenting, what jewelry is your affair, what kind of rings for example, are best

suited to your kind of hands. It may be that small rings of delicate workmanship,

set with colourless gems, will suit your hands; while your friend will look better in

the larger, heavier sort, set with stones of deeper tones.

This finding out what one can and cannot wear, from shoe leather to a feather in the

hat (and the inventory includes even width of hem on a linen handkerchief), is by

no means a frivolous, fruitless waste of time; it is a wise preparedness, which in the

end saves time, vitality and money. And if it does not make one independent of

expert advice (and why should one expect to be that, since technique in any art

should improve with practice?) it certainly prepares one to grasp and make use of,

expert suggestions.

We have often been told, and by those whose business it is to know such things,

that the models created by great Paris dressmakers are not always flashes of genius

which come in the night, nor the wilful perversion of an existing fashion, to force

the world of women into discarding, and buying everything new. It may look

suspiciously like it when we see a mere swing of the pendulum carrying the straight

sheath out to the ten-yard limit of crinoline skirts.

As a matter of fact, decorative woman rules the fashions, and if decorative woman

makes up her mind to retain a line or a limit, she does it. The open secret is that

every great Paris house has its chic clientele, which in returning from the Riviera--

Europe's Peacock Alley--is full of knowledge as to how the last fashions (line and

colour), succeeded in scoring in the rôle designated. Those points found to be

desirable, becoming, beautiful, comfortable, appropriate, séduisant--what you

will--are taken as the foundation of the next wardrobe order, and with this inside

information from women who know (know the subtle distinction between daring

lines and colours, which are good form, and those which are not), the men or

women who give their lives to creating costumes proceed to build. These are the

fashions for the exclusive few this year, for the whole world the next year.

In conclusion, to reduce one of the rules as to how jewels should be worn to its

simplest form, never use imitation pearl trimming if you are wearing a necklace and

other ornaments of real pearls. The pearl trimming may be very charming in itself,

but it lessens the distinction of your real pearls.

In the same way rhinestones may be decidedly decorative, but only a woman with

an artist's instinct can use her diamonds at the same time. It can be done, by

keeping the rhinestones off the bodice. An artist can conceive and work out a

perfect adjustment of what in the mind and hand of the inexperienced is not to be

attempted. Your French dressmaker combines real and imitation laces in a

fascinating manner. That same artist's instinct could trim a gown with emerald

pastes and hang real gems of the same in the ears, using brooch and chain, but you

would find the green glass garniture swept from the proximity of the gems and used

in some telling manner to score as trimming,--not to compete as jewels. We have

seen the skirt of French gowns of black tulle or net, caught up with great rhinestone

swans, and at the same time a diamond chain and diamond earrings worn. Nothing

could have been more chic.

We recall another case of the discreet combining of gems and paste. It was at the

Spring races, Longchamps, Paris. The decorative woman we have never forgotten,

had marvellous gold-red hair, wore a costume of golden brown chiffon, a close

toque (to show her hair) of brown; long topaz drops hung from her ears, set in hand

-wrought Etruscan gold, and her shell lorgnettes hung from a topaz chain. Now

note that on her toque and her girdle were buckles made of topaz glass, obviously

not real topaz and because made to look like milliner's garniture and not jeweler's

work, they had great style and were as beautiful of their kind as the real stones.

PLATE XII

The portrait of an Englishwoman painted

during the Napoleonic period.

She wears the typical Empire gown, cloak,

and bonnet.

The original of this portrait is the same

referred to elsewhere as having moistened her

muslin gowns to make them cling to her, in

Grecian folds.

Among her admiring friends was Lord Byron.

A descendant who allows the use of the

charming portrait, explains that the fair lady

insisted upon being painted in her bonnet

because her curling locks were short--a

result of typhoid fever.

Table of Contents: