Woman as decoration.

WOMAN AS DECORATION

PLATE I

Sketched for "Woman as Decoration" by Thelma Cudlipp

Mme. Geraldine Farrar in
Greek Costume as Thais

WOMAN AS DECORATION

BY

EMILY BURBANK

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

DEDICATED
TO

V. B. G.

39R3RR

FOREWORD

WOMAN AS DECORATION is intended as a sequel
to The Art of Interior Decoration (Grace
Wood and Emily Burbank).

Having assisted in setting the stage for woman,
the next logical step is the consideration of
woman, herself, as an important factor in the
decprative scheme of any setting, — the vital
spark to animate all interior decoration, private
or public. The book in hand is intended as a
brief guide for the woman who would under-
stand her own type, — make the most of it, and
know how simple a matter it is to be decorative
if she will but master the few rules underlying
all successful dressing. As the costuming of
woman is an art, the history of that art must be
known — to a certain extent — by one who would
be an intelligent student of our subject. With
the assistance of thirty- three illustrations to
throw light upon the text, we have tried to tell
the beguiling story of decorative woman, as she
appears in frescoes and bas reliefs of Ancient

XI

xii FOREWORD

Egypt, on Greek vases, the Gothic woman in
tapestry and stained glass, woman in painting,
stucco and tapestry of the Renaissance, seven-
teenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century woman
in portraits.

Contemporary woman's costume is considered,
not as fashion, but as decorative line and colour,
a distinct contribution to the interior decoration
of her own home or other setting. In this de-
partment, woman is given suggestions as to the
costuming of herself, beautifully and appropri-
ately, in the ball-room, at the opera, in her bou-
doir, sun-room or on her shaded porch; in her
garden ; when driving her own car; by the sea, or
on the ice.

Woman as Decoration has been planned, in
part, also to fill a need very generally expressed
for a handbook to serve as guide for be-
ginners in getting up costumes for fancy-
dress balls, amateur theatricals, or the profes-
sional stage.

We have tried to shed light upon period cos-
tumes and point out ways of making any costume
effective.

Costume books abound, but so far as we know,

FOREWORD xiii

this is the first attempt to confine the vast and
perplexing subject within the dimensions of a
small, accessible volume devoted to the prin-
ciples underlying the planning of all costumes,
regardless of period.

The author does not advocate the preening of
her feathers as woman's sole occupation, in any
age, much less at this crisis in the making of
world history; but she does lay great emphasis
on the fact that a woman owes it to herself, her
family and the public in general, to be as decora-
tive in any setting, as her knowledge of the art
of dressing admits. This knowledge implies an
understanding of line, colour, fitness, back-
ground, and above all, one's own type. To
know one's type, and to have some knowledge
of the principles underlying all good dressing,
is of serious economic value ; it means a saving
of time, vitality and money.

The watchword of to-day is efficiency, and the
keynote to modern costuming, appropriateness.
And so the spirit of the time records itself in
the interesting and charming subdivision of
woman's attire.

One may follow Woman Decorative in the

xiy FOREWORD

Orient on vase, fan, screen and kakemono; as
she struts in the stiff manner of Egyptian has
reliefs, across walls of ancient ruins, or sits in
angular serenity, gazing into the future through
the narrow slits of Egyptian eyes, oblivious of
time; woman, beautiful in the European sense,
and decorative to the superlative degree, on
Greek vase and sculptured wall. Here in
rhythmic curves, she dandles lovely Cupid on
her toe; serves as vestal virgin at a woodland
shrine; wears the bronze helmet of Minerva;
makes laws, or as Penelope, the wife, wearily
awaits her roving lord. She moves in august
majesty, a sore-tried queen, and leaps in merry
laughter as a care-free slave; pipes, sings and
plies the distaff. Sauntering on, down through
Gothic Europe, Tudor England, the adolescent
Renaissance, Bourbon France, into the pictur-
esque changes of the eighteenth century, we
ask, can one possibly escape our theme — Woman
as Decoration? No, for she is carved in wood
and stone; as Mother of God and Queen of
Heaven gleams in the jeweled windows of the
church, looks down in placid serenity on lighted
altar; is woven in tapestry, in fact dominates

FOREWORD xv

all art, painting, stucco or marble, throughout
the ages.

If one would know the story of Woman's evo-
lution and retrogression — that rising and falling
tide in civilisation — we commend a study of her
as she is presented in Art. A knowledge of her
costume frequently throws light upon her age;
a thorough knowledge of her age will throw
light upon her costume.

A study of the essentials of any costume, of
any period, trains the eye and mind to be expert
in planning costumes for every-day use. One
learns quickly to discriminate between details
which are ornaments, because they have mean-
ing, and those which are only illiterate super-
fluities; and one learns to master many other
points.

It is not within the province of this book to
dwell at length upon national costume, but
rather to follow costume as it developed with
and reflected caste, after human society ceased
to be all alike as to occupation, diversion and
interest.

In the world of caste, costume has gradually
evolved until it aims through appropriateness,

xvi FOREWORD

at assisting woman to fulfil her role. With
peasants who know only the traditional costume
of their province, the task must often be done
in spite of the costume, which is picturesque or
grotesque, inconvenient, even impossible; but
long may it linger to divert the eye! Russia,
Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Scan-
dinavia,— all have an endless variety of cos-
tumes, rich in souvenirs of folk history, rain-
bows of colour and bizarre in line, but it is cos-
tuming the woman of fashion which claims our
attention.

The succeeding chapters will treat of woman,
the vital spark which gives meaning to any set-
ting— indoors, out of doors, at the opera, in the
ball-room, on the ice — where you will. Each
chapter has to do with modern woman and the
historical paragraphs are given primarily to shed
light upon her costume.

It is shown that woman's decorative appear-
ance affects her psychology, and that woman's
psychology affects her decorative appearance.

Some chapters may, at first glance, seem
irrelevant, but those who have seriously studied
any art, and then undertaken to tell its story

FOREWORD xvii

briefly in simple, direct language, with the hope
of quickly putting audience or reader in touch
with the vital links in the chain of evidence, will
understand the author's claim that no detour
which illustrates the subject can in justice be
termed irrelevant. In the detours often lie in-
valuable data, for one with a mind for research
— whether author or reader. This is especially
true in connection with our present task, which
involves unravelling some of the threads from
the tangled skein of religion, dancing, music,
sculpture and painting — that mass of bright and
sombre colour, of gold and silver threads, strung
with pearls and glittering gems strangely broken
by age — which tells the epic-lyric tale of civili-
sation.

While we state that it is not our aim to make
a point of fashion as such, some of our illustra-
tions show contemporary woman as she appears
in our homes, on our streets, at the play, in her
garden, etc. We have taken examples of
women's costumes which are pre-eminently
characteristic of the moment in which we write,
and as we believe, illustrate those laws upon
which we base our deductions concerning

xviii FOREWORD

woman as decoration. These laws are: appro-
priateness of her costume to the occasion; con-
sideration of the type of wearer; background
against which costume is to be worn; and all
decoration (which includes jewels), as detail
with raison d'etre. The body should be carried
with form (in the sporting sense), to assist in
giving line to the costume.

The chic woman is the one who understands
the art of elimination in costumes. Wear your
costumes with conviction — by which we mean
decide what picture you will make of yourself,
make it and then enjoy it! It is only by letting
your personality animate your costume that you
make yourself superior to the lay figure or the
sawdust doll.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER FACE

FOREWORD xi

I A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE WHO

WOULD PLAN HER COSTUMES . . i

Rules having economic value while aiming at
decorativeness. — Lines and colouring emphasised
or modified by costuming. — Temperaments af-
fect carriage of the body. — Line of body affects
costume. — Technique of controlling the physique.
— The highly sensitised woman. — Costuming an
art. — Studying types. — Starring one's own good
points. — Beauty not so fleeting as is supposed
if costume is adapted to its changing aspects. —
Masters in art of costuming often discover and
star previously unrecognised beauty. — Estab-
lishing the habit of those lines and colours in
gowns, hats, gloves, parasols, sticks, fans and
jewels which are your own. — The intelligent
purchaser. — The best dressed women. — Value of
understanding one's background. — Learning the
art of understanding one's background. — Learn-
ing the art of costuming from masters of the
art. — How to proceed with this study. — Success-
ful costuming not dependent upon amount of
money spent upon it. — An example

II THE LAWS UNDERLYING ALL COSTUMING

OF WOMAN ... -23

Appropriateness keynote of costuming to-day.
— Five salient points to be borne in mind when
planning a costume. — Where English, French,
and American women excel in art of costuming.
— Feeling for line. — To make our points clear
constant reference to the stage is necessary. —
Bakst and Poiret. — Turning to the Orient for
line and colour. — Keeping costume in same key
as its settings. — How to know your period ; its
line, colours and characteristic details. — Study-
ing costumes in Gothic illuminations
xix

xx CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGB

III How TO DRESS YOUR TYPE . . . .46

A FEW POINTS APPLYING TO ALL COSTUMES. —
Background. — Line and colour of costumes to
bring out the individuality of wearer. — The chic
woman defined. — Intelligent expressing of self
in mise-en-scene. — Selecting one's colour scheme

IV THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES ... 54

Effect of clothes upon manners. — The natural
instinct for costuming, "clothes sense." — Cos-
tuming affecting psychology of wearer. — Clothes
may liberate or shackle the spirit of women, be
a tyrant or magician's wand. — Follow colour
instinct in clothes as well as housefurnishings

V ESTABLISH HABITS OF CARRIAGE WHICH

CREATE GOOD LINE . . . . ' * 66

Woman's line result of habits of a mind con-
trolled by observations, conventions, experiences
and attitudes which make her personality. —
Training lines of physique from childhood; an
example. — A knowledge of how to dress appro-
priately leads to efficiency

VI COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME . . . 74

Colour hallmark of to-day. — Bakst, Rhein-
hardt and Granville Barker, teachers of the new
colour vocabulary.— PORTABLE BACKGROUNDS

VII FOOTWEAR .85

Importance of carefully considering extremi-
ties,— What constitutes a costume. — Importance
of learning how to buy, put on and wear each
detail of costume if one would be a decorative
picture. — Spats. — Stockings. — Slippers. — Buckles

VIII JEWELRY AS DECORATION . . . . 94

Considered as colour and line not with regard
to intrinsic worth. — To complete a costume or
furnish keynote upon which to build a costume.
— Distinguished jewels with historic associations
worn artistically; examples. — Know what
jewels are your affair as to colour, size, and

CONTENTS xxi

CHAPTER PAGE

shape. — To know what one can and cannot
wear in all departments of costuming prepares
one to grasp and make use of expert suggestions.
How fashions come into being. — One of the rules
as to how jewels should be worn. — Gems and
paste

IX WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER BOUDOIR . in

Negligee or tea-gown belongs to this intimate
setting. — Fortuny the artist designer of tea-
gowns. — Sibyl Sanderson. — The decorative value
of a long string of beads. — Beauty which is the
result of conscious effort. — Bien soint a hall-
mark of our period

X WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER SUN-ROOM . 116

Since a winter sun-room is planned to give
the illusion of summer, one's costuming for it
should carry out the same idea. — The sun-room
provides a means for using up last summer's
costumes. — The hat, if worn, should suggest
repose, not action. — The age and habits of those
occupying a sun-room dictate the exact type
of costume to be worn. — Colour scheme

XI i. WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER GARDEN 124

In the garden the costume should have a
decorative outline but simple colour scheme
which harmonises with background of flowers.
— White, grey, or one note of colour prefer-
able.— The flowers furnish variety and colour.
— Lady de Bathe (Mrs. Langtry) in her garden
at Newmarket, England.

ii. WOMAN DECORATIVE ON THE LAWN

One may be a flower or a bunch of flowers
for colour against the unbroken sweep of green
underfoot and background of shrubs and trees.
— Chic outline and interesting detail, as well as
colour, of distinct value in a costume for lawn.
— How to cultivate an unerring instinct for
what is a successful costume for any given occa-
sion

in. WOMAN DECORATIVE ON THE BEACH

If one would be a contribution to the picture,
figure as white or vivid colour on beach,
deck of steamer or yacht

xxii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XII WOMAN AS DECORATION WHEN SKATING 134

Line of the body all important. — The neces-
sity of mastering form to gain efficiency in any
line; examples. — The traditional skating cos-
tume has the lead

XIII WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER MOTOR CAR . 145

The colour of one's car inside and out impor-
tant factor in effect produced by one's care-
fully chosen costume

XIV How TO Go ABOUT PLANNING A PERIOD

COSTUME 154

Period. — Background. — Outline. — Materials. —
Colour scheme. — Detail with meaning. — Author-
ities.— Consulting portraits by great masters. —
Geraldine Farrar. — Distinguished collection of
costume plates. — One result of planning period
costumes is the opening up of vistas in history.
—Every detail of a period costume has its fas-
cinating story worth the knowing. — Brief his-
toric outline to serve as key to the rich store-
house of important volumes on costumes and
the distinguished textless books of costume
plates. — Period of fashions in costumes devel-
oping without nationality. — Nationality declared
in artistry of workmanship and the modification
or exaggeration of an essential detail accord-
ing to national or individual temperament. —
Evolution of woman's costume. — Assyria. —
Egypt. — Byzantium/— Greece. — Rome. — Gothic
Europe. — Europe of the Renaissance, — seven-
teenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century
through Mid-Victorian period. — Cord tied about
waist origin of costumes for women and men

XV THE STORY OF PERIOD COSTUMES . .172
A RESUME.

Woman as seen in Egyptian sculpture-relief;
on Greek vase; in Gothic stained glass; carved
stone; tapestry; stucco; and painting of the
Renaissance; eighteenth and nineteenth century
portraits. — Art throughout the ages reflects
woman in every role; as companion, ruler,

CONTENTS

XXlll

CHAPTER

slave, saint, plaything, teacher, and voluntary
worker. — Evolution of outline of woman's cos-
tume, including change in neck; shoulder;
evolution of sleeve; girdle; hair; head-dress;
waist line; petticoat. — Gradual disappearance
of long, flowing lines characteristic of Greek
and Gothic periods. — Demoralisation of Nature's
shoulder and hip-line culminates in the Velas-
quez edition of Spanish fashion and the Marie
Antoinette extravaganzas

XVI DEVELOPMENT OF GOTHIC COSTUME . .192

Gothic outline first seen as early as fourth
century. — Costume of Roman-Christian women.
— Ninth century. — The Gothic cape of twelfth,
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made
familiar on the Virgin and saints in sacred
art. — The tunic. — Restraint in line, colour, and
detail gradually disappear with increased circu-
lation of wealth until in fifteenth century we
see humanity over-weighted with rich brocades,
laces, massive jewels, etc.

THE VIRGIN IN ART

Late Middle Ages. — Sovereignty of the Virgin
as explained in "The Cathedrals of Mont St.
Michel and Chatres," by Henry Adams. —
Woman as the Virgin dominates art of twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. — The gir-
dle.— The round neck. — The necklace, etc.

XVII THE RENAISSANCE 214

SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

Pointed and other head-dresses with floating
veils. — Neck low off shoulders. — Skirts part as
waist-line over petticoat. — Wealth of Roman
Empire through new trade channels had led to
importation of richly coloured Oriental stuffs. —
Same wealth led to establishing looms in
Europe. — Clothes of man like his over-ornate
furniture show debauched and vulgar taste. —
The good Gothic lines live on in costumes of
nuns and priests. — The Davanzati Palace col-
lection, Florence, Italy. — Long pointed shoes
of the Middle Ages give way to broad square
ones. — Gorgeous materials. — Hats. — Hair. —

XXIV

CONTENTS

Sleeves. — Skirts. — Crinolines. — Coats. — Over-
skirts draped to develop into panniers of Marie
Antoinette's time. — Directoire reaction to sim-
ple lines and materials

XVII EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . . . .233

Political upheavals. — Scientific discoveries. —
Mechanical inventions. — Chemical achievements.
— Chintz or stamped linens of Jouy near Ver-
sailles.— Painted wall-papers after the Chinese.
— Simplicity in costuming of woman and man

XIX WOMAN IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD . .241

First seventy years of nineteenth century. —
" Historic Dress in America " by Elizabeth Mc-
Clellan. — Hoops, wigs, absurdly furbished head-
dresses, paper-soled shoes, bonnets enormous,
laces of cobweb, shawls from India, rouge and
hair-grease, patches and powder, laced waists,
and " vapours." — Man still decorative

XX SEX IN COSTUMING . . . . . 244

"European dress." — Progenitor of costume
worn by modern men. — The time when no dis-
tinction was made between materials used for
man and woman. — Velvets, silks, satins, laces,
elaborate cuffs and collars, embroidery, jewels
and plumes as much his as hers

XXI LINE AND COLOUR OF COSTUMES IN

HUNGARY v . 252

In a sense colour a sign of virility. — Ex-
amples.— Studying line and colour in Magyar
Land. — In Krakau, Poland, — A highly decora-
tive Polish peasant and her setting

XXII STUDYING LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA . 265

Kiev our headquarters. — Slav temperament
an integral part of Russian nature expressed
in costuming as well as folk songs and dances
of the people. — Russian woman of the fashion-
able world. — The Russian pilgrims as we saw
them tramping over the frozen roads to the
shrines of Kiev, the Holy City and ancient

CONTENTS

XXV

CHAPTER

capital of Russia at the close of the Lenten
season. — Their costumes and their psychology

XXIII MARK TWAIN'S LOVE OF COLOUR IN ALL
COSTUMING

Wrapped in a crimson silk dressing-gown
on a balcony of his Italian villa in Connecti-
cut, Mark Twain dilated on the value of bril-
liant colour in man's costuming. — His creative,
picturing-making mind in action. — Other themes
followed

XXIV THE ARTIST AND His COSTUME .

A God-given sense of the beautiful. — The
artist nature has always assumed poetic license
in the matter of dress. — Many so-called affec-
tations have raison d'etre. — Responding to tex-
ture, colour and line as some do to music and
scenery. — How Japanese actors train them-
selves to act women's parts by wearing woman's
costumes off the stage. — This cultivates the re-
quired feeling for the costumes. — The woman
devotee to sports when costumed. — Richard
Wagner's responsiveness to colour and texture.
— Clyde Fitch's sensitiveness to the same. —
The wearing of jewels by men. — King Edward
VII. — A remarkable topaz worn by a Spaniard.
— Its undoing as a decorative object through
its resetting

XXV IDIOSYNCRASIES IN COSTUME

Fashions in dress all powerful because they
seize upon the public mind. — They become the
symbol of manners and affect human psychol-
ogy.— Affectations of the youth of Athens. —
Les Merveilleux, Les Encroyables, the Illumi-
nati. — Schiller during the Storm and Stress
Period. — Venetian belles of the sixteenth cen-
tury.— The Cavalier Servente of the seventeenth
century. — Mme. Recamier scandalised London
in eighteenth century by appearing costumed
a la Greque. — Mme. Jerome Bonaparte, a Bal-
timore belle, followed suit in Philadelphia. —
Hour-glass waist-line and attendant "vapours"
were thought to be in the role of a high-born

276

. 283

292

XXVI

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

Victorian miss. — Appropriateness the contribu-
tion of our day to the story of woman's cos-
tuming

XXVI NATIONALITY IN COSTUME ....

When seen with perspective the costumes of
various periods appear as distinct types though
to the man or woman of any particular period
the variations of the type are bewildering and
misleading. — Having followed the evolution of
the costume of woman of fashion which comes
under the general head of European dress, be-
fore closing we turn to quite another field, that
of national costumes. — Progress levels national
differences, therefore the student must make the
most of opportunities to observe. — Experiences
in Hungary

XXVII MODELS .

Historical interest attaches to fashions in
woman's costuming. — One of the missions of
art is to make subtle the obvious. — Examples as
seen in 1917

PAGE

296

306

XXVIII WOMAN COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB . 313

The Pageant of Life shows that woman has
played opposite man with consistency and suc-
cess throughout the ages. — Apropos of this, we
quote from Philadelphia Public Ledger, for
March 25, 1917, an impression of a woman of
to-day costumed appropriately to get efficiency
in her war work

IN CONCLUSION

A brief review of the chief points to be kept
in mind by those interested in the costuming
of woman so that she figures as a decorative
contribution to any setting

324

ILLUSTRATIONS

I MME. GERALDINE FARRAR IN GREEK COS-
TUME AS THAIS (Frontispiece) vi
Sketched by Thelma Cudlipp

PAGE

II WOMAN IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE-
RELIEF 9

III WOMAN IN GREEK ART 19

IV WOMAN ON GREEK VASE 29

V WOMAN IN GOTHIC ART .... 39
Portrait Showing Pointed Head-dress

VI WOMAN IN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE . . 49
Sculpture-relief in Terra-cotta: The
Virgin

VII WOMAN IN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE . . 59
Sulpture-relief in Terra-cotta: Holy
Women

VIII TUDOR ENGLAND 69

Portrait of Queen Elizabeth

IX SPAIN — VELASQUEZ PORTRAIT . . . 79

X EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND ... 89
Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough

XI BOURBON FRANCE 99

Portrait of Marie Antoinette by Madame
Vigee Le Brun

XII COSTUME OF EMPIRE PERIOD .... 109
An English Portrait

XIII EIGHTEENTH CENTURY COSTUME . . .119
Portrait by Gilbert Stuart
xxvii.

XXV111

ILLUSTRATIONS

XIV VICTORIAN PERIOD (ABOUT 1840) .
Mme. Adeline Genee in Costume

XV LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY . Y ,
(ABOUT 1890)
A Portrait by John S. Sargent

XVI A MODERN PORTRAIT

By John W. Alexander

XVII A PORTRAIT OF MRS. PHILIP M. LYDIG
By I. Zuloaga

XVIII MRS. LANGTRY (LADY DE BATHE) IN
EVENING WRAP

XIX MRS. COND£ NAST IN STREET DRESS
Photograph by Baron de Meyer

XX MRS. CONDE NAST IN EVENING DRESS .
XXI MRS. CONDE NAST IN GARDEN COSTUME

XXII MRS. CONDE NAST IN FORTUNY TEA
GOWN . . . '••;• ...

XXIII MRS. VERNON CASTLE IN BALL COSTUME

XXIV MRS. VERNON CASTLE IN AFTERNOON

COSTUME — WINTER . .

XXV MRS. VERNON CASTLE IN AFTERNOON
COSTUME — SUMMER

XXVI MRS. VERNON CASTLE COSTUMED A LA
GUERRE FOR A WALK .

XXVII MRS. VERNON CASTLE — A FANTASY

XXVIII MODERN SKATING COSTUME— 1917

Winner of Amateur Championship of
Fancy Skating

XXIX A MODERN SILHOUETTE- — 1917 .
TAILOR-MADE

Drawn from Life by Elisabeth Searcy

FACE
129

139

149

159

179

I89
199

2O9
219

229

239

249

259
269

279

ILLUSTRATIONS xxix

PAGE

XXX TAPP^'S CREATIONS . . . . 289

Sketched for Woman as Decoration
by Thelma Cudlipp

XXXI Miss ELSIE DE WOLFE IN COSTUME OF

RED CROSS NURSE 299

XXXII MME. GERALDINE FARRAR IN SPANISH

COSTUME AS CARMEN .... 309
From Photograph by Courtesy of
Vanity Fair

XXXIII MME. GERALDINE FARRAR IN JAPANESE

COSTUME AS MADAME BUTTERFLY . 319
Sketched by Thelma Cudlipp

" The Communion of men upon earth abhors
identity more than nature does a vacuum. Nothing
so shocks and repels the living soul as a row of
exactly similar things, whether it consists of modern
houses or of modern people, and nothing so delights
and edifies as distinction."

COVENTRY PATMORE.

" Whatever piece of dress conceals a woman's
figure, is bound, in justice, to do so in a picturesque
way."

From an Early Victorian Fashion Paper.

" When was that * simple time of our fathers '
when people were too sensible to care for fashions ?
It certainly was before the Pharaohs, and perhaps
before the Glacial Epoch."

W. G. SUMNER, in Folkways.

WOMAN AS DECORATION

WOMAN AS
DECORATION

CHAPTER I

A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE WHO WOULD
PLAN HER COSTUMES

|HERE are a few rules with regard to
the costuming of woman which if
understood put one a long way on the
road toward that desirable goal — decorativeness,
and have economic value as well. They are
simple rules deduced by those who have made
a study of woman's lines and colouring, and
how to emphasise or modify them by dress.

Temperaments are seriously considered by ex-
perts in this art, for the carriage of a woman
and her manner of wearing her clothes depends
in part upon her temperament. Some women
instinctively feel line and are graceful in con-

2 WOMAN AS DECORATION

sequence, as we have said, but where one is not
born with this instinct, it is possible to become
so thoroughly schooled in the technique of con-
trolling the physique — poise of the body, car-
riage of the head, movement of the limbs, use of
feet and hands, that a sense of line is acquired.
Study portraits by great masters, the movements
of those on the stage, the carriage and positions
natural to graceful women. A graceful woman
is invariably a woman highly sensitised, but re-
member that " alive to the finger tips " — or toe
tips, may be true of the woman with few ges-
tures, a quiet voice and measured words, as well
as the intensely active type.

The highly sensitised woman is the one who
will wear her clothes with individuality, whether
she be rounded or slender. To dress well is an
art, and requires concentration as any other art
does. You know the old story of the boy, who
when asked why his necktie was always more
neatly tied than those of his companions, an-
swered: " I put my whole mind on it." There
you have it! The woman who puts her whole
mind on the costuming of herself is naturally
going to look better than the woman who does

A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE 3

not, and having carefully studied her type, she
will know her strong points and her weak ones,
and by accentuating the former, draw attention
from the latter. There is a great difference,
however, between concentrating on dress until
an effect is achieved, and then turning the mind
to other subjects, and that tiresome dawdling,
indefinite, fruitless way, to arrive at no convic-
tions. This variety of woman never gets dress
off her chest.

The catechism of good dressing might be
given in some such form as this: Are you fat?
If so, never try to look thin by compressing your
figure or confining your clothes in such a way
as to clearly outline the figure. Take a chance
from your size. Aim at long lines, and what
dressmakers call an " easy fit," and the use of
solid colours. Stripes, checks, plaids, spots and
figures of any kind draw attention to dimen-
sions; a very fat woman looks larger if her sur-
face is marked off into many spaces. Likewise
a very thin woman looks thinner if her body
on the imagination of the public subtracting
is marked off into spaces absurdly few in num-
ber. A beautifully proportioned and rounded

4 WOMAN AS DECORATION

figure is the one to indulge in striped, checked,
spotted or flowered materials or any parti-col-
oured costumes.

Never try to make a thin woman look any-
thing but thin. Often by accentuating her thin-
ness, a woman can make an effect as type, which
gives her distinction. If she were foolish enough
to try to look fatter, her lines would be lost with-
out attaining the contour of the rounded type.
There are of course fashions in types; pale ash
blonds, red-haired types (auburn or golden
red with shell pink complexions), dark haired
types with pale white skin, etc., and fash-
ions in figures are as many and as fleet-
ing.

Artists are sometimes responsible for these
vogues. One hears of the Rubens type, or the
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hauptner, Burne-Jones,
Greuse, Henner, Zuloaga, and others. The artist
selects the type and paints it, the attention of the
public is attracted to it and thereafter singles
it out. We may prefer soft, round blonds with
dimpled smiles, but that does not mean that such
indisputable loveliness can challenge the attrac-

A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE 5

tions of a slender serpentine tragedy-queen, if
the latter has established the vogue of her type
through the medium of the stage or painter's
brush.

A woman well known in the world of fashion
both sides of the Atlantic, slender and very tall,
has at times deliberately increased that height
with a small high-crowned hat, surmounted by
a still higher feather. She attained distinction
without becoming a caricature, by reason of her
obvious breeding and reserve. Here is an im-
portant point. A woman of quiet and what we
call conservative type, can afford to wear con-
spicuous clothes if she wishes, whereas a con-
spicuous type must be reserved in her dress. By
following this rule the overblown rose often
makes herself beautiful. Study all types of
woman. Beauty is a wonderful and precious
thing, and not so fleeting either as one is told.
The point is, to take note, not of beauty's de-
parture, but its gradually changing aspect, and
adapt costume, line and colour, to the demands
of each year's alterations in the individual.
Make the most of grey hair; as you lose your
colour, soften your tones.

6 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Always star your points. If you happen to
have an unusual amount of hair, make it count,
even though the fashion be to wear but little. We
recall the beautiful and unique Madame X. of
Paris, blessed by the gods with hair like bronze,
heavy, long, silken and straight. She wore it
wrapped about her head and finally coiled into
a French twist on the top, the effect closely re-
sembling an old Roman helmet. This was de-
sign, not chance, and her well-modeled features
were the sort to stand the severe coiffure,
Madame's husband, always at her side that
season on Lake Lucerne, was curator of the
Louvre. We often wondered whether the
idea was his or hers. She invariably wore
white, not a note of colour, save her hair;
even her well-bred fox terrier was snowy
white.

Worth has given distinction to more than one
woman by recognising her possibilities, if kept
to white, black, greys and mauves. A beautiful
Englishwoman dressed by this establishment,
always a marked figure at whatever embassy her
husband happens to be posted, has never been
seen wearing anything in the evening but black,

PLATE II

Woman in ancient Egyptian sculpture-relief about

IOOO B.C.

We have here a husband and wife. (Metropolitan
Museum.)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woman in Ancient Egyp-
tian Sculpture-Relief

A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE 11

or white, with very simple lines, cut low and
having a narrow train.

It may take courage on the part of dressmaker,
as well as the woman in question, but granted
you have a distinct style of your own, and under-
stand it, it is the part of wisdom to establish
the habit of those lines and colours which are
yours, and then to avoid experiments with outre
lines and shades. They are almost sure to prove
failures. Taking on a colour and its variants is
an economic, as well as an artistic measure.
Some women have so systematised their cos-
tuming in order to be decorative, at the least
possible expenditure of vitality and time (these
are the women who dress to live, not live to
dress), that they know at a glance, if dress mate-
rials, hats, gloves, jewels, colour of stones and
style of setting, are for them. It is really a joy
to shop with this kind of woman. She has
definitely fixed in her mind the colours and
lines of her rooms, all her habitual settings, and
the clothes and accessories best for her. And
with the eye of an artist, she passes swiftly by
the most alluring bargains, calculated to under-
mine firm resolution. In fact one should not

12 WOMAN AS DECORATION

say that this woman shops; she buys. What is
more, she never wastes money, though she may
spend it lavishly.

Some of the best dressed women (by which
we always mean women dressed fittingly for
the occasion, and with reference to their own
particular types) are those with decidedly lim-
ited incomes.

There are women who suggest chiffon and
others brocade; women who call for satin, and'
others for silk; women for sheer muslins, and
others for heavy linen weaves; women for
straight brims, and others for those that droop;
women for leghorns, and those they do not suit;
women for white furs, and others for tawny
shades. A woman with red in her hair is the
one to wear red fox.

If you cannot see for yourself what line and
colour do to you, surely you have some friend
who can tell you. In any case, there is always
the possibility of paying an expert for advice.
Allow yourself -to be guided in the reaching of
some decision about yourself and your limita-
tions, as well as possibilities. You will by this
means increase your decorativeness, and what is

A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE 13

of more serious importance, your economic
value.

A marked example of woman decorative was
seen on the recent occasion when Miss Isadora
Duncan danced at the Metropolitan Opera
House, for the benefit of French artists and their
families, victims of the present war. Miss Dun-
can was herself so marvelous that afternoon, as
she poured her art, aglow and vibrant with
genius, into the mould of one classic pose after
another, that most of her audience had little
interest in any other personality, or effect. Some
of us, however, when scanning the house between
the acts, had our attention caught and held by
a charmingly decorative woman occupying one
of the boxes, a quaint outline in silver-grey
taffeta, exactly matching the shade of the
woman's hair, which was cut in Florentine
fashion forming an aureole about her small head,
— a becoming frame for her fine, highly sensi-
tive face. The deep red curtains and uphol-
stery in the box threw her into relief, a lovely
miniature, as seen from a distance. There were
no doubt other charming costumes in the boxes
and stalls that afternoon, but none so successful

i4 WOMAN AS DECORATION

in registering a distinct decorative effect. The
one we refer to was suitable, becoming, indi-
vidual, and reflected personality in a way to
indicate an extraordinary sensitiveness to values,
that subtle instinct which makes the artist.

With very young women it is easy to be deco-
rative under most conditions. Almost all of
them are decorative, as seen in our present fash-
ions, but to produce an effect in an opera box is to
understand the carrying power of colour and
line. The woman in the opera box has the same
problem to solve as the woman on the stage: her
costume must be effective at a distance. Such a
costume may be white, black and any colour;
gold, silver, steel or jet; lace, chiffon — what you
will — provided the fact be kept in mind that
your outline be striking and the colour an agree-
able contrast against the lining of the box.
Here, outline is of chief importance, the silhou-
ette must be definite; hair, ornaments, fan, cut
of gown, calculated to register against the back-
ground. In the stalls, colour and outline of any
single costume become a part of the mass of
colour and black and white of the audience. It
is difficult to be a decorative factor under these

A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE 15

conditions, yet we can all recall women of every
age, who so costume themselves as to make an
artistic, memorable impression, not only when
entering opera, theatre or concert hall, but when
seated. These are the women who understand
the value of elimination, restraint, colour har-
mony and that chic which results in part from
faultless grooming. To-day it is not enough to
possess hair which curls ideally: it must, willy
nilly, curl conventionally!

If it is necessary, prudent or wise that your
purchases for each season include not more than
six new gowns, take the advice of an actress
of international reputation, who is famous for
her good dressing in private life, and make a
point of adding one new gown to each of the
six departments of your wardrobe. Then have
the cleverness to appear in these costumes when-
ever on view, making what you have fill in be-
tween times.

To be clear, we would say, try always to begin
a season with one distinguished evening gown,
one smart tailor suit, one charming house gown,
one tea gown, one negligee and one sport suit.
If you are needing many dancing frocks, which

1 6 WOMAN AS DECORATION

have hard wear, get a simple, becoming model,
which your little dressmaker, seamstress or maid
can copy in inexpensive but becoming colours.
You can do this in Summer and Winter alike,
and with dancing frocks, tea gowns, negligees
and even sport suits. That is, if you have smart,
up-to-date models to copy.

One woman we know bought the finest qual-
ity jersey cloth by the yard, and had a little
dressmaker copy exactly a very expensive skirt
and sweater. It seems incredible, but she saved
on a ready made suit exactly like it forty dol-
lars, and on one made to measure by an exclu-
sive house, one hundred dollars! Remember,
however, that there was an artist back of it all
and someone had to pay for that perfect model,
to start with. In the case we cite, the woman
had herself bought the original sport suit from
an importer who is always in advance with Paris
models.

If you cannot buy the designs and workman-
ship of artists, take anvantage of all opportuni-
ties to see them; hats and gowns shown at open-
ings, or when your richer friends are ordering.
In this way you will get ideas to make use of

PLATE III

A Greek vase. Dionysiac scenes about 460 B.C. In-
teresting costumes. (Metropolitan Museum.)

18

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woman on Greek Vase

A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE 21

and you will avoid looking home-made, than
which, no more damning phrase can be applied
to any costume. As a matter of fact it implies
a hat or gown lacking an artist's touch and de-
scribes many a one turned out by long-estab-
lished and largely patronised firms.

The only satisfactory copy of a Fortuny tea
gown we have ever seen accomplished away
from the supervision of Fortuny himself, was
the exquisite hand-work of a young American
woman who lives in New York, and makes her
own gowns and hats, because her interest and
talent happen to be in that direction. She told
a group of friends the other day, to whom she
was showing a dainty chiffon gown, posed on a
form, that to her, the planning and making of a
lovely costume had the same thrilling excite-
ment that the painting of a picture had for the
artist in the field of paint and canvas. This
same young woman has worked constantly since
the European war began, both in London and
New York, on the shapeless surgical shirts used
by the wounded soldiers. In this, does she out-
rank her less accomplished sisters? Yes, for the
technique she has achieved by making her own

22 WOMAN AS DECORATION

costumes makes her swift and economical, both
in the cutting of her material and in the actual
sewing and she is invaluable as a buyer of ma-
terials.

CHAPTER II

THE LAWS UNDERLYING ALL COSTUMING OF
WOMAN

[AT every costume is either right or
wrong is not a matter of general
knowledge. " It will do," or " It is
near enough " are verdicts responsible for
beauty hidden and interest destroyed. Who has
not witnessed the mad mental confusion of
women and men put to it to decide upon cos-
tumes for some fancy-dress ball, and the appall-
ing ignorance displayed when, at the costumer's,
they vaguely grope among battered-looking gar-
ments, accepting those proffered, not really
knowing how the costume they ask for should
look?

Absurd mistakes in period costumes are to be
taken more or less seriously according to tem-
perament. But where is the fair woman who
will say that a failure to emege from a dress-
maker's hands in a successful costume is not a

23

24 WOMAN AS DECORATION

tragedy? Yet we know that the average woman,
more often than not, stands stupefied before the
infinite variety of materials and colours of our
twentieth century, and unless guided by an
expert, rarely presents the figure, chez-elle, or
when on view in public places, which she would
or could, if in possession of the few rules under-
lying all successful dressing, whatever the cen-
tury or circumstances.

Six salient points are to be borne in mind
when planning a costume, whether for a fancy-
dress ball or to be worn as one goes about one's
daily life :

First, appropriateness to occasion, station and
age;

Second, character of background you are to
appear against (your setting) ;

Third, what outline you wish to present to
observers (the period of costume) ;

Fourth, what materials of those in use during
period selected you will choose;

Fifth, what colours of those characteristic of
period you will use ;

Sixth, the distinction between those details

COSTUMING OF WOMAN 25

which are obvious contributions to the costume,
and those which are superfluous, because mean-
ingless or line-destroying.

Let us remind our reader that the woman who
dresses in perfect taste often spends far less
money than she who has contracted the habit
of indefiniteness as to what she wants, what she
should want, and how to wear what she gets.

Where one woman has used her mind and
learned beyond all wavering what she can and
what she cannot wear, thousands fill the streets
by day and places of amusement by night, who
blithely carry upon their persons costumes
which hide their good points and accentuate
their bad ones.

The rara avis among women is she who al-
ways presents a fashionable outline, but so subtly
adapted to her own type that the impression
made is one of distinct individuality.

One knows very well how little the average
costume counts in a theatre, opera house or ball-
room. It is a question of background again.
Also you will observe that the costume which
counts most individually, is the one in a key

26 WOMAN AS DECORATION

higher or lower than the average, as with a voice
in a crowded room.

The chief contribution of our day to the art
of making woman decorative is the quality of
appropriateness. I refer of course to the woman
who lives her life in the meshes of civilisation.
We have defined the smart woman as she who
wears the costume best suited to each occasion
when that occasion presents itself. Accepting
this definition, we must all agree that beyond
question the smartest women, as a nation, are
English women, who are so fundamentally con-
vinced as to the invincible law of appropriate-
ness that from the cradle to the grave, with them
evening means an evening gown ; country clothes
are suited to country uses and a tea-gown is not
a bedroom negligee. Not even in Rome can
they be prevailed upon " to do as the Romans
do."

Apropos of this we recall an experience in
Scotland. A house party had gathered for the
shooting, — English men and women. Among
the guests were two Americans; done to a turn
by Redfern. It really turned out to be a trag-
edy, as they saw it, for though their cloth skirts

PLATE IV

27

Greek Kylix. Signed by Hieron, about 40x3 B.C.
Athenian. The woman wears one of the gowns For-
tuny (Paris) has reproduced as a modern tea gown. It
is in two pieces. The characteristic short tunic reaches
just below waist line in front and hangs in long, fine
pleats (sometimes cascaded folds) under the arms, the ends
of which reach below knees. The material is not cut to
form sleeves; instead two oblong pieces of material are
held together by small fastenings at short intervals, show-
ing upper arm through intervening spaces. The result
in appearance is similar to a kimono sleeve. (Metropoli-
tan Museum.)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woman in Greek Art about
400 B.C.

COSTUMING OF WOMAN 31

were short, they were silk-lined; outing shirts
were of crepe — not flannel; tan boots, but
thinly soled; hats most chic, but the sort that
drooped in a mist. Well, those two American
girls had to choose between long days alone,
while the rest tramped the moors, or to being
togged out in borrowed tweeds, flannel shirts
and thick-soled boots.

That was some years back. We are a match
for England to-day, in the open, but have a long
way to go before we wear with equal conviction,
and therefore easy grace, tea-gown and evening
dress. Both how and when still annoy us as a
nation. On the street we are supreme when
tailleur. In carriage attire the French woman
is supreme, by reason of that innate Latin co-
quetry which makes her feel line and its signifi-
cance. The ideal pose for any hat is a French
secret.

The average woman is partially aware that if
she would be a decorative being, she must grasp
conclusively two points: first, the limitations
of her natural outline ; secondly, a knowledge of
how nearly she can approach the outline de-
manded by fashion without appearing a cari-

32 WOMAN AS DECORATION

cature, which is another way of saying that each
woman should learn to recognise her own type.
The discussion of silhouette has become a pop-
ular theme. In fact it would be difficult to find
a maker of women's costumes so remote and un-
read as not to have seized and imbedded deep
in her vocabulary that mystic word.

To make our points clear, constant reference
to the stage is necessary; for from stage effects
we are one and all free to enjoy and learn. No-
where else can the woman see so clearly pre-
sented the value of having what she wears har-
monise with the room she wears it in, and the
occasion for which it is worn.

Not all plays depicting contemporary life are
plays of social life, staged and costumed in a
chic manner. What is taught by the modern
stage, as shown by Bakst, Reinhardt, Barker,
Urban, Jones, the Portmanteau Theatre and
Washington Square Players, is values, as the
artist uses the term — not fashions; the relative
importance of background, outline, colour, tex-
ture of material and how to produce harmonious
effects by the judicious combination of furnish-
ings and costumes.

COSTUMING OF WOMAN 33

To-day, when we want to say that a costume
or the interior decoration of a house is the last
word in modern line and colour, we are apt to
call it a la Bakst, meaning of course Leon Bakst,
whose American " poster " was the Russian
Ballet. If you have not done so already, buy
or borrow the wonderful Bakst book, showing
reproductions in their colours of his extraordi-
nary drawings, the originals of which are owned
by private individuals or museums, in Paris,
Petrograd, London, and New York. They are
outre to a degree, yet each one suggests the
whole or parts of costumes for modern woman
— adorable lines, unbelievable combinations of
colour! No wonder Poiret, the Paris dress-
maker, seized upon Bakst as designer (or was it
Bakst who seized upon Poiret?).

Bakst got his inspiration in the Orient. As
a bit of proof, for your own satisfaction, there
is a book entitled Six Monuments of Chinese
Sculpture, by Edward Chauvannes, published
in 1914, by G. Van Oest & Cie., of Brussels and
Paris. The author, with a highly commendable
desire to perpetuate for students a record of
the most ancient speciments of Chinese sculp-

34 WOMAN AS DECORATION

ture, brought to Paris and sold there, from time
to time, to art-collectors, from all over the world;
selected six fine speciments as theme of text and
for illustrations.

Plate 23 in this collection shows a woman
whose costume in outline might have been taken
from Bakst or even Vogue. But put it the other
way round : the Vogue artist to-day — we use the
word as a generic term — finds inspiration
through museums and such works as the above.
This is particularly true as our little hand-book
goes into print, for the reason that the great
war between the Central Powers and the Entente
has to a certain extent checked the invention and
material output of Europe, and driven designers
of and dealers in costumes for women, to China
and Japan.

Our great-great-grandmothers here in Amer-
ica wore Paris fashions shown on the imported
fashion dolls and made up in brocades from
China, by the Colonial mantua makers. So we
are but repeating history.

To-day, war, which means horror, ugliness,
loss of ideals and illusions, holds most of the
world in its grasp, and we find creative artists —

COSTUMING OF WOMAN 35

apostles of the Beautiful, seeking the Orient be-
cause it is remote from the great world struggle.
We hear that Edmund Dulac (who has shown
in a superlative manner, woman decorative,
when illustrating the Arabian Nights and other
well-known books), is planning a flight to the
Orient. He says that he longs to bury himself
far from carnage, in the hope of wooing back
his muse.

If this subject of background, line and colour,
in relation to costuming of woman, interests
you, there are many ways of getting valuable
points. One of them, as we have said, is to walk
through galleries looking at pictures only as
decorations ; that is, colour and line against the
painter's background.

Fashions change, in dress, arrangement of
hair, jewels, etc., but this does not affect values.
It is la ligne, the grand gesture, or line fraught
with meaning and balance and harmony of
colour.

The reader knows the colour scheme of her
own rooms and the character of gowns she is
planning, and for suggestions as to interesting
colour against colour, she can have no higher

36 WOMAN AS DECORATION

authority than the experience of recognised
painters. Some develop rapidly in this study of
values.

If your rooms are so-called period rooms,
you need not of necessity dress in period cos-
tumes, but what is extremely important, if you
would not spoil your period room, nor fail to
be a decorative contribution when in it, is that
you make a point of having the colour and tex-
ture of your house gowns in the same key as the
hangings and upholstery of your room. White
is safe in any room, black is at times too strong.
It depends in part upon the size of your room.
If it is small and in soft tones, delicate harmon-
ising shades will not obtrude themselves as
black can and so reduce the effect of space.
This is the case not only with black, but with
emerald green, decided shades of red, royal
blue, and purple or deep yellows. If artistic
creations, these colours are all decorative in a
room done in light tones, provided the room is
large.

A Louis XVI salon is far more beautiful if
the costumes are kept in Louis XVI colouring
and all details, such as lace, jewelry, fans, etc,,

PLATE V

37

Example of the pointed head-dress, carefully concealed
hair (in certain countries at certain periods of history, a
sign of modesty), round necklace and very long close
sleeves characteristic of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Observe angle at which head-dress is worn.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

W oman in Gothic Art
Portrait showing pointed
head-dress

COSTUMING OF WOMAN 41

kept strictly within the picture ; fine in design,
delicate in colouring, workmanship and quality
of material. Beyond these points one may fol-
low the outline demanded by the fashion of the
moment, if desired. But remember that a beau-
tiful, interesting room, furnished with works of
art, demands a beautiful, interesting costume, if
the woman in question would sustain the im-
pression made by her rooms, to the arranging
of which she has given thought, time and vital-
ity, to say nothing of financial outlay; she
must take her own decorative appearance
seriously.

The writer has passed wonderful hours exam-
ining rare illuminated manuscripts of the Mid-
dle Ages (twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteen centuries), missals, " Hours " of the Vir-
gin, and Breviaries, for the sole purpose of
studying woman's costumes, — their colour, line
and details, as depicted by the old artists. Gothic
costumes in Gothic interiors, and Early Renais-
sance costumes in Renaissance interiors.

The art of moderns in various media, has
taken from these creations of mediaeval genius,
more than is generally realized. We were look-

42 WOMAN AS DECORATION

ing at a rare illuminated Gothic manuscript re-
cently, from which William Morris drew in-
spirations and ideas for the books he made. It
is a monumental achievement of the twelfth
century, a mass book, written and illuminated
in Flanders ; at one time in the possession of a
Cistercian monastery, but now one of the treas-
ures in the noted private collection made by the
late J. Pierpont Morgan. The pages are of
vellum and the illuminations show the figures
of saints in jewel-like colours on backgrounds of
pure gold leaf. The binding of this book, — sides
of wood, held together by heavy white vellum,
hand-tooled with clasps of thin silver, is the
work of Morris himself and very characteristic
of his manner. He patterned his hand-made
books after these great models, just as he worked
years to duplicate some wonderful old piece of
furniture, realising so well the magic which
lies in consecrated labour, that labour which
takes no account of time, nor pay, but is led on
by the vision of perfection possessing the artist's
soul.

We know women who have copied the line,
colour and material of costumes depicted in

COSTUMING OF WOMAN 43

Gothic illuminations that they might be in har-
mony with their own Gothic rooms. One
woman familiar with this art, has planned a
frankly modern room, covering her walls with
gold Japanese fibre, gilding her wood-work
and doors, using the brilliant blues, purples and
greens of the old illuminations in her hangings,
upholstery and cushions, and as a striking con-
tribution to the decorative scheme, costumes
herself in white, some soft, clinging material
such as crepe de chine, liberty satin or chiffon
velvet, which take the mediaeval lines, in long
folds. She wears a silver girdle formed of the
hand-made clasps of old religious books, and
her rings, neck chains and earrings are all of
hand-wrought silver, with precious stones cut
in the ancient way and irregularly set. This
woman got her idea of the effectiveness of
white against gold from an ancient missal in
a famous private collection, which shows the
saints all clad in marvellous white against gold
leaf.

Whistler's house at 2 Cheyne Road, London,
had a room the dado and doors of which were
done in gold, on which he and two of his pupils

44 WOMAN AS DECORATION

painted the scattered petals of white and pink
chrysanthemums. Possibly a Persian or Jap-
anese effect, as Whistler leaned that way, but
one sees the same idea in an illumination of the
early sixteenth century; "Hours" of the Vir-
gin and Breviary, made for Eleanor of Portu-
gal, Queen of John II. The decorations here
are in the style of the Renaissance, not Gothic,
and some think Memling had a hand in the
work. The borders of the illumination, char-
acteristic of the Bruges School, are gold leaf on
which is painted, in the most realistic way, an
immense variety of single flowers, small roses,
pansies, violets, daisies, etc., and among them
butterflies and insects. This border surrounds
the pictures which illustrate the text. Always
the marvellous colour, the astounding skill in
laying it on to the vellum pages, an unforget-
able lesson in the possibility of colour applied
effectively to costumes, when background is kept
in mind. This Breviary was bound in green
velvet and clasped with hand-wrought silver,
for Cardinal Rodrigue de Castro (1520-1600)
of Spain. It is now in the private collection
of Mr. Morgan. The cover alone gives one

COSTUMING OF WOMAN 45

great emotion, genuine ancient velvet of the six-
teenth century, to imitate which taxes the in-
genuity of the most skilful of modern manufac-
turers.

CHAPTER III

HOW TO DRESS YOUR TYPE
A Few Points Applying to All Costumes

IEDLESS to say, when considering

woman's costumes, for ordinary use,
in their relation to background, un-
less some chameleon-like material be invented
to take on the colour of any background, one
must be content with the consideration of one's
own rooms, porches, garden, opera-box or
automobile, etc. For a gown to be worn when
away from home, when lunching, at recep-
tions or dinners, the first consideration must
be becomingness, — a careful selection of line
and colour that bring out the individuality of
the wearer. When away from one's own set-
ting, personality is one of the chief assets of
every woman. Remember, Individuality is
nature's gift to each human being. Some are

more markedly different than others, but we

46

PLATE VI

47

Fifteenth-century costume. " Virgin and Child " in
painted terra-cotta.

It is by Andrea Verrocchio, and now in Metropolitan
Museum. We have here an illustration of the costume,
so often shown on the person of the Virgin in the art of
the Middle Ages.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woman in Art of the
Renaissance Sculpture-Relief
in Terra-Cotta; The Fir gin

HOW TO DRESS YOUR TYPE 51

have all seen a so-called colourless woman
transformed into surprising loveliness when
dressed by an artist's instinct. A delicate type
of blond, with fair hair, quiet eyes and faint
shell-pink complexion, can be snuffed out by
too strong colours. Remember that your
ethereal blond is invariably at her best in
white, black (never white and black in com-
bination unless black with soft white collars
and frills) and delicate pastel shades.

The richly-toned brunette comes into her
own in reds, yellows and low-tones of strong
blue.

Colourless jewels should adorn your per-
fect blond, colourful gems your glowing bru-
nette.

What of those betwixt and between? In
such cases let complexion and colour of eyes
act as guide in the choice of colours.

One is familiar with various trite rules
such as match the eyes, carry out the general
scheme of your colouring, by which is meant,
if you are a yellow blond, go in for yellows,
if your hair is ash-brown, your eyes but a
shade deeper, and your skin inclined to be

52 WOMAN AS DECORATION

lifeless in tone, wear beaver browns and con-
tent yourself with making a record in har-
mony, with no contrasting note.

Just here let us say that the woman in ques-
tion must at the very outset decide whethef
she would look pretty or chic, sacrificing the
one for the other, or if she insists upon both,
carefully arrange a compromise. As for ex-
ample, combine a semi-picture hat with a semi-
tailored dress.

/ The strictly chic woman of our day goes in
'for appropriateness; the lines of the latest
fashion, but adapted to bring out her own best
points, while concealing her bad ones, and an
insistance upon a colour and a shade of col-
our, sufficiently definite to impress the be-
holder at a glance. This type of woman as a
rule keeps to a few colours, possibly one or
two and their varieties, and prefers gowns of
one material rather than combinations of ma-
terials. Though she possess both style and
beauty, she elects to emphasise style, j

In the case of the other woman, who would
star her face at the expense of her tout en-
semble, colour is her first consideration, mul-

HOW TO DRESS YOUR TYPE 53

tiplication of detail and intelligent expressing
of herself in her mise-en-scene. Seduisant,
instead of chic is the word for this woman.

Your black-haired woman with white skin
and dark, brilliant eyes, is the one who can
best wear emerald green and other strong
colours. The now fashionable mustard, sage
green, and bright magentas are also the affaire
of this woman with clear skin, brilliant colour
and sparkling eyes.

These same colours, if subdued, are lovely
on the middle-aged woman with black hair,
quiet eyes and pale complexion, but if her
hair is grey or white, mustard and sage green
are not for her, and the magenta must be the
deep purplish sort, which combines with her
violets and mauves, or delicate pinks and
faded blues. She will be at her best in shades
of grey which tone with her hair.

CHAPTER IV

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES

AS the reader ever observed the effect
of clothes upon manners? It is amaz-
ing, and only proves how patheti-
cally childlike human nature is.

Put any woman into a Marie Antoinette cos-
tume and see how, during an evening she will
gradually take on the mannerisms of that time.
This very point was brought up recently in con-
versation with an artist, who in referring to one
of the most successful costume balls ever given
in New York — the crinoline ball at the old Astor
House-spoke of howourunromanticWall Street
men fell to the spell of stocks, ruffled shirts and
knickerbockers, and as the evening advanced,
were quite themselves in the minuette and polka,
bowing low in solemn rigidity, leading their
lady with high arched arm, grasping her
pinched-in waist, and swinging her beruffled,
crinolined form in quite the 1860 manner,

54

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES 55

Some women, even girls of tender years, have
a natural instinct for costuming themselves, so
that they contribute in a decorative way to any
setting which chance makes theirs. Watch chil-
dren " dressing up " and see how among a large
number, perhaps not more than one of them will
have this gift for effects. It will be she who
knows at a glance which of the available .odds
and ends she wants for herself, and with a sure,
swift hand will wrap a bright shawl about her,
tie a flaming bit of silk about her dark head, and
with an assumed manner, born of her garb, cast
a magic spell over the small band which she
leads on, to that which, without her intense con-
viction and their susceptibility to her mental
attitude toward the masquerade, could never be
done.

This illustrates the point we would make as to
the effect of clothes upon psychology. The ac-
tor's costume affects the real actor's psychology
as much or more than it does that of his audi-
ence. He is the man he has made himself ap-
pear. The writer had the experience of seeing
a well-known opera singer, when a victim to a
bad case of the grippe, leave her hotel voiceless,

5 6 WOMAN AS DECORATION

facing a matinee of Juliet. Arrived in her dress-
ing-room at the opera, she proceeded to change
into the costume for the first act. Under the
spell of her role, that prima donna seemed liter-
ally to shed her malady with her ordinary gar-
ments, and to take on health and vitality
with her Juliet robes. Even in the Waltz
song her voice did not betray her, and ap-
parently no critic detected that she was in-
disposed.

In speaking of periods in furniture, we said
that their story was one of waves of types which
repeated themselves, reflecting the ages in which
they prevailed. With clothes we find it is the
same thing: the scarlet, and silver and gold of
the early Jacobeans, is followed by the drabs
and greys of the Commonwealth ; the marvellous
colour of the Church, where Beauty was en-
throned, was stamped out by the iron will of
Cromwell who, in setting up his standard of
revolt, wrapped soul and body of the new Faith
in penal shades.

New England was conceived in this spirit and
as mind had affected the colour of the Puritans'
clothes, so in turn the drab clothes, prescribed

PLATE VII

57

Fifteenth-century costumes on the Holy Women at the
Tomb of our Lord.

The sculpture relief is enamelled terra-cotta in white,
blue, green, yellow and manganese colours. It bears the
date 1487.

Note character of head-dresses, arrangement of hair,
capes and gowns which are Early Renaissance. (Metro-
politan Museum.)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES 61

by their new creed, helped to remove colour
from the New England mind and nature.

But observe how, as prosperity follows priva-
tion, the mind expands, reaching out for what
the changed psychology demands. It is the old
story of Rome grown rich and gay in mood and
dress. There were of course, villains in Puritan
drab and Grecian white, but the child in every
man takes symbol for fact. So it is that to-day,
some shudder with the belief that Beauty, re-
enthroned in all her gorgeous modern hues,
means near disaster. The progressives claim
that into the world has come a new hope; that
beneath our lovely clothes of rainbow tints, and
within our homes where Beauty surely reigns,
a new psychology is born to radiate colour from
within.

Our advice to the woman not born with clothes
sense, is: employ experts until you acquire a
mental picture of your possibilities and limita-
tions, or buy as you can afford to, good French
models, under expert supervision. You may
never turn out to be an artist in the treatment of
your appearance, instinctively knowing how a
prevailing fashion in line and colour may be

62 WOMAN AS DECORATION

adapted to you, but you can be taught what your
own type is, what your strong points are, your
weak ones, and how, while accentuating the for-
mer, you may obliterate the latter.

There are two types of women familiar to all
of us: the one gains in vital charm and abandon
of spirit from the consciousness that she is fault-
lessly gowned; the other succumbs to self-con-
sciousness and is pitifully unable to extricate her
mood from her material trappings.

For the darling of the gods who walks through
life on clouds, head up and spirit-free, who
knows she is perfectly turned out and lets it go
at that, we have only grateful applause. She
it is who carries every occasion she graces — in-
doors, out-of-doors, at home, abroad. May her
kind be multiplied!

But to the other type, she who droops under
her silks and gold tissue, whose pearls are chains
indeed, we would throw out a lifeline. Sub-
merged by clothes, the more she struggles to rise
above them the more her spirit flags. The case is
this: the woman's mind is wrong; her clothes
are right — lovely as ever seen; her jewels gems;
her house and car and dog the best. It is her

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES 63

mind that is wrong; it is turned in, instead of
out.

Now this intense and soul-, as well as line-
destroying self-consciousness, may be prenatal,
and it may result from the Puritan attitude to-
ward beauty; that old New England point of
view that the beautiful and the vicious are akin.
Every young child needs to have cultivated a
certain degree of self-reliance. To know that
one's appearance is pleasing, to put it mildly,
is of inestimable value when it comes to meeting
the world. Every child, if normal, has its good
points — hair, eyes, teeth, complexion or figure;
and we all know that many a stage beauty has
been built up on even two of these attributes.
Star your good points, clothes will help you.
Be a winner in your own setting, but avoid the
fatal error of damning your clothes by the spirit
within you.

The writer has in mind a woman of distin-
guished appearance, beauty, great wealth, few
cares, wonderful clothes and jewels, palatial
homes; and yet an envious unrest poisons her
soul. She would look differently, be different
and has not the wisdom to shake off her fetters.

64 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Her perfect dressing helps this woman; you
would not be conscious of her otherwise, but
with her natural equipment, granted that she
concentrated upon flashing her spirit instead of
her wealth, she would be a leader in a fine sense.
The Beauty Doctor can do much, but show us
one who can put a gleam in the eye, tighten the
grasp, teach one that ineffable grace which en-
ables woman, young or old, to wear her cloths
as if an integral part of herself. This quality
belongs to the woman who knows, though she
may not have thought it out, that clothes can
make one a success, but not a success in the en-
during sense. Dress is a tyrant if you take it as
your god, but on the other hand dress becomes
a magician's wand when dominated by a clever
brain. Gown yourself as beautifully as you can
afford, but with judgment. What we do, and
how we do it, is often seriously and strangely
affected by what we have on. The writer has
in mind a literary woman who says she can never
talk business except in a linen collar! Mark
Twain, in his last days, insisted that he wrote
more easily in his night-shirt. Richard Wagner
deliberately put on certain rich materials in col-

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES 65

ours and hung his room with them when com-
posing the music of The Ring. Chopin says
in a letter to a friend: "After working at the
piano all day, I find that nothing rests me so
much as to get into the evening dress which I
wear on formal occasions." In monarchies based
on militarism, royal princes, as soon as they can
walk, are put into military uniforms. It culti-
vates in them the desired military spirit. We
all associate certain duties with certain costumes,
and the extraordinary response to colour is fa-
miliar to all. We talk about feeling colour and
say that we can or cannot live in green, blue,
violet or red. It is well to follow this colour in-
stinct in clothes as well as in furnishing. You
will find you are at your best in the colours and
lines most sympathetic to you.

We know a woman who is an unusual beauty
and has distinction, in fact is noted for her chic
when in white, black or the combination. She
once ventured a cerise hat and instantly dropped
to the ranks of the commonplace. Fine eyes,
hair, skin, teeth, colour and carriage were still
hers, but her effectiveness was lessened as that
of a pearl might be if set in a coral circle.

CHAPTER V

ESTABLISH HABITS OF CARRIAGE WHICH CREATE
GOOD LINE

IMAN'S line is the result of her (Tos-
tume, in part only. Far more is
woman's costume affected by her line.
By this we mean the line she habitually falls into,
the pose of torso, the line of her legs in action,
and when seated, her arms and hands in repose
and gesture, the poise of her head. It is woman's
line resulting from her habit of mind and the
control which her mind has over her body, a
thing quite apart from the way God made her,
and the expression her body would have had if
left to itself, ungoverned by a mind stocked with
observations, conventions, experience and atti-
tudes. We call this the physical expression of
woman's personality; this personality moulds her
bodily lines and if properly directed determines
the character of the clothes she wears ; determines
also whether she be a decorative object which

66

PLATE VIII

Queen Elizabeth in the absurdly elaborate costume of
the late Renaissance. Then crinoline, gaudy materials,
and ornamentations without meaning reached their high-
water mark in the costuming of women.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tudor England Portrait
of Queen Eliz abeth

ESTABLISH HABITS OF CARRIAGE 71

says something in line and colour, or an undeco-
rative object which says nothing.

Woman to be decorative, should train the car-
riage of her body from childhood, by wearing
appropriate clothing for various daily roles.
There is more in this than at first appears. The
criticism by foreigners that Americans, both men
and women, never appear really at home in eve-
ning clothes, that they look as if they felt dressed,
is true of the average man and woman of our
country and results from the lax standards of a
new and composite social structure. America
as a whole, lacks traditions and still embodies the
pioneer spirit, equally characteristic of Australia
and other offshoots from the old world.

The little American girl who is brought up
from babyhood to change for the evening, even
though she have a nursery tea, and be allowed
only a brief good-night visit to the grown-ups,
is still the exception rather than the rule. A wee
English maiden we know, created a good deal
of amused comment because, on several occa-
sions, when passing rainy afternoons indoors,
with some affluent little New York friends,
whose luxurious nurseries and marvellous me-

72 WOMAN AS DECORATION

chanical toys were a delight, always insisted
upon returning home, — a block distant, — to
change into white before partaking of milk
toast and jam, at the nursery table, the Ameri-
can children keeping on their pink and blue
linens of the afternoon. The fact of white or
pink is unimportant, but our point is made
when we have said that the mother of the
American children constantly remarked on the
unconscious grace of the English tot, whether
in her white muslin and pink ribbons, her rid-
ing clothes, or accordion-plaited dancing frock.
The English woman-child was acquiring deco-
rative lines by wearing the correct costume for
each occasion, as naturally as a bird wears its
feathers. This is one way of obviating self-
consciousness.

The Eton boy masters his stick and topper
in the same way, when young, and so more easily
passes through the formless stage conspicuous in
the American youth.

Call it technique, or call it efficiency, the ob-
ject of our modern life is to excel, to be the best
of our kind, and appropriate dress is a means to
that end, for it helps to liberate the spirit. We

ESTABLISH HABITS OF CARRIAGE 73

of to-day make no claim to consistency or logic.
Some of us wear too high heels, even with
strictly tailored suits, which demand in the name
of consistency a sensible shoe. Also our sensible
skirt may be far too narrow for comfort. But
on the whole, women have made great strides in
the matter of costuming with a view to appro-
priateness and efficiency.

CHAPTER VI

COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME

OLOUR is the hall-mark of our day,
and woman dccoratively costumed, and
as decorator, will be largely responsi-

ble for recording this age as one of distinct im-
portance— a transition period in decoration.

Colour is the most marked expression of the
spirit of the times; colour in woman's clothes;
colour in house furnishing; colour on the stage
and in its setting; colour in prose and verse.

Speaking of colour in verse, Rudyard Kip-
ling says (we quote from an editorial in the
Philadelphia Public Ledger, Jan. 7, 1917) :

" Several songs written by Tommy and the
Poilu at the front, celebrate the glories of camp
life in such vivid colors they could not be re-
produced in cold, black, leaden type."

It is no mere chance, this use of vivid colour.
Man's psychology to-day craves it. A revolution
is on. Did not the strong red, green, and blue

74

COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME 75

of Napoleon's time follow the delicate sky-blues,
rose and sunset-yellows of the Louis?

Colour pulses on every side, strong, clean, clear
rainbow colour, as if our magicians of brush and
dye-pot held a prism to the sun-beam; violet,
orange and green, magentas and strong blue
against backgrounds of black and cold grey.

We had come to think of colour as vice and
had grown so conservative in its use, that it had
all but disappeared from our persons, our homes,
our gardens, our music and our literature. More
than this, from our point of view! The reaction
was bound to come by reason of eternal prece-
rdent.

Half-tones, antique effects, and general mo-
notony,— the material expression of complacent
minds, has been cast aside, and the blase man of
ten years ago is as keen as any child with his first
linen picture book, — and for the same reason.

Colour, as we see it to-day, came out of the
East via Persia. Bakst in Russia translated it
into terms of art, and made the Ballet Russe an
amazing, enthralling vision! Then Poiret,
wizard among French couturieres, assisted by
Bakst, adapted this Oriental colour and line to

76 WOMAN AS DECORATION

woman's uses in private life. This supple-
mented the good work of le Gazette du Bon Ton
of Paris, that effete fashion sheet, devoted to
the decoration of woman, whose staff included
many of the most gifted French artists, masters
of brush and pen. Always irregular, no issue
of the Bon Ton has appeared of late. It is held
up by the war. The men who made it so fasci-
nating a guide to woman " who would be deco-
rative," are at the front, painting scenery for
the battlefield — literally that: making mock
trees and rocks, grass and hedges and earth, to
mislead the fire of the enemy, and doubtless the
kindred Munich art has been diverted into simi-
lar channels.

This Oriental colour has made its way across
Europe like some gorgeous bird of the tropics,
and since the war has checked the output of
Europe's factories, another channel has supplied
the same wonderful colours in silks and gauze.
They come to us by way of the Pacific, from
China and from Japan. There is no escaping
the colour spell. Writers from the front tell
us that it is as if the gods made sport with fate's
anvil, for even the blackened dome of the war

PLATE IX

77

A Velasquez portrait of the Renaissance, when the
human form counted only as a rack on which was heaped
crinoline and stiff brocades and chains and gems and wigs
and every manner of elaborate adornment, making moun-
tains of poor tottering human forms, all but lost beneath.

Vienna Hofmuseum

Spain-Velasquez Portrait

COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME 81

zone is lurid by night, with sparks of purple,
red, green, yellow and blue; the flare of the
world-destroying projectiles.

The present costuming of woman, when she
treats herself as decoration, owes much to the
prophets of the " new " theatre and their colour
scale. These men have demonstrated, in an un-
forgettable manner, the value of colour; the
dependence of every decorative object upon
background; shown how fraught with mean-
ing can be an uncompromising outline, and
the suggestiveness of really significant de-
tail.

Bakst, Rheinhardt and Granville Barker have
taught us the new colour vocabulary. Gordon
Craig was perhaps the first to show us the stage
made suggestive by insisting on the importance
of clever lighting to produce atmosphere and
elimination of unessential objects, the argu-
ment of his school being that the too detailed
reproducing of Nature (on the stage) acts as a
check to the imagination, whereas by the judi-
cious selection of harmonics, the imagination is
stimulated to its utmost creative capacity. One
detects this creed to-day in certain styles of home

82 WOMAN AS DECORATION

decoration (woman's background), as well as
in woman's costumes.

Portable Backgrounds

The staging of a recent play showed more
plainly than any words, the importance of back-
ground. In one of the scenes, beautiful, artistic
gowns in delicate shades were set off by a room
with wonderful green walls and woodwork
(mignonette). Now, so long as the characters
moved about the room, they were thrown into
relief most charmingly, but the moment the
women seated themselves on a very light col-
oured and characterless chintz sofa, they lost
their decorative value. It was lacking in har-
mony and contrast. The two black sofa cush-
ions intended possibly to serve as background,
being small, instantly disappeared behind the
seated women.

A sofa of contrasting colour, or black, would
have looked better in the room, and served as
immediate background for gowns. It might
have been covered in dark chintz, a silk damask
in one or several tones, or a solid colour, since
the gowns were of delicate indefinite shades.

COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME 83

One of the sofas did have a dark Chinese coat
thrown over the back, with the intent, no doubt,
of serving as effective background, but the point
seemed to escape the daintily gowned young
woman who poured tea, for she failed to take
advantage of it, occupying the opposite end of
the sofa. A modern addition to a woman's toilet
is a large square of chiffon, edged with narrow
metal or crystal fringe, or a gold or silver flexi-
ble cord. This scarf is always in beguiling con-
trast to the costume, and when not being worn, *
is thrown over the chair or end of sofa against
which our lady reclines. To a certain degree,
this portable background makes a woman deco-
rative when the wrong colour on a chair might
convert her lovely gown into an eyesore.

One woman we know, who has an Empire
room, admires the lines of her sofa as furniture,
but feels it ineffective unless one reclines a la
Mme. Recamier. To obviate this difficulty, she
has had made a square (one and a half yards),
of lovely soft mauve silk damask, lined with
satin charmeuse of the same shade, and weighted
by long, heavy tassels, at the corners; this she
throws over the Empire roll and a part of the

84 WOMAN AS DECORATION

seat, which are done in antique green velvet.
Now the woman seated for conversation with
arm and elbow resting on the head, looks at
ease, — a part of the composition. The square
of soft, lined silk serves at other times as a
couvrepied.

CHAPTER VII

FOOTWEAR

TWEAR points the costume ; every
child should be taught this.

Give most careful attention to your
extremities, — shoes, gloves and hats. The gen-
ius of fashion's greatest artist counts for naught
if his costume may not include hat, gloves, shoes,
and we would add, umbrella, parasol, stick,
fan, jewels; in fact every detail.

If you have the good sense to go to one who
deservedly ranks as an authority on line and
colour in woman's costume, have also the wis-
dom to get from this man or woman not merely
your raiment; go farther, and grasp as far as
you are able the principles underlying his or
her creations. Common sense tells one that
there must be principles which underlie the
planning of every hat and gown, — serious rea-
sons why certain lines, colours and details are
employed.

85

86 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Principles have evolved and clarified them-
selves in the long journey which textiles, col-
ours and lines have made, travelling down
through the ages. A great cathedral, a beauti-
ful house, a perfect piece of furniture, a portrait
by a master, sculpture which is an object of art,
a costume proclaimed as a success; all are the
results of knowing and following laws. The
clever woman of slender means may rival her
friends with munition incomes, if only she will
go to an expert with open mind, and through
the thoughtful purchase of a completed cos-
tume,— hat, gown and all accessories, — learn an
artist-modiste's point of view. Then, and we
would put it in italics ; take seriously, with con-
viction, all his or her instructions as to the way
to wear your clothes. Anyone can buy costumes,
many can, perhaps own far more than you, but
it is quite possible that no one can more surely
be a picture — a delightfully decorative object
on every occasion, than you, who knows instinct-
ively (or has been taught), beyond all shadow
of doubt, how to put on and then how to sit or
walk in, your one tailored suit, your one tea
gown, your one sport suit or ball gown.

PLATE X

An ideal example of the typical costume of fashionable
England in the eighteenth century, when picturesqueness,
not appropriateness, was the demand of the times.

This picture is known as THE MORNING PROMENADE :
SQUIRE HALLET WITH His LADY. Painted by Thomas
Gainsborough and now in the private collection of Lord
Rothschild, London.

Courtesy of Braun d Co., New York, London & Paris

Eighteenth Century Eng-
land Portrait by Thomas
Gainsborough

FOOTWEAR 91

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 fash-
ions in buckles and bows, but unless you bend
the fashion until it allows nature's work to ap-
pear 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 elo-

92 WOMAN AS DECORATION

quent finish the line from her head through
torso, hip to knee, and knee down through in-
step 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 slip-
pers, 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 ma-
genta 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

FOOTWEAR 93

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 num-
ber of colours used in gowns be but few, getting
the desired variety by varying shades of a col-
our, and then using slippers a trifle higher in
shade than the general colour selected.

CHAPTER VIII

JEWELRY AS DECORATION

jHE use of jewelry as colour and line
has really nothing to do with its in-
trinsic worth. Just as when furnish-
ing 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 Deco-
ration), so jewels should be selected either to
complete costumes, or to give the keynote upon
which a costume is built. A woman whose ar-
tist-dressmaker turns out for her a marvellous
green gown, would far better carry out the col-
our 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 en-
tirely with reference to them, noting not merely
the shade of their colour, but the character of
their setting, should it be distinctive.

94

JEWELRY AS DECORATION 95

One of the most picturesque public events in
Vienna each year, is a bazaar held for the bene-
fit 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 adver-
tise widely that the ladies of the Austro-Hun-
garian 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 extraor-
dinary occasion, and well worth witnessing
once. The jewels worn are as amazing and fas-
cinating as is Hungarian music. There is a bar-
baric 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 com-
pany with huge sapphires, emeralds, rubies and
'diamonds, cut in the antique way. Looking

96 WOMAN AS DECORATION

about, one feels in an Arabian Nights' dream.
On the particular occasion to which we refer,
the most beautiful woman present was the Prin-
cess 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 elan,
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 refer-
ence to making them count as the sole decora-
tion.

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 col-
our. Hers was that rare gift, — infallible good
taste, which led her to contribute an individual

PLATE XI

97

MARIE ANTOINETTE IN A PORTRAIT BY MADAME
VIGEE 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 Musee National, Versailles.

Courtesy of Braun d Co., New York, London d Paris

Bourbon France
Marie Antoinette Portrait
by Madame Vlgee Le Brun

JEWELRY AS DECORATION 101

quality to her temporary possessions. She
counted in Madrid, not only as a beautiful and
brilliant woman, but as a decorative contribu-
tion to any room she entered. It was not un-
common 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 col-
our, their matching, the manner in which they
were cut, and their setting, — the unique hand-
work of some goldsmith of genius. It is impos-
sible 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 in-
describable beauty.
Later, the same night, one would meet this

102 WOMAN AS DECORATION

woman at a ball, and discover that she had made
a complete change of costume and was as ele-
gant 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 attrac-
tion 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

JEWELRY AS DECORATION 103

to your kind of hands. It may be that small
rings of delicate workmanship, set with colour-
less 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 cer-
tainly 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 al-
ways 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 sus-
piciously like it when we see a mere swing of

104 WOMAN AS DECORATION

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
role designated. Those points found to be de-
sirable, becoming, beautiful, comfortable, ap-
propriate, sedulsant — 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 pro-
ceed 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

JEWELRY AS DECORATION 105

wearing a necklace and other ornaments of real
pearls. The pearl trimming may be very charm-
ing 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 at-
tempted. 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 com-

106 WOMAN AS DECORATION

bining 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 garni-
ture and not jeweler's work, they had great style
and were as beautiful of their kind as the real
stones.

PLATE XII

107

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 else-
where 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 por-
trait, explains that the fair lady insisted upon being
painted in her bonnet because her curling locks were short
— a result of typhoid fever.

108

Costume of Empire Period
An English Portrait

CHAPTER IX

WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER BOUDOIR

\Y the way, do you know that boudoir
originally meant pouting room, a place
where the ceremonious grande dame
of the Louis might relax and express a ruffled
mood, if she would? Which only serves to prove
that even the definition of words alter with fash-
ion, for we imagine that our supinely relaxed
modern beauty, of the country club type, has on
the whole more self-control than she of the
boudoir age.

Since a boudoir is of all rooms the most per-
sonal, we take it for granted that its decoration
is eloquent with the individuality and taste of
its owner. Walls, floors, woodwork, upholstery,
hangings, cushions and objects d'art furnish
the colour for my lady's background, and will
naturally be a scheme calculated to set off her
own particular type. Here we find woman
easily made decorative in negligee or tea gown,

ii2 WOMAN AS DECORATION

and it makes no difference whether fashion is
for voluminous, flowing robes, ruffled and cov-
ered with ribbons and lace, or the other ex-
treme, those creations of Fortuny, which cling
to the form in long crinkled lines and shimmer
like the skin of a snake. The Fortuny in ques-
tion, son of the great Spanish painter, devotes
his time to the designing of the most artistic
and unique tea gowns offered to modern woman.
We first saw his work in 1910 at his Paris
atelier. His gowns, then popular with French
women, were made in Venice, where M. Fortuny
was at that time employing some five hundred
women to carry out his ideas as to the dyeing of
thin silks, the making and colouring of beads
used as garniture, and the stenciling of designs
in gold, silver or colour. The lines are Grecian
and a woman in her Fortuny tea gown suggests
a Tanagra figure, whether she goes in for the
finely pleated sort, kept tightly twisted and
coiled when not in use, to preserve the distin-
guishing fine pleats, or one with smooth sur-
face and stenciled designs. These Fortuny tea
gowns slip over the head with no opening but
the neck, with its silk shirring cord by means of

DECORATIVE IN HER BOUDOIR 113

which it can be made high or low, at will; they
come in black, gold and the tones of old Venetian
dyes. One could use a dozen of them and be a
picture each time, in any setting, though for the
epicure they are at their best when chosen with
relation to a special background. The black
Fortunys are extraordinarily chic and look well
when worn with long Oriental earrings and
neck chains of links or beads, which reach — at
least one strand of them — half-way to the knees.
The distinction which this long line of a
chain or string of pearls gives to the figure of
any woman is a point to dwell upon. Real pearls
are desirable, even if one must begin with a short
necklace ; but where it can be afforded, woman
cannot be urged too strongly to wear a string
extending as near to and as much below the
waistline as possible. A long string of pearls
gives great elegance, whether wearer is standing
or seated. You can use your short string of
pearls, too, but whatever your figure is, if you
are not a young girl it will be improved by the
long line, and if you would be decorative above
everything, we insist that a long chain or string
of less intrinsic value is preferable to one of

ii4 WOMAN AS DECORATION

meaningless length and priceless worth. Very
young girls look best in short necklaces; women
whose throats are getting lined should take to
jeweled dog-collars, in addition to their strings
of pearls or diamond chains. The woman with
firm throat and perfect neck was made for
pearls. For those less blessed there are lovely
things too, jewels to match their eyes, or to tone
in with skin or hair; settings to carry out the
line of profile, rings to illuminate the swift ges-
ture or nestle into the soft, white, dimpled hand
of inertia. Every type has its charm and fol-
lowers, but we still say, avoid emphasising your
lack of certain points by wearing unsuitable
costumes and accessories, and by so doing lose
the chance of being decorative.

Sibyl Sanderson, the American prima donna,
whose career was in Paris, was the most irresist-
ibly lovely vision ever seen in a tea gown. She
was past-mistress at the art of making herself
decorative, and the writer recalls her as she last
saw her in a Doucet model of chiffon, one layer
over another of flesh, palest pink and pinkish
mauve that melted into the creamy tones of her
perfect neck and arms.

DECORATIVE IN HER BOUDOIR 115

Sibyl Sanderson was lovely as nature turned
her out, but Paris taught her the value of that
other beauty, the beauty which comes of art and
attained like all art, only through conscious ef-
fort. An artistic appearance once meant letting
nature have its way. It has come to mean, nature
directed and controlled by Art, and while we do
not resort to the artificiality (in this moment)
of hoops, crinoline, pyramids of false hair, mon-
strous head-dresses, laced waists, low neck and
short sleeves for all hours and all seasons, paper-
soled shoes in snow-drifts, etc., we do insist that
woman be bien soine — hair, complexion, hands,
feet, figure, perfection par tout.

Woman's costumes, her jewels and all acces-
sories complete her decorative effect, but even
in the age of powder and patches, hair oil and
wigs, no more time nor greater care was given
to her grooming, and what we say applies to
the average woman of affairs and not merely to
the parasite type.

CHAPTER X

WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER SUN-ROOM

SUN-ROOM as the name implies, is
a room planned to admit as much sun
as is possible. An easy way to get the
greatest amount of light and sun is to enclose
a steam heated porch with glass which may be
removed at will. Sometimes part of a conserv-
atory is turned into a sun-room, awnings, rugs,
chairs, tables, couches, making it a fascinating
lounge or breakfast room, useful, too, at the tea
hour. Often when building a house a room on
the sunny side is given one, two, or three glass
sides. To trick the senses, ferns and flowering
plants, birds and fountains are used as decora-
tions, suggesting out-of-doors.

The woman who would add to the charm of
her sun-room in Winter by keeping up the illu-
sion of Summer, will wear Summer clothes when
in it, that is, the same gowns, hats and foot-wear
which she would select for a warm climate. To

116

PLATE XIII

Portrait by Gilbert Stuart of Dona Matilda, Stough-
ton de Jaudenes. (Metropolitan Museum.)

We use this portrait to illustrate the period when
woman's line was obliterated by the excessive decoration
of her costume.

The interest attached to this charming example of her
time lies in colour and detail. It is as if the bewitching
Dona Matilda were holding up her clothes with her per-
son. Her outline is that of a ruffled canary. How diffi-
cult for her to forget her material trappings, when they
are so many, and yet she looks light of heart.

For sharp contrast we suggest that our reader turn at
once to the portrait by Sargent (Plate XV) which is dis-
tinguished for its clean-cut outline and also the distinc-
tion arrived at through elimination of detail in the way
of trimming. The costume hangs on the woman, sus-
pended by jewelled chains from her shoulders.

The Sargent has the simplicity of the Classic Greek;
the Gilbert Stuart portrait, the amusing fascination of
Marie Antoinette detail.

The gown is white satin, with small gold flowers scat-
tered over its surface. The head-dress surmounting the
powdered hair is of white satin with seed-pearl ornaments.

The background is a dead-rose velvet curtain, draped to
show blue sky, veiled by clouds. The same dead-rose
on table and chair covering. The book on table has a
softly toned calf cover. Gilbert Stuart was fond of
working in this particular colour note.

118

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eighteenth Century Cos-
tume Portrait by Gilbert
Stewart

DECORATIVE IN HER SUN-ROOM 121

be exquisite, if you are young or youngish, well
and active, you would naturally appear in the
sun-room after eleven, in some sheer material
of a delicate tint, made walking length, with any
graceful Summer hat which is becoming, and
either harmonises with colour of gown or is an
agreeable contrast to it. By graceful hat we
mean a hat suggesting repose, not the close,
tailored hat of action. One woman we know
always uses her last Summer's muslins and
wash silks, shoes, slippers and hats in her sun-
room during the Winter. In her wardrobe there
are invariably a lot of sheer muslins, voiles and
wash silks in white, mauve, greys, pinks, or deli-
cate stripes, the outline following the fashion,
voluminous, straight or clinging, the bodice
tight with trimmings inset or full, beruffled, or
kerchiefed. Her hats are always entirely black
or entirely white, in type the variety we know as
picturesque, made very light in weight and with
no thought of withstanding the elements. The
woman who knows how, can get the effect of a
picture hat with very little outlay of money.
It is a matter of line when on the head, that
look of lightness and general airiness which

122 WOMAN AS DECORATION

gives one the feeling that the wearer has just
blown in from the lawn ! The artist's hand can
place a few simple loops of ribbon on a hat,
and have success, while a stupid arrangement of
costly feathers or flowers may result in failure.
The effect of movement got by certain line
manipulation, suggesting arrested motion, is of
inestimable value, especially when your hat is
one with any considerable width of brim. The
hat with movement is like a free-hand sketch,
a hat without movement like a decalcomania.

If the owner of the sun-room is resting or
invalided then away with out-of-door costume.
For her a tea-gown and satin slippers are in
order, as they would be under similar conditions
on her furnished porch.

If the mistress of the sun-room is young and
athletic, one who never goes in for frou-frous,
but wears linen skirts and blouses when pouring
tea for her friends, let her be true to her type in
the sun-room, but always emphasising immacu-
late daintiness, rather than the ready-for-sport
note. A sheer blouse and French heels on white
pumps will transpose the plain linen skirt into
the key of picturesque relaxation, the hall-mark

DECORATIVE IN HER SUN-ROOM 123

of sun-rooms. More than any other room in
the house, the sun-room is for drifting. One
cannot imagine writing a cheque there, or
going over one's monthly accounts.

We assume that the colour scheme in the sun-
room was dictated by the owner and is there-
fore sympathetic to her. If this be true, we can
go farther and assume that the delicate tones of
her porch gowns and tea gowns will harmonise.
If her sun-room is done in yellows and orange
and greens, nothing will look better than cream-
white as a costume. If the walls, woodwork
and furniture have been kept very light in tone,
relying on the rugs and cushions and dark
foliage of plants to give character, then a cos-
tume of sheer material in any one of the decided
colours in the chintz cushions, will be a welcome
contribution to the decoration of the sun-room.
Additional effect can be given a costume by the
clever choice of colour and line in a work-bag.

CHAPTER XI

I. WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER GARDEN

N your garden, if you would count as
decoration, keep to white or one col-
our; the flowers furnish a variegated
background against which your costume of col-
our, grey or white stands out. The great point
is that your outline be one with pictorial value,
from the artist's point of view. If merely stroll-
ing through your garden to admire it, keeping
to the well-made paths, a fragile gown of sheer
material and dainty shoes, with perishable hat
or fragile sunshade, is in order. But if yours is
the task to gather flowers, then wear stout linen
or pretty, bright ginghams, good to the eye and
easily laundered, while resisting the briars and
branches.

Smocks, those loose over-all garments of soft-
toned linens, reaching from neck half-way to
the knees and unbelted, are ideal for garden

work, and to the young and slender, add a dis-

124

DECORATIVE IN HER GARDEN 125

tinct charm, for one catches the movement of
the lithe form beneath.

You can be decorative in your garden in a
large enveloping apron of gingham, if you are
wise in choosing a colour which becomes you.
One lover of flowers, who has an instinct for
fitness and colour, may be seen on a Summer
morning, trimming her porch-boxes in snowy
white, — shoes and all, — over which she wears a
big, encircling apron, extending from neck to
skirt hem; deep pockets cross the entire front,
convenient for clippers, scissors and twine. This
apron is low-necked with shoulder straps and
no sleeves. The woman in question is tall and
fair, and on her soft curling hair she wears sun
hats of peanut straw, the edges sewn over and
over with wool to match her gingham apron,
which is a solid pink, pale green or lavender.

Dark women look uncommonly well in khaki
colour, and so do some blonds. Here is a shade
decorative against vegetation and serviceable
above all.

Garden costumes for actual work vary ac-
cording to individual taste and the amount and
character of the gardening indulged in.

126 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Lady de Bathe (Mrs. Langtry) owns one of
the most charming gardens in England, though
not as famous as some. It is attached to Regal
Lodge, her place at Newmarket. The Blue
Walk is something to remember, with its walls
of blue lavender flanking the blue paving stones,
between the cracks of which lovely bluebells
and larkspur spring up in irrelevant, poetic
license.

Lady de Bathe digs and climbs and clips and
gathers, therefore she wears easily laundered
garments; a white linen or cotton skirt and
blouse, a Chinese coat to the knees, of pink cot-
ton crepe and an Isle-of-Jersey sun-bonnet, a
poke with curtain, to protect the neck and strings
to tie it on. So while she claims never to have
consciously considered being a decorative note
in her own garden, her trained instinct for cos-
tuming herself appropriately and becomingly
brings about the desirable decorative effect.

II. WOMAN DECORATIVE ON THE LAWN

When on your lawn with the unbroken sweep
of green under foot and the background of

PLATE XIV

12?

Madame Adeline Genee, the greatest living exponent
of the art of toe dancing. She wears an early Vic-
torian costume (1840) made for a ballet she danced in
London several seasons ago. The writer did not see
the costume and neglected, until too late, to ask Madame
Genee for a description of its colouring, but judg-
ing by what we know of 1840 colours and textures
as described by Miss McClellan (Historic Dress in
America) and other historians of the period as well as
from portraits, we feel safe in stating that it may well
have been a bonnet of pink uncut velvet, trimmed with
silk fringe and a band of braided velvet of the same
colour ; or perhaps a white shirred satin ; or dove-coloured
satin with pale pink and green figured ribbon. For the
dress, it may have been of dove-grey satin, or pink flowered
silk with a black taffeta cape and one of black lace to
change off with.

128

Victorian Period about
1840 Mme. Adeline Genee
in Costume

DECORATIVE ON THE LAWN 131

shrubs and trees, be a flower or a bunch of
flowers in the colour of your costume. White, —
hat, shoes and all, cannot be excelled, but colour
has charm of another sort, and turning the pages
of memory, one realises that not a shade or ar-
tistic combination but has scored, if the outline
is chic. Since both outline and colour scheme
vary with fashion we use the word chic or smart
to imply that quality in a costume which is the
result of restraint in the handling of line, colour
and all details, whatever the period.

A chic outline is very telling on the lawn;
gown or hat must be appropriate to the occasion,
becoming to the wearer, its lines following the
fashion, yet adapted to type, and the colour,
one sympathetic to the wearer. The trimming
must accentuate the distinctive type of the gown
or hat instead of blotting out the lines by an
overabundance of garnittfre. The trimming
must follow the constructive lines of gown, or
have meaning. A buckle must buckle some-
thing, buttons must be used where there is at
least some semblance of an opening. Let us re-
peat: To be chic, the trimming of a hat or
gown must have a raison d'etre. When in doubt

i32 WOMAN AS DECORATION

omit trimming. As in interior decoration, too
much detail often defeats the original idea of
a costume. An observing woman knows that few
of her kind understand the value of restraint.
When turned out by an artist, most women
recognise when they look their best, but how to
achieve it alone, is beyond them. This sort of
knowledge comes from carefully and constantly
comparing the gown which is a success with
those which are failures.

Elimination characterises the smart costume
or hat, and the smart designer is he or she who
can make one flower, one feather, one bow of
ribbon, band of fur, bit of real lace or hand em-
broidery, say a distinct something.

It is the decorative value gained by the judi-
cious placing of one object so that line and
colour count to the full. As we have said in
Interior Decoration, one pink rose in a slender
Venetian glass vase against a green silk curtain
may have far more decorative value than dozens
of costly roses used without knowledge of line
and background. So it is with ornaments on
wearing apparel.

DECORATIVE ON THE BEACH 133

III. WOMAN DECORATIVE ON THE BEACH

With a background of grey sand, steel-blue
water and more or less blue sky, woman is given
a tempting opportunity to figure as colour when
by the sea. That it is gay colour or white
which makes decorative effects on the beach,
even the least knowing realise. Plein air ar-
tists have stamped on our mental visions im-
pressions of smart society disporting itself on
the sands of Dieppe, Trouville, Brighton, and
where not. Whatever the period, hence outline,
white and the gay colours impress one. Most
conspicuous is white on woman (and man) ;
then each colour in the rainbow with its half-
tones, figures as sweaters, veils, hats and para-
sols; the striped marquise and gay wares of the
venders of nosegays, balloons and lollypops.
The artist picks out the telling notes when paint-
ing, learn from him and figure as one of these.

On the beach avoid being a dull note; dead
greys and browns have no charm there.

What is true of costuming for the beach ap-
plies equally to costumes to be worn on the deck
of a steamer or yacht.

CHAPTER XII

WOMAN AS DECORATION WHEN SKATING

be decorative when skating, two
things are necessary: first, know how
to skate ; then see to it that you are cos-
tumed with reference to appropriateness, be-
comingness and the outline demanded by the
fashion of the moment.

The woman who excels in the technique of
her art does not always excel in dressing her
role. It is therefore with great enthusiasm that
we record Miss Theresa Weld of Boston, holder
of Woman's Figure Skating Championship, as
the most chicly costumed woman on the ice of
the Hippodrome (New York) where amateurs
contested for the cup offered by Mr. Charles B.
Dillingham, on March 23, 1917, when Miss
Weld again won, — this time over the men as
well as the women.

Miss Weld combined good work with per-
fect form, and her edges, fronts, ins, outs, threes,

134

DECORATION WHEN SKATING 135

double-threes, etc., etc., were a delight to the eye
as she passed and repassed in her wine-coloured
velvet, trimmed with mole-skin, a narrow band
on the bottom of the full skirt (full to allow the
required amount of leg action), deep cuffs, and
a band of the same fur encircling the close vel-
vet toque. This is reproduced as the ideal cos-
tume because, while absolutely up-to-date in
line, material, colour and character of fur, it
follows the traditional idea as to what is appro-
priate and beautiful for a skating costume, re-
gardless of epoch. We have seen its ancestors
in many parts of Europe, year after year. Some
of us recall with keen pleasure, the wonderful
skating in Vienna and Berlin on natural and ar-
tificial ice, invariably hung with flags and gaily
lighted by night. We can see now, those Ger-
man girls, — some of them trim and good to look
at, in costumes of sapphire blue, deep red, or
green velvet, fur trimmed, — gliding swiftly
across the ice, to the irresistible swing of waltz
music and accompanied by flashing uniforms.
In the German-speaking countries everyone
skates: the white-bearded grandfather and the
third generation going hand in hand on Sunday

136 WOMAN AS DECORATION

mornings to the nearest ice-pond. With them
skating is a communal recreation, as beer gar-
den concerts are. With us in America most
sports are fashions, not traditions. The rage
for skating during the past few seasons is the
outcome of the exhibition skating done by pro-
fessionals from Austria, Germany, Scandinavian
countries and Canada, at the New York Hippo-
drome. Those who madly danced are now as
madly skating. And out of town the young
women delight the eye in bright wool sweaters,
broad, long wool scarfs and bright wool caps,
or small, close felt hats, — fascinating against the
white background of ice and snow. The boots
are high, reaching to top of calf, a populai
model having a seam to the tip of the toe.

No sport so perfectly throws into relief com
mand of the body as does skating. Watch
group of competitors for honours at any gather-
ing of amateur women skaters and note how
have command of themselves — know absolutel
what they want to do, and then are able to do ii
One skater, in the language of the ice, can d<
the actual work, but has no form. It may
she lacks temperament, has no abandon, n<

PLATE XV

137

A portrait by John S. Sargent. (Metropolitan Mu-
seum, painted about 1890.)

We have here a distinguished example of the dignity
and beauty possible to a costume characteristic of the
period when extreme severity as to outline and elimination
of detail followed the elaboration of Victorian ruffles,
ribbons and lace over hoops and bustle; curled hair and
the obvious cameo brooch, massive bracelets and chains.

138

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Late Nineteenth Century
Costume about 1890 A
Portrait by John S. Sargent

DECORATION WHEN SKATING 141

rhythm; is stiff, or, while full of life, has bad
arms. It is as necessary that the fancy skater
should learn the correct position of the arms as
that the solo dancer should. Certain lines must
be preserved, say, from fingers of right arm
through to tip of left foot, or from tip of left
hand through to tip of right foot.

" Form " is the manipulation of the lines of
the body to produce perfect balance, perfect
freedom and, when required, perfect control in
arrested motion. This is the mastery which pro-
duces in free skating that " melting " of one
figure into another which so hypnotises the on-
looker. It is because Miss Weld has mastered
the above qualifications that she is amateur
champion in fancy skating. She has mastered
her medium ; has control of every muscle in her
body. In consequence she is decorative and de-
lightful to watch.

To be decorative when not on skates, whether
walking, standing or sitting, a woman must have
cultivated the same feeling for line, her form
must be good. It is not enough to obey the
A. B. C.'s of position; head up, shoulders back,
chest out, stomach in. One must study the pos-

142 WOMAN AS DECORATION

sibilities of the body in acquiring and perfecting
poses which have line, making pictures with
one's self.

In the Art of Interior Decoration we insist
that every room be a beautiful composition.
What we would now impress upon the mind of
the reader is that she is a part of the picture
and must compose with her setting. To do
this she should acquire the mastery of her body,
and then train that body until it has acquired
" good habits " in the assuming of line, whether
in action or repose. This can be done to an
astonishing degree, even if one lacks the instinct.
To be born with a sense of line is a gift, and the
development of this sense can give artistic de-
light to those who witness the results and thrill
them quite as sculpture or music, or any other
art does.

The Greek idea of regarding the perfectly
trained body as a beautiful temple is one to keep
in mind, if woman would fulfil her obligation
to be decorative.

Form means efficiency, if properly understood
and carried out according to the spirit, not the
letter of the law. Form implies the human body

DECORATION WHEN SKATING 143

under control, ready for immediate action. The
man or woman with form, will be the first to
fall into action when required, because, so to
speak, no time is lost in collecting and aiming
the body.

One of the great points in the teaching of the
late Theodore Leschetizky, the world's greatest
master in the art of piano playing, was that the
hand should immediately assume the correct po-
sition for the succeeding chord, the instant it
was lifted from the keys; — preparedness!

The crack regiments of Europe, noted for
their form, have for years been the object of
jests in those new worlds where brawn and
muscle, with mental acumen, have converted
primeval forests into congested commercial cen-
ters. But that form, so derided by the pioneer
spirit, has proved its worth during the present
European war. The United States and the Cen-
tral Powers are now at war and military guards
have been stationed at vulnerable points. Only
to-day we saw one of Uncle Sam's soldiers, one
of three, patrolling the front of a big armory, —
standing in an absolutely relaxed position, his
gun held loosely in his hand, and its bayonet

i44 WOMAN AS DECORATION

propped against the iron fence. One could not
help thinking; no form, no preparedness, no
efficiency. It goes without saying that prompt
obedience cannot be looked for where there is
lack of form, no matter how willing the spirit.
The modern woman when on parole, — walk-
ing, dancing, driving, riding or engaged in any
sport, to be efficient must have trained the body
until it has form, and dress it appropriately, if
she would be efficient as well as decorative in
the modern sense of the term. No better illus-
tration of our point can be found than in the
popular sport cited at the beginning of this
chapter.

CHAPTER XIII

WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER MOTOR CAR

T is not easy to be decorative in your
automobile now that the manufac-
turers are going in for gay colour
schemes both in upholstery and outside painting.
A putty-coloured touring car lined with red
leather is very stunning in itself, but the woman
who would look well when sitting in it does not
carelessly don any bright motor coat at hand.
She knows very well that to show up to advan-
tage against red, and be in harmony with the
putty-colour paint, her tweed coat should blend
with the car, also her furs. Black is smart with
everything, but fancy how impossible mustard,
cerise and some shades of green would look
against that scarlet leather!

An orange car with black top, mud-guards
and upholstery calls for a costume of white,
black, brown, tawny grey, or, if one would be
a poster, royal blue.

145

i46 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Some twenty-five years ago the writer watched
the first automobile in her experience driven
down the Champs Elysees. It seemed an un-
canny, horseless carriage, built to carry four
people and making a good deal of fuss about it.

A few days later, while lunching at the Cafe
de Reservoir, Versailles, we were told that some
men were starting back to Paris by automobile,
and if we went to a window giving on to the
court, we might see the astonishing vehicle
make its start. It was as thrilling as the first near
view of an aeroplane, and all-excitement we
watched the two Frenchmen getting ready for
the drive. Their elaborate preparation to face
the current of air to be encountered en route
was not unlike the preparation to-day for flying.
It was Spring — June, at that — but those French-
men wearing very English tweeds and smoking
English pipes, each drew on extra cloth trousers
and coats and over these a complete outfit of
leather! We saw them get into the things in
the public courtyard, arrange huge goggles,
draw down cloth caps, and set out at a speed of
about fifteen miles an hour!

The above seems incredible, now that we have

PLATE XVI

147

A portrait of Mrs. Thomas Hastings of New York
painted by the late John W. Alexander.

We have chosen this — one of the most successful por-
traits by one of America's leading portrait painters — as a
striking example of colour scheme and interesting line.
Also we have here a woman who carries herself with form.
Mrs. Hastings is an accomplished horsewoman. Her fine
physique is poised so as to give that individual movement
which makes for type; her colour — wonderful red hair
and the complexion which goes with it — are set off by a
dull gold background; a gown in another tone of gold,
relieved by a note or two of turquoise green ; and the same
green appearing as a shadow on the Victory in the back-
ground.

We see the sitter, as she impressed an observer, trans-
ferred to the canvas by the consummate skill of our deeply
lamented artist.

148

A Modern Portrait
By John W. Alexander

DECORATIVE IN HER MOTOR 151

passed through the various stages of motor car
improvements and motor clothes creations. The
rapid development of the automobile, with its
windshields, limousine tops, shock absorbers,
perfected engines and springs, has brought us
to the point where no more preparation is needed
for a thousand-mile run across country with an
average speed of thirty miles an hour, than if
we were boarding a train. One dresses for a
motor as one would for driving in a carriage
and those dun-colored, lineless monstrosities in-
vented for motor use have vanished from view.
More than this, woman to-day considers her
decorative value against the electric blue velvet
or lovely chintz lining of her limousine, exactly
as she does when planning clothes for her salon.
And why not? The manufacturers of cars are
taking seriously their interior decoration as well
as outside painting; and many women interior
decorators specialise along this line and devote
their time to inventing colour schemes calcu-
lated to reflect the personality of the owner of
the car.

Special orders have raised the standard of
the entire industry, so that at the recent New

152 WOMAN AS DECORATION

York automobile show, many effects in cars
were offered to the public. Besides the putty-
coloured roadster lined with scarlet, black lined
with russet yellow, orange lined with black;
there were limousines painted a delicate custard
colour, with top and rim of wheels, chassis and
lamps of the same Nattier Blue as the velvet
lining, cushions and curtains. A beautiful and
luxurious background and how easy to be deco-
rative against it to one who knows how!

Another popular colour scheme was a mauve
body with top of canopy and rims of wheels
white, the entire lining of mauve, like the body.
Imagine your woman with a decorative instinct
in this car. So obvious an opportunity would
never escape her, and one can see the vision on
a Summer day, as she appears in simple white,
softest blue or pale pink, or better still, treating
herself as a quaint nosegay of blush roses, for-
get-me-nots, lilies and mignonette, with her
chiffons and silks or sheerest of lawns.

"But how about me?" one hears from the
girl of the open car — a racer perhaps, which she
drives herself. You are easiest of all, we assure
you; to begin with, your car being a racer, is

DECORATIVE IN HER MOTOR 153

painted and lined with durable dark colours —
battleship grey, dust colour, or some shade
which does not show dirt and wear. The con-
sequence is, you will be decorative in any of the
smart coats, close hats and scarfs in brilliant and
lovely hues, — silk or wool.

CHAPTER XIV

HOW TO GO ABOUT PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME

ERE is a plan to follow when getting
up a period costume:

We will assume that you wish to
wear a Spanish dress of the time of Philip IV
(early seventeenth century). The first thing
to give your attention to is the station in life
which you propose to represent. Granted that
you decide on a court costume, one of those
made so familiar by the paintings of the great
Velasquez, let your first step be to get a definite
impression of the outline of such a costume. Go
to art galleries and look at pictures, go to libra-
ries and ask for books on costumes, with plates.

You will observe that under the head of crino-
line and hoop-skirt periods, there are a variety
of outlines, markedly different. The slope of
the hip line and the outline of the skirt is the
infallible hall-mark of each of these periods.

Let it be remembered that the outline of a
154

PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME 155

woman includes hair, combs, head-dress, ear-
rings, treatment of neck, shoulders, arms, bust
and hips ; line to the ankles and shoes ; also fan,
handkerchief or any other article, which if a
silhouette were made, would appear. The next
step is to ascertain what materials were available
at the time your costume was worn and what in
vogue. Were velvets, satins or silks worn, or all
three? Were materials flowered, striped, or
plain? If striped, horizontal or perpendicular?
For these points turn again to your art gallery,
costume plates, or the best of historical novels.
If you are unable to resort to the sources sug-
gested, two courses lie open to you. Put the
matter into the hands of an expert; there are
many to be approached through the columns of
first-class periodicals or newspapers (we do not
refer to the ordinary dealer in costumes or the-
atre accessories) ; or make the effort to consult
some authority, in person or by letter: an actor,
historian or librarian. It is amazing how near
at hand help often is, if we only make our needs
known. If the reader is young and busy, danc-
ing and skating and sleeping, and complains,
in her winsome way, that " days are too short

156 WOMAN AS DECORATION

for such work," we would remind her that as
already stated, to carefully study the details of
any costume, of any period, means that the mind
and the eye are being trained to discriminate
between the essentials and non-essentials of
woman's costume in every-day life. The same
young beauty may be interested to know that
at the beginning of Geraldine Farrar's career
the writer, visiting with her, an exhibition of
pictures in Munich, was amazed at the then,
very young girl's familiarity with the manner
of artists — ancient and modern, — and exclaimed
" I did not know you were so fond of pictures."
" It's not that," Farrar said, " I get my costumes
from them, and a great many of my poses."

Outline and material being decided, give your
attention to the character of the background
against which you are to appear. If it is a ball-
room, and the occasion a costume-ball, is it done
in light or dark colours, and what is the pre-
vailing tone? See to it that you settle on a col-
our which will be either a harmonious note or an
agreeable, hence impressive contrast, against the
prevailing background. If you are to wear the
costume on a stage or as a living picture against

PLATE XVII

157

Portrait of Mrs. Philip M. Lydig, patron of the arts,
exhibited in New York at Duveen Galleries during Winter
of 1916-1917 with the Zuloaga pictures. The exhibition
was arranged by Mrs. Lydig.

This portrait has been chosen to illustrate two points:
that a distinguished decorative quality is dependent upon
line which has primarily to do with form of one's own
physique (and not alone the cut of the costume) ; and
the great value of knowing one's own type.

Mrs. Lydig has been transferred to the canvas by the
clever technique of one of the greatest modern painters,
Ignacio Zuloaga, an artistic descendant of Velasquez. The
delightful movement is that of the subject, in this case
kept alive through its subtle translation into terms of art.

158

A Portrait of Mrs. Philip
M. Lydig By I. Zuloago

PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME 161

a background arranged with special reference
to you, and where you are the central figure, be
more subtle and combine colours, if you will;
go in for interesting detail, provided always
that you make these details have meaning. For
example, if it be trimming, pure and simple,
be sure that it be applied as during your chosen
period. Trimming can be used so as to increase
effectiveness of a costume by accentuating its
distinctive features, and it can be misused so as
to pervert your period, whether that be the age
of Cleopatra, or the Winter of 1917. Details,
such as lace, jewels, head-dresses, fans, snuff-
boxes, work baskets and flowers must be abso-
lutely of the period, or not at all. A few details,
even one stunning jewel, if correct, will be far
more convincing than any number of make-
shifts, no matter how attractive in themselves.
Paintings, plates and history come to our rescue
here. If you think it dry work, try it. The
chances are all in favour of your emerging from
your search spell-bound by the vistas opened up
to you; the sudden meaning acquired by many
inanimate things, and a new pleasure added to
all observations.

1 62 WOMAN AS DECORATION

That Spanish comb of great-great-grand-
mother's is really a treasure now. The antique
Spanish plaque you own, found to be Moorish
lustre, and out of the attic it comes! A Spanish
miracle cross proves the spiritual superstition
of the race, so back to the junk-shop you go,
hoping to acquire the one that was proffered.

Yes, Carmen should wear a long skirt when
she dances, Spanish pictures show them; and
so on.

The collecting of materials and all accessories
to a costume, puts one in touch, not only with the
dress, but the life of the period, and the customs
of the times. Once steeped in the tradition of
Spanish art and artists, how quick the connois-
seur is to recognize Spanish influence on th<
art of Holland, France and England. Lead youi
expert in costumes of nations into talking of his-
tory and we promise you pictures of dynastii
and lands that few historical writers can match.
This man or woman has extracted from th<
things people wore the story of where the]
wore them, and when, and how; for the lovei
of colour we commend this method of studyin-
history.

PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME 163

If any one of our readers is casting about for
a hobby and craves one with inexhaustible pos-
sibilities, we would advise: try collecting data
on periods in dress, as shown in the art treasures
of the world, for of this there is verily no end.

We warn the novice in advance that each
detail of woman's dress has for one in pursuit
of such data the allure of the siren.

There is the pictured story of head-dresses
and hats, and how the hair is worn, from Cleo-
patra's time till ours ; the evolution of a woman's
sleeve, its ups and downs and ins and outs as
shown in art; the separation of the waist from
skirt, and ever changing line of both; the neck
of woman's gown so variously cut and trimmed
and how the necklace changed likewise to ac-
cord; the passing of the sandals of the Greeks
into the poetic glove-fitting slippers of to-day.

One sets out gaily to study costumes, full of
the courage of ignorance, the joyous optimism
of an enthusiast, because it is amusing and looks
so simple with all the material, — old and new,
lying about one.

Ah, that is the pitfall — the very abundance of
those plates in wondrous books, old coloured

1 64 WOMAN AS DECORATION

prints and portraits of the past. To some stu-
dents this kaleidoscopic vision of period cos-
tumes never falls into definite lines and colour;
or if the types are clear, what they come from or
merge into remains obscure.

For the eager beginner we have tried to evolve
out of the whole mass of data a system of origin
and development as definite as the anatomy of
the human body, a framework on which to
build. If our historical outline be clear enough
to impress the mental vision as indelibly as those
primary maps of the earth did, then we feel
persuaded, the textless books of wonderful and
beguiling costume plates will serve their end
as never before. We humbly offer what we
hope may prove a key to the rich store-
house.

Simplicity, and pure line, were lost sight of
when overabundance dulled the senses of the
world. We could prove this, for art shows that
the costuming of woman developed slowly, pre-
serving, as did furniture, the same classic lines
and general characteristics until the fifteenth
century, the end of the Middle Ages.

With the opening up of trade channels and

PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME 165

the possibilities of easy and quick communica-
tion between countries we find, as we did in the
case of furniture, periods of fashion developing
without nationality. Nations declared them-
selves in the artistry of workmanship, as to-day,
and in the modification and exaggeration of an
essential detail, resulting from national or in-
dividual temperament.

If you ask, " Where do fashions come f rom, —
why ' periods '? " we would answer that in the
last analysis one would probably find in the con-
ception of every fashion some artist's brain. If
the period is a good one, then it proves that fate
allowed the artist to be true to his muse. If
the fashion is a bad one the artist may have had
to adapt his lines and colour or detail to hide a
royal deformity, or to cater to the whim of
some wilful beauty ignorant of our art, but rich
and in the public eye.

A fashion if started is a demon or a god let
loose. As we have said, there is an interesting
point to be observed in looking at woman as
decoration; whether the medium be fresco, bas
relief, sculpture, mosaic, stained glass or paint-
ing, the decorative line, shown in costumes,

1 66 WOMAN AS DECORATION

presents the same recurrent types that we found
when studying the history of furniture.

For our present purposes it is expedient to
confine ourselves to the observation of that ex-
pression of civilisation which had root, so far
as we know, in Assyria and Egypt, and spread
like a branching vine through Byzantium,
Greece, Rome, Gothic Europe and Europe of
the Renaissance, on through the seventeenth,
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, down to
the present time.

Costumes for woman and man are supposed
to have had their origin in a cord tied about
the waist, from which was suspended crude im-
plements (used for the slaying of beasts for
food, and in self-defence) ; trophies of war, such
as teeth, scalps, etc. The trophies suspended,
partly concealed the body and were for decora-
tion, as was tattooing of the skin. Clothes were
not the result of modesty ; modesty followed the
partial covering of the human body. Modesty,
or shame, was the emotion which developed
when man, accustomed to decoration — trophies
or tattooing — was deprived of all or part of such
covering. What parts of the body require con-

PLATE XVIII

167

Mrs. Langtry (Lady de Bathe) who has been one of
the greatest beauties of modern times and a marked ex-
ample of a woman who has always understood her own
type, to costume it.

She agrees that this photograph of her, in an evening
wrap, illustrates a point she has always laid emphasis on:
that a garment which has good lines — in which one is a
picture — continues wearable even when not the dernier cri
of fashion.

This wrap was worn by Mrs. Langtry about two years
ago.

168

Mrs. Langtry (Lady
Bathe) in Evening Wrap

de

PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME 171

cealment, is purely a matter of the customs pre-
vailing with a race or tribe, at a certain time,
and under certain conditions.

This is a theme, the detailed development of
which lies outside the purpose of our book. It
has delightful possibilities, however, if the plen-
tiful data on the subject, given in scientific books,
were to be condensed and simplified.

CHAPTER XV

I. THE STORY OF PERIOD COSTUMES
A Resume

UR present modes of dress (aside
from the variations imposed by
fashion) are the resultant of all
the fashions of the last 2000 years."

W. G. SUMNER in Folkways.

The earliest Egytian frescoes, invaluable pre-
historic data, show us woman as she was cos-
tumed, housed and occupied when the painting
was done. On those age-old walls she appears
as man's companion, his teacher, plaything,
slave, and ruler; — in whatever role the fates
decreed. The same frescoed walls have pictured
records of how Egypt tilled the soil, built
houses, worked in metals, pottery and sculpture.
Woman is seen beside her man, who slays the

beasts, at times from boats propelled through

172

STORY OF PERIOD COSTUMES 173

reeded jungles; and hers is always that rigid
outline, those long, quiet eyes depicted in pro-
file, with massive head-dress, and strange up-
standing ornaments, abnormally curled wig,
and close, straight garments to the feet (or none
at all), heavy collar, wristbands and anklets of
precious metals with gems inset, or chased in
strange designs. About her, the calm myste-
rious poise and childlike acquiescence of those
who know themselves to be the puppets of the
gods. In this naivete lies one of the great
charms of Egyptian art.

As sculptured caryatide, we see woman of
Egypt clad in transparent sheath-like skirt,
nude above the waist, with the usual extinguish-
ing head-dress and heavy collar, bracelets and
anklets. We see her as woman, mute, law-abid-
ing, supporting the edifice; woman with steady
gaze and silent lips ; one wonders what was in
the mind of that lotus eater of the Nile who
carved his dream in stone.

Those would reproduce Egyptian colour
schemes for costumes, house or stage settings,
would do well to consult the book of Egyptian
designs, brought out in 1878 by the Ecole des

174 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Beaux Arts, Paris, and available in the large
libraries.

On the walls of the Necropolis of Memphis,
Thi and his wife (Fifth Dynasty) appear in a
delightful hunting scene. The man in the prow
of his boat is about to spear an enormous beast,
while his wife, seated in the bottom, wraps her
arm about his leg!

Among the earliest portraits of an Egyptian
woman completely clothed, is that of Queen
Taia, wife of Amenophis, Eighteenth Dynasty,
who wears a striped gown with sleeves of the
kimono type and a ribbon tied around her waist,
the usual ornamental collar and bracelets
of gold, and an elaborate head-dress with
deep blue curtain, extending to the waist,
behind.

Full of illuminating suggestions is an example
of Woman in Egyptian decoration, to be seen
as a fresco in the Necropolis of Thebes. It
shows the governess of a young prince (Eight-
eenth Dynasty) holding the child on her lap.
The feet of the little prince rest on a stool, sup-
ported by nine crouching human beings — men;
each has a collar about his neck, to which a leash

STORY OF PERIOD COSTUMES 175

is attached, and all nine leashes are held in the
hands of the child!

The illustrations of the Egyptian funeral
papyrus, The Book of the Dead, show woman
in the role of wife and companion. It is the
story of a high-born Egyptian woman, Tutu,
wife of Ani, Royal Scribe and Scribe of the
Sacred Revenue of all the gods of Thebes.
Tutu, the long-eyed Egyptian woman, young
and straight, with raven hair and active form,
a Kemait of Amon, which means she belonged
to the religious chapter or congregation of the
great god of Thebes. She was what might be
described as lady-in-waiting or honorary priest-
ess, to the god Amon. She, too, wears the
typical Egyptian head-dress and straight, long
white gown, hanging in close folds to her feet.
One vignette shows Tutu with arm about her
husband's leg. This seems to have been a naive
Egyptian way of expressing that eternal woman-
liness, that tender care for those beloved, that
quality inseparable from woman if worthy the
name, and by reason of which with man, her
mate, she has run the gamut of human experi-
ence, meeting the demands of her time. There

176 WOMAN AS DECORATION

is no dodging the issue, woman's story recorded
in art, shows that she has always responded to
Fate's call; followed, led, ruled, been ruled,
amused, instructed, sent her men into battle as
Spartan mothers did to return with honour or
on their shields, and when Fate so decreed, led
them to battle, like Joan of Arc.

II. EGYPT AND ASSYRIA

In Egypt and Assyria the lines of the torso
were kept straight, with no contracting of body
at waist line. Woman was clad in a straight
sheet-like garment, extending from waist to feet
with only metal ornaments above; necklace,
bracelets and armlets; or a straight dress from
neck to meet the heavy anklets. Sandals were
worn on the feet. The head was encased in an
abnormally curled wig, with pendent ringlets,
and the whole clasped by a massive head-dress,
following the contour of head and having as
part of it, a curtain or veil, reaching down be-
hind, across shoulders and approaching waist
line. The Sphinx wears a characteristic Egyp-
tian head-dress.

PLATE XIX

177

Mrs. Conde Nast, artist and patron of the arts, noted
for her understanding of her own type and the successful
costuming of it.

Mrs. Nast was Miss Clarisse Coudert. Her French
blood accounts, in part, for her innate feeling for line and
colour. It is largely due to the keen interest and active
services of Mrs. Nast that Vogue and Vanity Fair have
become the popular mirrors and prophetic crystal balls of
fashion for the American woman.

Mrs. Nast is here shown in street costume. The photo-
graph is by Baron de Meyer, who has made a distinguished
art of photography.

We are here shown the value of a carefully considered
outline which is sharply registered on the background by
posing figure against the light, a method for suppressing
all details not effecting the outline.

178

Photograph by Baron de Meyer

Mrs. Conde Nast in Street
Dress

EGYPT, BYZANTIUM, GREECE, ROME 181

III. EGYPT, BYZANTIUM, GREECE AND ROME

During the periods antedating Christ, when
the Roman empire was all-powerful, the women
of Egypt, Byzantium, Greece and Rome, wore
gilded wigs (see Plate I, Frontispiece), ar-
ranged in Psyche knots, and banded; sandals
on their feet, and a one-piece garment, confined
at the waist by a girdle, which fell in close
folds to the feet, a style to develop later into
the classic Greek.

The Greek garment consisted of a great square
of white linen, draped in the deft manner of the
East, to adapt it to the human form, at once
concealing and disclosing the body to a degree
of perfection never since attained. There were
undraped Greek garments left to hang in close,
clinging folds, even in the classic period. It is
this undraped and finely-pleated robe (see
Plate XXI) hanging close to the figure, and the
two-piece garment (see Plate IV) with its
short tunic of the same material, extending just
below the waist line in front, and drooping in a
cascade of ripples at the sides, as low as the

1 82 WOMAN AS DECORATION

knees, that Fortuny (Paris) has reproduced in
his tea gowns.

An Englishwoman told us recently that her
great-great-grandmother used to describe how
she and others of her time (Empire Period)
wet their clothes to make them cling to their
forms, a la Grecque!

The classic Greek costume was often a sleeve-
less garment, falling in folds, and when confined
at waist line with cord the upper part bloused
over it; the material was draped so as to leave
the arms free, the folds being held in place by
ornamental clasps upon the shoulders. The fit-
ting was practically unaided by cutting; squares
or straight lengths of linen being adjusted to
the human form by clever manipulation. The
adjusting of these folds, as we have said, de-
veloped into an art.

The use of large squares or shawls of brill-
iantly dyed linen, wool and later silk, is con-
spicuous in all the examples showing woman
as decoration.

The long Gothic cape succeeds it, that enve-
loping circular garment, with and without the
hood, and clasped at the throat, in which the

EGYPT, BYZANTIUM, GREECE, ROME 183

Mother of God is invariably depicted. Her
cape is the celestial royal blue.

The stained silk gauzes, popular with Greek
dancers, were made into garments following the
same classic lines, and so were the gymnasium
costumes of the young girls of Greece. Isadora
Duncan reproduces the latter in many of her
dances.

In the chapter entitled " The Story of Tex-
tiles " in The Art of Interior Decoration, we
have given a resume of this branch of our sub-
ject.

The type of costume worn by woman through-
out the entire Roman Empire during its most
glorious period, was classic Greek, not only in
general outline, but in detail. Note that the col-
larless neck was cut round and a trifle low; the
lines of gown were long and followed each
other; the trimming followed the hem of neck
and sleeves and skirt; the hair, while artificially
curled and sometimes intertwined with pearls
and other gems, after being gilded, was so ar-
ranged as to show the contour of the head, then
gathered into a Psyche knot. Gold bands, plain
or jewelled, clasped and held the hair in place.

1 84 WOMAN AS DECORATION

In the Gold Room of the Metropolitan Mu-
seum; in noted collections in Europe; in por-
traits and costume plates, one sees that the ear-
rings worn at that period were great heavy discs,
or half discs, of gold ; large gold flowers, in the
Etruscan style ; large rings with groups of pen-
dants,— usually three on each ring, and the drop
earrings so much in vogue to-day.

Necklaces were broad, like collars, round and
made of hand-wrought links and beads, with
pendants. These filled in the neck of the dress
and were evidently regarded as a necessary part
of the costume.

The simple cord which confined the Greek
woman's draperies at the waist, in Egypt and
Byzantium, became a sash; a broad strip of ma-
terial which was passed across the front of body
at the waist, crossed behind and then brought
tight over the hips to tie in front, low down, the
ends hanging square to knees or below.

In Egypt a shoulder cape, with kerchief
effect in front, broadened behind to a square,
and reached to the waist line.

We would call attention to the fact that when
the classic type of furniture and costume were

EGYPT, BYZANTIUM, GREECE, ROME 185

revived by Napoleon I and the Empress Jose-
phine, it was the Egyptian version, as well as
the Greek. One sees Egyptian and Etruscan
styles in the straight, narrow garment of the
First Empire reaching to ankles, with parallel
rows of trimming at the bottom of skirt.

The Empire style of parted hair, with cas-
cade of curls each side, riotous curling locks
outlining face, with one or two ringlets brought
in front of ears, and the Psyche knot (which
later in Victorian days lent itself to caricature,
in a feather-duster effect at crown of head),
were inspired by those curled and gilded crea-
tions such as Thais wore.

Hats, as we use the term to-day, were worn
by the ancients. Some will remember the Greek
hat Sibyl Sanderson wore with her classic robes
when she sang Massenet's " Phedre," in Paris.
It was Chinese in type. One sees this type of
hat on Tanagra Statuettes in our museums.

Apropos of hats, designers to-day are con-
stantly resurrecting models found in museums,
and some of us recognise the lines and details
of ancient head-dresses in hats turned out by our
most up-to-date milliners.

1 86 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Parasols and umbrellas were also used by
Assyrians and Greeks. Sandals which only cov-
ered the soles of the feet were the usual foot
wear, but Greeks and Etruscans are shown i
art as wearing also moccasin-like boots and
shoes laced up the front.

Of course, the strapped slippers of the Em-
pire were a version of classic sandals.

As we have said, the Greek gown and toga
are found wherever the Roman Empire reached.
The women of what are now France and Eng-
land clothed themselves at that time in the same
manner as the cultured class of Rome. Nat-
urally the Germanic branch which broke from
the parent stem, and drifted northward to strike
root in unbroken forests, bordering on untried
seas, wore skins and crudely woven gar-
ments, few and strongly made, but often pic-
turesque.

Though but slightly reminiscent of the tra-
ditional costume, we know that the women of
the third and fourth centuries wore a short,
one-piece garment, with large earrings, heavy
metal armlets above the elbow and at wrists.
The chain about the waist, from which hung a

:;

PLATE XX

187

Mrs. Conde Nast in an evening gown. Here again is
a costume the beauty of which evades the dictum of fashion
in the narrow sense of the term.

This picture has the distinction of a well-posed and
finely executed old master and because possessing beauty
of a traditional sort will continue to give pleasure long
after the costume has perished.

188

Mrs. Conde Nast in Even-
ing Dress

EGYPT, BYZANTIUM, GREECE, ROME 191

knife, for protection and domestic purposes, is
descendent from the savage's cord and ancestor
to that lovely bauble, the chatelaine of later
days, with its attached fan, snuff-box and jew-
elled watch.

CHAPTER XVI

DEVELOPMENT OF GOTHIC COSTUME

[O the Romans, all who were not of
Rome and her Empire, were foreign-
ers,— outsiders, people with a strange
viewpoint, so they were given a name to indicate
this; they were called "barbarians."

Conspicuous among those tribes of barbarians,
moved by human lust for gain to descend upon
the Roman Empire and eventually bring about
its fall, was the tribe of Goths, and in the course
of centuries " Gothic " has become a generic
term, implying that which is not Roman. We
speak of Gothic architecture, Gothic art, Gothic
costumes, when we mean, strictly speaking, the
characteristic architecture, art and costuming
of the late Middle Ages (twelfth to fifteenth
centuries).

But we find the so-called Gothic outline in
costume as early as the fourth century. Over

the undraped, one-piece robe of classic type, a

192

GOTHIC COSTUME 193

second garment is now worn, cut with straight
lines. It usually fastens behind, and the un-
corseted figure is outlined. The neck is still col-
larless and cut round, the space filled in with a
necklace. The sleeves of the tunic appear to be
the logical evolution of the folds of the toga,
which fall over the arms when bent. They
cling to the outline of the shoulder, broadening
at the hand into what is called " angel " sleeves ;
in art, the traditional angel wears them.

Roman-Christian women wore their hair
parted, no Psyche knot, and interesting, large
earrings. The gowns were not draped, but were
in one piece and with no fulness. A tunic, fol-
lowing lines of the form, reached below the
knees and was belted. This garment was
trimmed with bands from shoulders to hem of
tunic and kept the same width throughout, if
narrow; but if wide, the bands broadened to
the hem. The neck continued to be cut round,
and filled in with a necklace.

The cape, fastening on shoulders or chest,
remnant of the Greek toga, was worn, and veils
of various materials were the usual head cov-
erings.

194 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Between the fifth and tenth centuries there
are examples of the overgarment or tunic hav-
ing a broad stomacher of some contrasting ma-
terial, held in place with a cord, which is tied
behind, brought around to the front, knotted
and allowed to hang to bottom of skirt.

Byzantine art between 800 and 1000 A. D.
still shows women wearing tunics, but hanging
straight from neck to hem of skirt, fastened on
shoulders and opened at sides to show gown be-
neath ; close sleeves with trimming at the wrists,
often large, roughly cut jewels forming a border
on tunic, and the hair worn in long braids on
each side of the face; the coil of hair, which was
wrapped with pearls or other beads, was parted
and used to frame the face.

This fashion was carried to excess by the
Franks. We see some of their women between
400 and 600 A. D. wearing these heavy, rope-
like braids to the hem of the skirt in front.

In the fourteenth century the Gothic cos-
tume was perhaps at its most beautiful stage.
The long robe, the upper part following the
lines of the figure, with long close sleeves half
covering hands, or flowing sleeves, that touched

GOTHIC COSTUME 195

the floor. About the waist was worn a silk cord
or jewelled girdle, finely wrought and swung
low on hips; from the end of which was sus-
pended the money bag, fan and keys.

The girdle begins now to play an important
part as decoration. This theme, the evolution
of the girdle, may be indefinitely enlarged upon
but we must not dwell upon it here.

In some cases we see that the tunic opened in
the front and that the large, square, shawl-like
outer garment of Greece now became the long
circular cape, clasped on the chest (one or two
clasps), made so familiar by the art of the
Gothic and Renaissance periods. Turn to the
illuminated manuscrips of those periods, to
paintings, on wood, frescoes, stained glass,
stucco, carved wood, and stone, and you will
find the Mother of God invariably costumed
in the simple one-piece robe and circular clasped
cape.

In most of the sacred art of the tenth,
eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, the Virgin and other saints
are depicted in the current costume of woman.
The Virgin was the most frequent subject of

196 WOMAN AS DECORATION

artists in every medium, during the ages when
the Church dominated the State in Europe.

The refurnishing of the Virgin's wardrobe
has long been and still is, a pious task and one
clamoured for by adherents to the churches in
which the Virgin's image is displayed to wor-
shippers. We regret to say, for aesthetic reasons,
that there is no effort made on the part of
modern devotees to perpetuate the beautiful
mediaeval type of costume.

In some old paintings which come under the
head of Folk Art, the Holy Family appears in
national costume. The writer recalls a bit of
eighteenth century painting, showing St. Anne
holding the Virgin as child. St. Anne wears
the bizarre fete attire of a Spanish peasant; a
gigantic head-dress and veil, large earrings,
wide stiff skirts, showing gay flowers on a back-
ground of gold. The skirt is rather short, to
display wide trousers below it. Her sleeves
have filmy frills of deep white lace executed
with skill.

To return to the girdle, as we have said, it
slipped from its position at the waist line, when
it confined the classic folds, and was allowed

PLATE XXI

197

Mrs. Conde Nast in a garden costume. She wears a
sun-hat and carries a flower-basket, which are decorative as
well as useful.

We have chosen this photograph as an example of a
costume made exquisitely artistic by being kept simple in
line and free from an excess of trimming.

This costume is so decorative that it gives distinction
and interest to the least pretentious of gardens.

198

Mrs. Conde Nast in Gar-
den Costume

GOTHIC COSTUME 201

hang loosely about the hips, clasped low in
front. From this clasp a chain extended, to
which were attached the housewife's keys or
purse and the dame of fashion's fan. In fact
one can tell, to a certain extent, the woman's
class and period by carefully inspecting her
chatelaine.

The absence of waist line, and the long,
straight effect produced in the body of gown by
wearing the girdle swung about the hips, gives
it the so-called Moyen Age silhouette, revived
by the fashion of to-day.

In the thirteenth century the round collar-
less neck, low enough to admit a necklace of
links or beads, persists. A new note is the outer
sleeve laced across an inner sleeve of white.

Let us remember that the costume of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was dis-
tinguished by a quality of beautiful, sweeping
line, massed colour, detail with raison d'etre,
which produced dignity with graceful move-
ment, found nowhere to-day, unless it be on the
Wagnerian stage or in the boudoir of a woman
who still takes time, in our age of hurry, to wear
her negligee beautifully.

202 WOMAN AS DECORATION

In the fourteenth century the round neck
continued, but one sees low necks too, which left
the shoulders exposed (our 1830 style).

Another new note is the tunic grown into a
garment reaching to the feet, a one-piece " prin-
cess " gown, with belt or girdle. Sometimes a
Juliet cap was worn to merely cover the crown
of head, with hair parted and flowing, while on
matrons we see head coverings with sides turned
up, like ecclesiastical caps, and floating veils
falling to the waist.

Notice that through all the peiods that we
have named, which means until the fourteenth
century, the line of shoulder remains normal
and beautiful, sloping and melting into folds of
robe or line of sleeve. We see now for the first
time an inclination to tamper with the shoulder
line. An inoffensive scallop appears, — or some
other decoration, as cap to sleeve. No harm
done yet!

The fifteenth century shows another style,
a long sleeveless over-garment, reaching to the
floor, fastened on shoulders and swinging
loose, to show at sides the undergown. It
suggests a priest's robe. Here we discover

GOTHIC COSTUME 203

one more of the Moyen Age styles revived
to-day.

The fourteenth century gowns, with necks
cut out round, to admit a necklace with pend-
ants, are still popular. The gowns are long on
the ground, and the most beautiful of the char-
acteristic head-dresses — the long, pointed one,
with veil covering it, and floating down from
point of cap to hem of flowing skirt behind, con-
tinues the movement of costume — the long lines
which follow one another.

When correctly posed, this pointed head-dress
is a delight to the eye. We recently saw a photo-
graph of some fair young women in this type of
Mediaeval or Gothic costume worn by them at
a costume ball. Failing to realise that the pose
of any head-dress (this means hats as well) is
all-important, they had placed the quaint, long,
pointed caps on the very tops of their heads,
like fools' caps!

The angle at which this head-dress is worn is
half the battle.

The importance of every woman's cultivating
an eye for line cannot be overstated.

In the fifteenth century we first see puffs at

204 WOMAN AS DECORATION

the elbow, otherwise the outlines of gown are
the same. The garment in one piece, the body
of it outlining the form, its skirts sweeping the
ground ; a girdle about the hips, and long, close
or flowing sleeves, wide at the hem.

Despite the fourteenth century innovation of
necks cut low and off the shoulders (berated by
the Church), most necks in the fifteenth cen-
tury are still cut round at the throat, and the
necklace worn instead of collar. Some of the
gowns cut low off the shoulders are filled in
with a puffed tucker of muslin. The pointed
cap with a floating veil is still seen.

Notice that the restraint in line, colour and
detail, gradually disappears, with the abnormal
circulation of wealth, in those departments of
Church and State to which the current of ma-
terial things was diverted. We now see hu-
manity tricked out in rich attire and staggering
to its doom through general debaucheries.

Rich brocades, once from Damascus, are now
made in Venice; and so are wonderful satins,
velvets and silks, with jewels many and mas-
sive.

Sometimes a broad jewelled band crossed the

GOTHIC COSTUME 205

breast from shoulder diagonally to under arm,
at waist.

The development of the petticoat begins now.
At first we get only a glimpse of it, when our
lady of the pointed cap lifts her long skirts,
lined with another shade. It is of a rich con-
trasting colour and is gradually elaborated.

The waist -line, when indicated, is high.

A new note is the hair, with throat and neck
completely concealed by a white veil, a style
we associate with nuns and certain folk cos-
tumes. As fashion it had a passing vogue.

Originally, the habit of covering woman's
hair indicated modesty (an idea held among the
Folk), and the gradual shrinking of the dimen-
sions of her coif, records the progress of the
peasant woman's emancipation, in certain coun-
tries. This is especially conspicuous in Brit-
tany, as M. Anatol Le Braz, the eminent Breton
scholar, remarked recently to the writer.

Note the silk bag, quite modern, on the arm ;
also the jewelled line of chain hanging from
girdle down the middle of front, to hem of
skirt, — both for use and ornament.

To us of a practical era, a mysterious charm

206 WOMAN AS DECORATION

attaches to the long-pointed shoes worn at this
period.

In the fifteenth century, the marked division
of costume into waist and skirt begins, the waist
line more and more pinched in, the skirt
more and more full, the sleeves and neck more
elaborately trimmed, the head-dresses multi-
plied in size, elaborateness and variety. Tex-
tiles developed with wealth and ostenta-
tion.

In the sixteenth century the neck was usually
cut out and worn low on the shoulders, some-
times filled in, but we see also high necks ; necks
with small ruffs and necks with large ruffs; ruffs
turned down, forming stiff linen-cape collars,
trimmed with lace, close to the throat or flaring
from neck to show the throat.

The hair is parted and worn low in a snood,
or by young women, flowing. The ears are
covered with the hair.

The Virgin in Art

When writing of the Gothic period in The
Art of Interior Decoration, we have said ". . .
Gothic art proceeds from the Christian Church

PLATE XXII

207

Mrs. Conde Nast wearing one of the famous Fortuny
tea gowns.

This one has no tunic but is finely pleated, in the For-
tuny manner, and falls in long lines, closely following the
figure, to the floor.

Observe the decorative value of the long string of beads.

208

Mrs. Conde Nast in a For-
tuny Tea Gown

GOTHIC COSTUME 211

and stretches like a canopy over western Europe
during the late Middle Ages. It was in the
churches and monasteries that Christian Art,
driven from pillar to post by wars, was obliged
to take refuge, and there produced that mar-
vellous development known as the Gothic style,
of the Church, for the Church and by the
Church, perfected in countless Gothic cathe-
drals, crystallised glorias, lifting their manifold
spires to heaven; ethereal monuments of an in-
trepid Faith which gave material form to its
adoration, its fasting and prayer, in an unriv-
alled art. ..."

" Crystallised glorias " (hymns to the Virgin)
is as concise a defining of the nature and spirit
of this highest type of mediaeval art — perfected
in France — as we can find. Here we have de-
ified woman inspiring an art miraculously
decorative.

Chartres Cathedral and Rheims (before the
German invasion in 1914) with Mont Saint
Michel, are distinguished examples.

If the readers would put to the test our claim
that woman as decoration is a beguiling theme
worthy of days passed in the broad highways of

212 WOMAN AS DECORATION .

I

art, and many an hour in cross-roads and un-
beaten paths, we would recommend to them the
fascinations of a marvellous story-teller, one
who, knowing all there is to know of his subject,
has had the genius to weave the innumerable and
perplexing threads into a tapestry of words,
where the main ideas take their places in the
foreground, standing out clearly defined against
the deftly woven, intelligible but unobtruding
background. The author is Henry Adams, the
book, The Cathedrals of Mont St. Michel and
Chartres. He tells you in striking language,
how woman was translated into pure decoration
in the Middle Ages, woman as the Virgin
Mother of God, the manifestation of Deity
which took precedence over all others during
the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries;
and if you will follow him to the Chartres
Cathedral (particularly if you have been there
already), and will stand facing the great East
Window, where in stained glass of the ancient
jewelled sort, woman, as Mother of God, is en-
throned above all, he will tell you how, out of
the chaos of warring religious orders, the
priestly schools of Abelard, St. Francis of

GOTHIC COSTUME 213

Assisi and others, there emerged the form of
the Virgin.

To woman, as mother of God and man, the
instrument of reproduction, of tender care, of
motherhood, the disputatious, groping mind of
man agreed to bow, silenced and awed by the
mystery of her calling.

In view of the recent enrolling of woman-
hood in the stupendous business of the war now
waging in Europe, and the demands upon her to
help in arming her men or nursing back to life
the shattered remains of fair youth, which so
bravely went forth, the thought comes that
woman will play a large part in the art to arise
from the ashes of to-day. Woman as- woman
ready to supplement man, pouring into life's
caldron the best of herself, unstinted, unmeas-
ured; woman capable of serving beyond her
strength, rising to her greatest height, bending,
but not breaking to the end, if only assured
she is needed.

CHAPTER XVII

THE RENAISSANCE
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

|HE marked departure is necks cut
square, if low, and elaborate jewelled
chains draped from shoulders, out-
lining neck of gown and describing a festoon on
front of waist, which is soon to become inde-
pendent of skirt to develop on its own account.

As in the fifteenth century, when necks were
cut low off the shoulders, they were on occasions
filled in with tuckers.

The skirt now registers a new characteristic;
it parts at the waist line over a petticoat, and
the opening is decorated by the ornamental,
heavy chain which hangs from girdle to hem of
gown.

One sees the hair still worn coiled low in the
neck, concealing the ears and held in a snood
or iii Italy cut " Florentine " fashion with fringe

on brow.

214

THE RENAISSANCE 215

Observe How the wealth of the Roman Em-
pire, through its new trade channels opening
up with the East (the result of the crusades) led
to the importation of rich and many-coloured
Oriental stuffs; the same wealth ultimately es-
tablished looms in Italy for making silks and
velvets, to decorate man and his home. There
was no longer simplicity in line and colour
scheme; gorgeous apparel fills the frames of the
Renaissance and makes amusing reading for
those who consult old documents. The clothes
of man, like his over-ornate furniture, show a
debauched and vulgar taste. Instead of the
lines which follow one another, solid colours,
and trimmings kept to hem of neck and sleeve
and skirt, great designs, in satins and velvet bro-
cades, distort the lines and proportions of man
and woman.

The good Gothic lines lived on in the cos-
tumes of priests and nuns.

Jewelry ceased to be decoration with mean-
ing; lace and fringe, tassels and embroidery,
with colour combinations to rival the African
parrots, disfigured man and woman alike.

During November of 1916, New York was

216 WOMAN AS DECORATION

so fortunate as to see, at the American Art Gal-
leries, the great collection of late Gothic and
early Renaissance furniture and other art treas-
ures, brought together in the restored Davanzati
Palace of Florence, Italy. The collection was
sold at auction, and is now scattered. Of course
those who saw it in its natural setting in Flor-
ence, were most fortunate of all. But with some
knowledge and imagination, at the sight of
those wonderful things, — hand-made all of them,
— the most casual among those who crowded
the galleries for days, must have gleaned a vivid
impression of how woman of the Early Renais-
sance lived, — in her kitchen, dining-room, bed-
room and reception-rooms. They displayed her
cooking utensils, her chairs and tables, her silver,
glass and earthenware, her bed, linen, satin
damask, lace and drawn work; the cushions she
rested against; portraits in their gorgeous Flor-
entine frames, showing us how those early
Italians dressed; the colored terra cottas, un-
speakably beautiful presentments of the Virgin
and Child, moulded and painted by great artists
under that same exaltation of Faith which
brought into being the sister arts of the time,

PLATE XXIII

217

Mrs. Vernon Castle who set to-day's fashion in out-
line of costume and short hair for the young woman
of America. For this reason and because Mrs. Castle has
form to a superlative degree (correct carriage of the body)
and the clothes sense (knowledge of what she can wear
and how to wear it) we have selected her to illustrate
several types of costumes, characteristic of 1916 and 1917.

Another reason for asking Mrs. Castle to illustrate
our text is, that what Mrs. Castle's professional dancing
has done to develop and perfect her natural instinct for
line, the normal exercise of going about one's tasks and
diversions can do for any young woman, provided she
keep in mind correct carriage of body when in action or
repose. Here we see Mrs. Castle in ball costume.

218

Mrs. Fernon Castle in Ball
Costume

THE RENAISSANCE 221

imbuing them with something truly divine.
There is no disputing that quality which radi-
ates from the face of both the Mother and the
Child. One all but kneels before it. Their ex-
pression is not of this world.

That is woman as the Mother of God in art.
Woman as the mother of man, who looked on
these inspired works of art, lived for the most
part in small houses built of wood with thatched
roofs, unpaved streets, dirty interiors, which
were cleaned but once a week — on Saturdays!
The men of the aristocracy hunted and engaged
in commerce, and the general rank and file gave
themselves over to the gaining of money to in-
crease their power. It sounds not unlike New
York to-day.

Gradually the cities grew large and rich.
People changed from simple sober living to
elaborate and less temperate ways, and the great
families, with their proportionately increased
wealth gained through trade, built beautiful pal-
aces and built them well. The gorgeous colour-
ing of the frescoed walls shows Byzantine in-
fluence. In The Art of Interior Decoration we
have described at length the house furnishing

222 WOMAN AS DECORATION

of that time. Against this background moved
woman, man's mate; note her colour scheme
and then her role. (We quote from Jahn Rus-
coni in Les Arts, Paris, August, 1911.)

" Donna Francesca dei Albizzi's cloak of
black cloth ornamented on a yellow back-
ground with birds, parrots, butterflies, pink
and red roses, and a few other red and green
figures ; dragons, letters and trees in yellow and
black, and again other figures made of white
cloth with red and black stripes."

Extravagance ran high not only in dress,
but in everything, laws were made to regulate
the amount spent on all forms of entertain-
ment, even on funerals, and the cook who was
to prepare a wedding feast had to submit his
menu for approval to the city authorities.
More than this, only two hundred guests could
be asked to a wedding, and the number of
presents which the bride was allowed to re-
ceive was limited by law. But wealth and
fashion ran away with laws; the same old story.

As the tide of the Renaissance rose and
swept over Europe (the awakening began in
Italy), the woman of the gorgeous cloak and

THE RENAISSANCE 223

her contemporaries, according to tKe vivid de-
scription of the last quoted author, were " sub-
ject to their husbands' tyranny, not even know-
ing how to read in many cases, occupied with
their household duties, in which they were
assisted by rough and uncouth slaves, with no
other mission in life than to give birth to a
numerous posterity. . . . This life ruined
them, and their beauty quickly faded away;
no wonder, then, that they summoned art to
the aid of nature. The custom was so com-
mon and the art so perfect that even a painter
like Taddeo Gaddi acknowledged that the
Florentine women were the best painters in
the world! . . . Considering the mental
status of the women, it is easy to imagine to
what excesses they were given in the matter of
dress." The above assertions relate to the aver-
age woman, not the great exceptions.

The marriage coffers of woman of the Ren-
aissance in themselves give an idea of her
luxurious tastes. They were about six feet
long, three feet high, and two and a half feet
deep. Some had domed covers opening on
hinges — the whole was carved, gilded and

224 WOMAN AS DECORATION

painted, the background of reds and blues
throwing the gold into relief. Scenes taken
from mythology were done in what was known
as " pastille," composition work raised and
painted on a gold background. On one fif-
teenth century marriage coffer, Bacchus and
Ariadne were shown in their triumphal car
drawn by winged griffins, a young Bacchante
driving them on. Another coffer decorated in
the same manner had as decoration " The Rape
of Proserpine."

Women rocked their infants in sumptuous
carved and emblazoned walnut cradles, and
crimson satin damask covered their beds and
cushions. This blaze of gold and silver, crim-
son and blue we find as the wake of Byzantine
trade, via Constantinople, Venice, Rome, Flor-
ence on to France, Spain, Germany, Holland,
Flanders and England. Carved wood, crimson,
green and blue velvets, satin damask, tapestries,
gold and silver fringe and lace. Against all
this moved woman, costumed sumptuously.

Gradually the line of woman's (and man's)
neck is lost in a ruff, her sweeping locks,
instead of parted on her brow, entwined with

THE RENAISSANCE 225

pearls or other gems to frame her face and
make long lines down the length of her robe,
are huddled under grotesque head-dresses,
monstrous creations, rising and spreading until
they become caricatures, defying art.

In some sixteenth century Italian portraits
we see the ruff flaring from a neck cut out
square and low in front, then rising behind to
form a head covering.

The last half of the sixteenth century is
marked by gowns cut high in the neck with
a close collar, and the appearance of a
small ruff encircling the throat. This ruff
almost at once increased to absurd dimen-
sions.

The tightly laced long-pointed bodice now
appears, with and without padded hips. (The
superlative degree of this type is to be seen
in portraits by Velasquez (see Plate IX).

Long pointed toes to the shoes give way to
broad, square ones.

Another sixteenth century departure is the
absurdly small hat, placed as if by the wind,
at a careless angle on the hair, which is curled
and piled high.

226 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Also we see hats of normal size with many
plumes, on both men and women.

Notice the sleeves: some are still flowing,
with tight undersleeves, others slashed to show
full white sleeve beneath. But most important
of all is that the general license, moral and ar-
tistic, lays its ruthless hand on woman's beau-
tiful, sweeping shoulder line and distorts it.
Anne of Cleves, or the progressive artist who
painted her, shows in a portrait the Queen's
flowing sleeves with mediaeval lines, clasped
by a broad band between elbow and shoulder^
and then pushed up until the sleeve forms an
ugly puff. A monstrous fashion, this, and one
soon to appear in a thousand mad forms. Its
first vicious departure is that small puffy, sense-
lessly insinuated line between arm-hole and top
of sleeve in garments for men as well as women.

Skirts button from point of basque to feet
just before we see them, in the seventeenth
century, parting down the front and separating
to show a petticoat. In Queen Elizabeth's
time the acme of this style was reached by
Spanish women as we see in Velasquez's por-
traits. Gradually the overskirt is looped back,

PLATE XXIV

227

Mrs. Vernon Castle in Winter afternoon costume, one
which is so suited to her type and at the same time con-
servative as to outline and detail, that it would have charm
whether in style or not.

228

Victor Georg— Chicago

Mrs. Vernon Castle in Af-
ternoon Costume — Winter

THE RENAISSANCE 231

(at first only a few inches), and tied with
narrow ribbons.

The second quarter of the seventeenth cen-
tury shows the waist line drawn in and bodice
with skirts a few inches in depth. These
skirts are the hall-mark of a basque.

Very short, full coats flaring from under
arms now appear.

After the skirt has been pushed back and
held with ribbons, we find gradually all ful-
ness of upper skirt pushed to hips to form
paniers, and across the back to form a bustle
effect, until we have the Marie Antoinette
type, late eighteenth century. Far more grace-
ful and seduisant than the costume of Queen
Elizabeth's time.

The figures presented by Marie Antoinette
and her court, powdered wigs and patches,
paniers and enormous hats, surmounting the
horsehair erections, heavy with powder and
grease, lace, ribbon flowers and jewels, are
quaint, delightful and diverting, but not to be
compared with the Greek or mediaeval lines
in woman's costume.

Extremely extended skirts gave way to an

23 2 WOMAN AS DECORATION

interlude of full skirts, but flowing lines in the
eighteenth century English portraits.

The Directoire reaction towards simplicity
was influenced by English fashion.

Empire formality under classic influence
came next. Then Victorian hoops which were
succeeded by the Victorian bustles, pantalets,
black velvet at throat and wrists, and lockets.

CHAPTER XVIII

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

eighteenth century is unique by
reason of scientific discoveries, me-
chanical inventions and chemical
achievements, coupled with the gigantic po-
litical upheaval of the French Revolution.

It is unique, distinguished and enormously
fruitful. For example, the modern frenzy for
chintz, which has made our homes burst into
bloom in endless variety, had its origin in the
eighteenth century looms at Jouy, near Ver-
sailles, under the direction of Oberkampf.

Before 1760 silks and velvets decorated man
and his home. Royal patronage co-operating
with the influence of such great decorators as
Percier and Fontaine gave the creating of beau-
tiful stuffs to the silk factories of Lyons.

Printed linens and painted wall papers ap-
peared in France simultaneously, and for the
same reason. The Revolution set mass-taste

233

234 WOMAN AS DECORATION

(which is often stronger than individual in-
clination), toward unostentatious, inexpensive
materials for house furnishing and wearing
apparel.

The Revolution had driven out royalty and
the high aristocracy who, with changed names
lived in seclusion. Society, therefore, to meet
the mass-desire, was driven to simple ways
of living. Men gave up their silks and velvets
and frills, lace and jewels for cloth, linen, and
sombre neck-cloths. The women did the same;
they wore muslin gowns and their own hair,
and went to great length in the affectation of
simplicity and patriotic fervour.

We hear that, apropos of America having at
this moment entered the great struggle with
the Central Powers, simplicity is decreed as
smart for the coming season, and that those
who costume themselves extravagantly, furnish
their homes ostentatiously or allow their tables
to be lavish, will be frowned upon as bad
form and unpatriotic.

These reactions are inevitable, and come
about with the regularity of tides in this world
of perpetual repetition.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 235

The belles of the Directorate shook their
heads and bobbed their pretty locks at the
artificiality Marie Antoinette et cie had prac-
tised. I fear they called it sinful art to deftly
place a patch upon the face, or make a head-
dress in the image of a man-of-war.

Mme. de StaeFs familiar head-dress, twisted
and wrapped around her head a la Turque, is
said to have had its origin in the improvisation
of the court hairdresser. Desperately groping
for another version of the top-heavy erection,
to humour the lovely queen, he seized upon a
piece of fine lace and muslin hanging on a
chair at hand, and twisting it, wrapped the
thing about the towering wig. As it happened,
the chiffon was my lady's chemise!

We begin the eighteenth century with a full
petticoat, trimmed with rows of ruffles or
bands; an overskirt looped back into paniers
to form the bustle effect; the natural hair pow-
dered; and head-dress of lace, standing out
stiffly in front and drooping in a curtain behind.

It was not until the whim of Marie An-
toinette decreed it so, that the enormous pow-
dered wigs appeared.

236 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Viennese temperament alone accounts for the
moods of this lovely tragic queen, who played
at making butter, in a cap and apron, over
simple muslin frocks, but outdid her artificial
age in love of artifice (not Art) in dress.

This gay and dainty puppet of relentless Fate
propelled by varying moods must needs lose
her lovely head at last, as symbol of her time.

PLATE XXV

237

Mrs. Vernon Castle in a summer afternoon costume
appropriate for city or country and so adapted to the
wearer's type that she is a picture, whether in action;
seated on her own porch; having tea at the country club;
or in the Winter sun-parlour.

238

Mrs. Vernon Castle in Af-
ternoon Costume — Summer

CHAPTER XIX

WOMAN IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

JHE first seventy years of the nine-
teenth century seem to us of 1917
absolutely incredible in regard to
dress. How our great-great-grandmothers ever
got about on foot, in a carriage or stage-coach,
moved in a crowd or even sat in any measure
of serenity at home, is a mystery to us of an
age when comfort, convenience, fitness and chic
have at last come to terms. For a vivid pic-
ture of how our American society looked be-
tween 1800 and 1870, read Miss Elizabeth
McClellan's Historic Dress in America, pub-
lished in 1910 by George W. Jacobs & Co., of
Philadelphia. The book is fascinating and it
not only amuses and informs, but increases one's
self-respect, if a woman, for modern woman
dressed in accordance with her role.
We can see extravagant wives point out with

glee to tyrant mates how, in the span of years

241

242 WOMAN AS DECORATION

between 1800 and 1870 our maternal forebears
made money fly, even in the Quaker City.
Fancy paying in Philadelphia at that time,
$1500 for a lace scarf, $400 for a shawl, $100
for the average gown of silk, and $50 for a
French bonnet! Miss McClellan, quoting from
Mrs. Roger Pryof's Memoirs, tells how she,
Mrs. Pryor, as a young girl in Washington,
was awakened at midnight by a note from the
daughter of her French milliner to say that a
box of bonnets had arrived from Paris. Mamma
had not yet unpacked them and if she would
come at once, she might have her pick of the
treasures, and Mamma not know until too late
to interfere. And this was only back in the
£o's, we should say.

Then think of the hoops, and wigs and ab-
surdly furbished head-dresses ; paper-soled shoes,
some intended only to sit in; bonnets enormous;
laces of cobweb; shawls from India by camel
and sailing craft; rouge, too, and hair grease,
patches and powder; laced waists and cramped
feet; low necks and short sleeves for children
in school-rooms.

Man was then still decorative here and in

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 243

western Europe. To-day he is not decorative,
unless in sports clothes or military uniform;
woman's garments furnish all the colour.
Whistler circumvented this fact when painting
Theodore Duret (Metropolitan Museum) in
sombre black broadcloth, — modern evening at-
tire, by flinging over the arm of Duret, the
delicate pink taffeta and chiffon cloak of a
woman, and in M. Duret's hand he places a
closed fan of pomegranate red.

CHAPTER XX

SEX IN COSTUMING

IUROPEAN dress " is the term ac-
cepted to imply the costume of man
and woman which is entirely cos-
mopolitan, decrying continuity of types (of
costume) and thoroughly plastic in the hands
of fashion

To-day, we say parrot-like, that certain ma-
terials, lines and colours are masculine or fem-
inine. They are so merely by association. The
modern costuming of man the world over, if
he appear in European dress (we except court
regalia), is confined to cloth, linen or cotton,
in black, white and inconspicuous colours; a
prescribed and simple type of neckwear, foot-
wear, hat, stick, and hair cut.

The progenitor of the garments of modern
men was the Lutheran-Puritan-Revolutionary
garb, the hall-mark of democracy.

It is true that when silk was first introduced
244

SEX IN COSTUMING 245

into Europe, from the Orient, the Greeks and
early Romans considered it too effeminate for
man's use, but this had to do with the doctrine
of austere denial for the good of the state. To
wear the costume of indolence implied inac-
tivity and induced it. As a matter of fact,
some of the master spirits of Greece did wear
silks.

In Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Media, Persia
and the Far East, men and women wore the
same materials, as in China and Japan to-
day. Egyptian men and their contemporaries
throughout Byzantium, wore gowns, in outline
identical with those of the women. Among the
Turks, trousers were always considered as ap-
propriate for women as for men, and both men
and women wore over the trousers, a long gar-
ment not unlike those of the women in the
Gothic period.

Thais wore a gilded wig, but so did the men
she knew, and they added gilded false
beards.

Assyrian kings wore earrings, bracelets and
wonderful clasps with chains, by which the
folds of their draped garment, — cut like the

246 WOMAN AS DECORATION

woman's, might be caught up and held securely,
leaving feet, arms and hands free for action.

When the genius of the Byzantine, Greek
and Venetian manufacturers of silks and vel-
vets, rich in texture and ablaze with colour,
were offered for sale to the Romans, whose
passion for display had increased with their
fortunes, and consequent lives of dissipation,
we find there was no distinction made between
the materials used by man and woman.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Renais-
sance spells brocade. Great designs and small
ones sprawled over the figures of man and
woman alike.

Lace was as much his as hers to use for wide,
elaborate collars and cuffs. Embroidery be-
longed to both, and the men (like the women)
of Germany, France, Italy and England wore
many plumes on their big straw hats and metal
helmets. The intercommunication between the
Orient and all of the countries of the Western
Hemisphere, and the abundance and variety
of human trappings bewildered and vitiated
taste.

Unfortunately the change in line of costume

PLATE XXVI

247

Mrs. Vernon Castle costumed a la guerre for a walk
in the country.

The cap is after one worn by her aviator husband.

This is one of the costumes — there are many — being
worn by women engaged in war work under the head of
messengers, chauffeurs, etc.

The shoes are most decidedly not for service, but they
will be replaced when the time is at hand, for others of
stout leather with heavy soles and flat heels.

248

Mrs. Vernon Castle Cos-
tumed a la Guerre for a Walk

SEX IN COSTUMING 251

has not moved parallel to the line in furniture.
The revival of classic interior decoration in
Italy, Spain, France, Germany, England, etc.,
did not at once revive the classic lines in
woman's clothes.

CHAPTER XXI

LINE AND COLOUR OF COSTUMES IN HUNGARY

JHE idea that man decorative, by rea-
son of colour or line in costume, is
of necessity either masquerading or
effeminate, proceeds chiefly from the conven-
tional nineteenth and twentieth century point of
view in America and western Europe. But even
in those parts of the world we are accustomed
to colour in the uniforms of army and navy, the
crimson " hood " of the university doctor, and
red sash of the French Legion of Honour. We
accept colour as a dignified attribute of man's
attire in the cases cited, and we do not forget
that our early nineteenth century American
masculine forebears wore bright blue or vivid
green coats, silver and brass buttons and red or
yellow waistcoats. The gentleman sportsman
of the early nineteenth century hunted in
bright blue tailed coats with brass buttons,
scarlet waistcoat, tight breeches and top hat!

252

COSTUMES IN HUNGARY 253

We refer to the same class of man who to-day
wears rough, natural coloured tweeds, leather
coat and close cap that his prey may not see
him.

In a sense, colour is a sign of virility when
used by man. We have the North American
Indian with his gay feathers, blankets and war
paint, and the European peasant in his gala
costume. In many cases colour is as much his
as his woman's. Some years ago, when collect-
ing data concerning national characteristics as
expressed in the art of the Slavs, Magyars and
Czechs, the writer studied these peoples in
their native settings. We went first to Hungary
and were disappointed to find Buda Pest far too
cosmopolitan to be of value for the study of
national costume, music or drama. The domi-
nating and most artistic element in Hungary
is the Magyar, and we were there to study him.
But even the Gypsies who played the Magyar
music in our hotel orchestra, wore the black
evening dress of western Europe and patent
leather shoes, and the music they played was
from the most modern operettas. It was not
until a world-famous Hungarian violinist

254 WOMAN AS DECORATION

arrived to give concerts in Buda Pest that the
national spirit of the Gypsies was stirred to
play the Magyar airs in his honour. (Gypsies
take on the spirit of any adopted land). We
then realised what they could make of the
Recockzy march and other folk music.

The experience of that evening spurred us
to penetrate into southern Hungary, the heart
of Magyar land, armed with letters of introduc-
tion, from one of the ministers of education, to
mayors of the peasant villages.

It was impossible to get on without an in-
terpreter, as usually even the mayors knew only
the Magyar language — not a word of German.
That was the perfect region for getting at
Magyar character expressed in the colour
and line of costume, manner of living, point
of view, folk song and dance. It is all still
vividly clear to our mind's eye. We saw the
first Magyar costumes in a village not far from
Buda Pest. To make the few miles quickly,
we had taken an electric trolley, vastly superior
to anything in New York at the time of which
we speak; and were let off in the centre of a
group of small, low thatched cottages, white-

COSTUMES IN HUNGARY 255

washed, and having a broad band of one, two
or three colours, extending from the ground to
about three feet above it, and completely encir-
cling the house. The favourite combination
seemed to be blue and red, in parallel stripes.
Near one of these houses we saw a very old
woman with a long lashed whip in her hand,
guarding two or three dark, curly, long-legged
Hungarian pigs. She wore high boots, many
short skirts, a shawl and a head-kerchief. Pres-
ently two other figures caught our eye: a man
in a long cape to the tops of his boots, made
of sheepskin, the wool inside, the outside deco-
rated with bright-coloured wools, outlining
crude designs. The black fur collar was the
skin of a small black lamb, legs and tail show-
ing, as when stripped off the little animal.
The man wore a cone-shaped hat of black lamb
and his hair reached to his shoulders. He
smoked a very long-stemmed pipe with a china
bowl, as he strolled along. Behind him a
woman walked, bowed by the weight of an
immense sack. She wore boots to the knees,
many full short skirts, and a yellow and red
silk head-kerchief. By her head-covering we

256 WOMAN AS DECORATION

knew her to be a married woman. They were
a farmer and his wife! Among the Magyars
the man is very decidedly the peacock; the
woman is the pack-horse. On market days he
lounges in the sunshine, wrapped in his long
sheepskin cape, and smokes, while she plies the
trade. In the farmers' homes of southern Hun-
gary where we passed some time, we, as Ameri-
cans, sat at table with the men of the house,
while wife and daughter served. There was
one large dish of food in the centre, into which
every one dipped! The women of the peasant
class never sit at table with their men; they
serve them and eat afterwards, and they always
address them in the second person as, "Will
your graciousness have a cup of coffee? " Also
they always walk behind the men. At country
dances we have seen young girls in bright, very
full skirts, with many ribbons braided into the
hair, cluster shyly at a short distance from
the dancing platform in the fair grounds, wait-
ing to be beckoned or whistled to by one of
the sturdy youths with skin-tight trousers,
tucked into high boots, who by right of might,
has stationed himself on the platform. When

PLATE XXVII

257

Mrs. Vernon Castle in one of her dancing costumes.

She was snapped by the camera as she sprang into a pose
of mere joyous abandon at the conclusion of a long series
of more or less exacting poses.

Mrs. Castle assures us that to repeat the effect pro-
duced here, in which camera, lucky chance and favourable
wind combined, would be well-nigh impossible.

258

;

Mrs. Vernon Castle
A Fantasy

COSTUMES IN HUNGARY 261

they have danced, generally a czardas, the girl
goes back to the group of women, leaving the
man on the platform in command of the situa-
tion! Yet already in 1897 women were being
admitted to the University of Buda Pest. There
in Hungary one could see woman run the whole
gamut of her development, from man's slave
to man's equal.

We found the national colour scheme to
have the same violent contrasts which char-
acterise the folk music and the folk poetry of
the Magyars.

Primitive man has no use for half-tones. It
was the same with the Russian peasants and
with the Poles. Our first morning in Krakau
a great clattering of wheels and horses' hoofs
on the cobbled court of our hotel, accompanied
by the cracking of a whip and voices, drew
us to our window. At first we thought a
strolling circus had arrived, but no, that man
with the red crown to his black fur cap, a
peacock's feather fastened to it by a fantastic
brooch, was just an ordinary farmer in Sunday
garb. In the neighbourhood of Krakau the
young men wear frock coats of white cloth,

262 WOMAN AS DECORATION

over bright red, short tight coats, and their
light-coloured skin-tight trousers, worn inside
knee boots, are embroidered in black down the
fronts.

One afternoon we were the guests of a Polish
painter, who had married a pretty peasant,
his model. He was a gentleman by birth and
breeding, had studied art in Paris and spoke
French, German and English. His wife, a
child of the soil, knew only the dialect of her
own province, but with the sensitive response
of a Pole, eagerly waited to have translated
to her what the Americans were saying of life
among women in their country. She served us
with tea and liquor, the red heels of her high
boots clicking on the wooden floor as she
moved about. As colour and as line, of a kind,
that young Polish woman was a feast to the
eye; full scarlet skirt, standing out over many
petticoats and reaching only to the tops of her
knee boots, full white bodice, a sleeveless jacket
to the waist line, made of brightly coloured
cretonne, outlined with coloured beads; a bright
yellow head-kerchief bound her soft brown
hair; her eyes were brown, and her skin like

COSTUMES IN HUNGARY 263

a yellow peach. On her neck hung strings of
coral and amber beads. There was indeed a
decorative woman! As for her background,
it was simple enough to throw into relief the
brilliant vision that she was. Not, however,
a scheme of interior decoration to copy! The
walls were whitewashed; a large stove of
masonry was built into one corner, and four
beds and a cradle stood on the other side of
the room, over which hung in a row five vir-
gins, the central one being the Black Virgin
beloved by the Poles. The legend is that the
original was painted during the life of the
Virgin, on a panel of dark wood. Here, too,
was the marriage chest, decorated with a crude
design in bright colours. The children, three
or four of them, ran about in the national cos-
tume, miniatures of their mother, but barefoot.
It was the same in Hungary, when we were
taken by the mayor of a Magyar town to visit
the characteristic farmhouse of a highly pros-
perous farmer, said to be worth two hundred
thousand dollars. The table was laid in the
end of a room having four beds in it On
inquiring later, we were told that they were

264 WOMAN AS DECORATION

not ordinarily used by the family, but were
heaped with the reserve bedding. In other
words, they were recognised by the natives as
indicating a degree of affluence, and were a
bit of ostentation, not the overcrowding of
necessity.

CHAPTER XXII

STUDYING LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA

X)M Hungary we continued our
quest of line and colour of folk cos-
tume into Russia.
Strangely enough, Russia throws off the im-
perial yoke of autocracy, declaring for demo-
cratic principles, at the very moment we under-
take to put into words the vivid picturesqueness
resulting largely from the causes of this as-
tounding revolution. Have you been in Rus-
sia? Have you seen with your own eyes any
phase of the violent contrasts which at last
have caused the worm to turn? Our object
being to study national characteristics as ex-
pressed in folk costume, folk song, folk dance,
traditional customs and fetes, we consulted
students of these subjects, whom we chanced to
meet in London, Paris, Vienna and Buda Pest,
with the result that we turned our faces toward
southern or " Little " Russia, as the part least

affected by cosmopolitan influences.

265

266 WOMAN AS DECORATION

Kiev was our headquarters, and it is well
to say at once that we found what we sought, —
ample opportunity to observe the genuine Rus-
sian, the sturdy, dogged, plodding son of toil,
who, more than any other European peasant
seems a part of the soil, which in sullen
persistency he tills. We knew already the
Russians of Petrograd and Moscow; one
meets them in Paris, London, Vienna, at
German and Austrian Cures and on the
Riviera. They are everywhere and always
distinctive by reason of their Slav tempera-
ment; a magnetic race quality which is Asiatic
in its essence. We recognise it, we are stirred
by it, we are drawn to it in their literature,
their music, their painting and in the Russian
people themselves. The quality is an integral
part of Russian nature; polishing merely in-
creases its attraction as with a gem. One
instance of this is the folk melody as treated
by Tschaikowsky compared with its simple
form as sung or danced by the peasant.

Some of the Russian women of the fashion-
able world are very decorative. Our first im-
pression of this type was in Paris, at the Russian

PLATE XXVIII

267

A skating costume worn by Miss Weld of Boston,
holder of the Woman's Figure Skating Championship.

This photograph was taken in New York on March 23,
1917, when amateurs contested for the cup and Miss
Weld won — this time over the men.

The costume of wine-coloured velvet trimmed with
moleskin, a small close toque to match, was one of the
most appropriate and attractive models of 1916-1917.

268

Courtesy of New York Herald

Modern Skating Costume
79/7 Winner of Amateur
Championship of Fancy Skat-
ing

LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA 271

Church on Christmas (or was it some other
holy day?) when to the amazement of the un-
initiated the Russian women of the aristocracy
appeared at the morning service hatless and
in full evening dress, wearing jewels as if for
a function at some secular court. Their mascu-
line escorts appeared in full regalia, the light
of the altar candles adding mystery to the glit-
ter of gold lace and jewels. Those occasions
are picturesque in the extreme.

The congregation stands, as in the Jewish syna-
gogues, and those of highest rank are nearest
the altar, invariably ablaze with gold, silver
and precious stones, while on occasions the
priest wears cloth of gold.

In Paris this background and the whole
ccene was accepted as a part of the pageant
of that city, but in Kiev it was different. There
we got the other side of the picture; the man
and the woman who are really Russia, the ele-
ment that finds an outlet in the folk music,
for its age-old rebellious submission. One
hears the soul of the Russian pulsating in the
continued reiteration of the same theme; it is
like the endless treadmill of a life without

272 WOMAN AS DECORATION

vistas. We were looking at the Russia of
Maxim Gorky, the Russia that made Tolstoy
a reformer; that has now forced its Czar to
abdicate.

We reached Kiev just before the Easter of
the Greek Church, the season when the pil-
grims, often as many as fifty thousand of them,
tramp over the frozen roads from all parts of
the empire to expiate their sins, kneeling at
the shrine of one of their mummied, sainted
bishops.

The men and women alike, clad in grimy
sheepskin coats, moved like cattle in strag-
gling droves, over the roads which lead to
Kiev. From a distance one cannot tell man
from woman, but as they come closer, one
sees that the woman has a bright kerchief tied
round her head, and red or blue peasant em-
broidery dribbles below her sheepskin coat.
She is as stocky as a Shetland pony and her
face is weather-beaten, with high cheekbones
and brown eyes. The man wears a black
astrachan conical cap and his hair is long and
bushy, from rubbing bear grease into it. He
walks with a crooked staff, biblical in style,

LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA 273

and carries his worldly goods in a small bundle
flung over his shoulder. The woman carries
her own small burden. As they shuffle past,
a stench arises from the human herd. It comes
from the sheepskin, which is worked in, slept
in, and, what is more, often inherited from a
parent who had also worn it as his winter hide.
Added to the smell of the sheepskin is that of
an unwashed human, and the reek of stale
food, for the poorest of the Russian peasants
have no chimneys to their houses. They can-
not afford to let the costly heat escape.

Kiev, the holy city and capital of Ancient
Russia, climbs from its ancestral beginnings,
on the banks of the River Dneiper, up the
steep sides and over the summit of a command-
ing hilltop, crowned by an immense gold cross,
illumined with electricity by night, to flash its
message of hope to foot-sore pilgrims. The
driver of our drosky drove us over the rough
cobbles so rapidly, despite the hill, that we
were almost overturned. It is the manner of
Russian drosky drivers. The cathedral, our
goal, was snowy-white, with frescoes on the
outer walls, onion-shaped domes of bronze

274 WOMAN AS DECORATION

turned green; or gold, or blue with stars of
gold.

We entered and found the body of the
church well filled by peasants, women and
men in sheepskin. One poor doe-eyed creature
crouched to press his forehead twenty times at
least on the stone floor of the church. Eagerly,
like a flock of sheep, they all pushed forward
to where a richly-robed priest held a cross of
gold for each to kiss, taking their proffered
kopeks.

The setting sun streamed through the an-
cient stained glass, dyeing their dirty sheep-
skin crimson, and purple, and green, until they
looked like illuminations in old missals. To
the eye and the mind of western Europe it
was all incomprehensible. Yet those were
the people of Russia who are to-day her mass
of armed defenders; the element that has
been counted on from the first by Russia and
her allies stood penniless before an altar
laid over with gold and silver and precious
stones. Just before we got to Kiev, one of
those men in sheepskins with uncut hair and
dogged expression, who had a sense of values

LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA 275

in human existence, broke into the church and
stole jeweled chalices from the altar. They
were traced to a pawnshop in a distant city
and brought back. It was a common thing to
see men halt in the street and stand uncovered,
while a pitiful funeral cortege passed. A
wooly, half-starved, often lame horse, was
harnessed with rope to a simple four-wheeled
farm wagon, a long-haired peasant at his
head, women and children holding to the sides
of the cart as they stumbled along in grief, and
inside a rough wooden coffin covered with a
black pall, on which was sewn the Greek cross,
in white. Heartless, hopeless, weary and
underfed, those peasants were taking their
dead to be blessed for a price, by the priest in
cloth of gold, without whose blessing there
could be no burial.

CHAPTER XXIII

MARK TWAIN'S LOVE OF COLOUR IN ALL
COSTUMING

HE public thinks of Mark Twain as
being the apostle of white during the
last years of his life, but those who
knew him well recall his delightfully original
way of expressing an intense love for bright
colours. This brings to mind a week-end at
Mark Twain's beautiful Italian villa in Read-
ing, Connecticut, when, one night during din-
ner, he held forth on the compelling fascination
of colours and the American Indian's superior
judgment in wearing them. After a lengthy
elaboration — not to say exaggeration — of his
theme, he ended by declaring in uncompromis-
ing terms, that colour, and plenty of it, crimson
and yellow and blue, wrapped around man,
as well as woman, was an obligation shirked
by humanity. It was all put as only Mark
Twain could have put it, with that serious vein

showing through broad humour. This quality

276

PLATE XXIX

277

One of the 1917 silhouettes.

Naturally, since woman to-day dresses for her occupa-
tion— work or play — the characteristic silhouettes are
many.

This one is reproduced to illustrate our point that out-
line can be affected by the smallest detail.

The sketch is by Elisabeth Searcy.

278

Drawn from Life by Elisabeth Searcy

A Modern Silhouette —
Tailor-made

COLOUR IN ALL COSTUMING 281

combined with an unmatched originality, made
every moment passed in his company a memory
to treasure. It was not alone his theme, but
how he dealt with it, that fascinated one.

Mark Twain was elemental and at the same
time a great artist, — the embodiment of ex-
treme contradictions, and his flair for gay
colour was one proof of his elemental strain.
We laughed that night as he made word pic-
tures of how men and women should dress.
Next morning, toward noon, on looking out
of a window, we saw standing in the middle
of the driveway a figure wrapped in crimson
silk, his white hair flying in the wind, while
smoke from a pipe encircled his head. Yes,
it was Mark Twain, who in the midst of his
writing, had been suddenly struck with the
thought that the road needed mending, and
had gone out to have another look at it! It
was a blustering day in Spring, and cold, so
one of the household was sent to persuade
him to come in. We can see him now, return-
ing reluctantly, wind-blown and vehement,
gesticulating, and stopping every few steps to
express his opinion of the men who had made

282 WOMAN AS DECORATION

that road! The flaming red silk robe he wore
was one his daughter had brought him from
Liberty's, in London, and he adored it. Still
wrapped in it, and seemingly unconscious of
his unusual appearance, he joined us on the
balcony, to resume a conversation of the night
before.

The red-robed figure seated itself in a wicker
chair and berated the idea that mortal man
ever could be generous, — act without selfish
motives. With the greatest reverence in his
tone, sitting there in his whimsical costume of
bright red silk, at high noon, — an immaculate
French butler waiting at the door to announce
lunch, Mark Twain concluded an analysis of
modern religion with " — why the God / be-
lieve in is too busy spinning spheres to have
time to listen to human prayers."

How often his words have been in our mind
since war has shaken our planet.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ARTIST AND HIS COSTUME

|HE world has the habit of deriding
that which it does not understand.
It is the most primitive way of bol-
stering one's limitations. How often the
woman or man with a God-given sense of the
beautiful, the fitting, harmony between costume
and setting, is described as poseur or poseuse
by those who lack the same instinct. In a
sense, of course, everything man does, beyond
obeying the rudimentary instincts of the sav-
age, is an affectation, and it is not possible to
claim that even our contemporary costuming
of man or woman always has raison d'etre.

We accept as the natural, unaffected raiment
for woman and man that which custom has
taught us to recognise as appropriate, with or
without reason for being. For example, the
tall, shiny, inflexible silk hat of man, and the
tortuous high French heels of woman are in
themselves neither beautiful, fitting, nor made

283

284 WOMAN AS DECORATION

to meet the special demands of any setting or
circumstance. Both hat and heels are fashions,
unbeautiful and uncomfortable, but to the eye
of man to-day serve as insignia of formal dress,
decreed by society.

The artist nature has always assumed poetic
license in the matter of dress, and as a rule
defied custom, to follow an inborn feeling for
beauty. That much-maligned short velvet coat
and soft loose tie of the painter or writer,
happen to have a most decided ralson d'etre;
they represent comfort, convenience, and in the
case of the velvet coat, satisfy a sensitiveness
to texture, incomprehensible to other natures.
As for the long hair of some artists, it can be
a pose, but it has in many cases been absorption
in work, or poverty — the actual lack of money
for the conventional haircut. In cities we con-
sider long hair on a man as effeminate, an in-
dication of physical weakness, but the Russian
peasant, most sturdy of individuals, wears his
hair long, and so do many others among ex-
tremely primitive masculine types, who live
their lives beyond the reach of Fashion and
barbers.

THE ARTIST AND HIS COSTUME 285

The short hair of the sincere woman artist
is to save time at the toilette.

There is always a limited number of men
and women who, in ordinary acts of life, re-
spond to texture, colour or line, as others do to
music or scenery, and to be at their best in
life, must dress their parts as they feel them,

Japanese actors who play the parts of women,
dress like women off the stage, and live the
lives of women as nearly as possible, in order
to acquire the feeling for women's garments;
they train their bodies to the proper feminine
carriage, counting upon this to perfect their
interpretations.

The woman who rides, hunts, shoots, fishes,
sails her own boat, paddles, golfs and plays
tennis, is very apt to look more at home in
habit, tweeds and flannels, than she does in
strictly feminine attire; the muscles she has
acquired in legs and arms, from violent exercise,
give an actual, not an assumed, stride and a
swing to the upper body. In sports clothes,
or severely tailored costume, this woman is at
her best. Most trying for her will be demi-
toilette (house gowns). She is beautiful at

286 WOMAN AS DECORATION

night because a certain balance, dignity and
grace are lent her by the decolletage and train
of a dinner or ball gown. English women who
are devotees of sport, demonstrate the above
fact over and over again.

While on the subject of responsiveness to
texture and colour we would remind the reader
that Richard Wagner hung the room in which
he worked at his operas with bright silks, for
the art stimulus he got from colour, and it is
a well-known fact that he derived great pleas-
ure from wearing dressing gowns and other
garments made from rich materials.

Clyde Fitch, our American playwright, when
in his home, often wore velvet or brocaded
silks. They were more sympathetic to his
artist nature, more in accord with his fond-
ness for wearing jewelled studs, buttons, scarf-
pins. In his town and country houses the main
scheme, leading features and every smallest de-
tail were the result of Clyde Fitch's personal
taste and effort, and he, more than most men
and women, appreciated what a blot an inartis-
tic human being can be on a room which of it-
self is a work of art.

PLATE XXX

287

Souvenirs of an artist designer's unique establishment,
in spirit and accomplishment vrai Parisienne. Notice the
long cape in the style of 1825.

Tappe himself will tell you that all periods have had
their beautiful lines and colours ; their interesting details ;
that to find beauty one must first have the feeling for it;
that if one is not born with this subtle instinct, there are
manifold opportunities for cultivating it.

His claim is the same as that made in our Art of Interior
Decoration; the connoisseur is one who has passed through
the schooling to be acquired only by contact with master-
pieces,— those treasures sifted by time and preserved for
our education, in great art collections.

Tappe emphasises the necessity of knowing the back-
ground for a costume before planning it ; the value of line
in the physique beneath the materials; the interest to be
woven into a woman's costume when her type is recog-
nised, and the modern insistence on appropriateness — that
is, the simple gown and close hat for the car, vivid colours
for field sports or beach ; a large fan for the woman who
is mistress of sweeping lines, etc., etc.

Tappe is absolutely French in his insistence upon the
possible eloquence of line; a single flower well poised
and the chic which is dependent upon how a hat or gown
is put on. We have heard him say : " No, I will not claim
the hat in that photograph, though I made it, because it is
mal pose/'

Sketched for "Woman as Decoration" by Thelma Cudlipp

Tappe's Creations

THE ARTIST AND HIS COSTUME 291

In England, and far more so in America,
men are put down as effeminate who wear
jewelry to any marked extent. But no less a
person than King Edward VII always wore
a chain bangle on his arm, and one might cite
countless men of the Continent as thoroughly
masculine — Spaniards in particular — who wear
as many jewelled rings as women. Apropos of
this, a famous topaz, worn as a ring for years
by a distinguished Spaniard was recently in-
herited by a relation in America — a woman.
The stone was of such importance as a gem,
that a record was kept of its passing from
France into America. As a man's ring it was
impressive and the setting such as to do it
honour, but being a man's ring, it was too heavy
for a woman's use. A pendant was made of
the stone and a setting given it which turned
out to be too trifling in character. The con-
sequence 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 paint-
ing or a woman's costume — the effect produced
depends upon the character of its setting.

CHAPTER XXV

IDIOSYNCRASIES IN COSTUME

.SHIONS 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 Schil-
ler 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, wear-
ing 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 re-
fused 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.

292

IDIOSYNCRASIES IN COSTUME 293

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 manu-
scripts 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 cen-
turies 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

294 WOMAN AS DECORATION

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. Com-
pare the exactly prim Copley miss, with a
recent portrait by Cecilia Beaux of a young
girl seated, with dainty satin-covered feet out-
stretched 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 age when elemental pas-
sions were " good form," jealous husbands are
blamed for these!

In the seventeenth century the idle dancing
youth of to-day had his prototype in the Cava-
lier Servente, who hovered at his lady's side,
affecting extravagant and effeminate manners.

The corrupt morals of the sixteenth century
followed in the wake of social intercourse by
travel, literature, art and styles for costumes.

Mme. Recamier, the exquisite embodiment

IDIOSYNCRASIES IN COSTUME 295

of the Directoire style as depicted by David in
his famous portrait of her, scandalised London
by appearing in public, clad in transparent
Greek draperies and scarfs. Later Mme.
Jerome Bonaparte, a Baltimore belle, quite
upset Philadelphia by repeating Mme. Re-
camier's experiment in that city of brotherly
love! We are also told on good authority
that one could have held Madame's wedding
gown in the palm of the hand.

Victorian hoops for public conveyances,
paper-soled slippers in snow-drifts, wigs im-
mense and heavy with powder, hair-oil and fur-
belows, hour-glass waist lines producing the
" vapours " fortunately are no more.

Taken by and large, we of the year 1917
seem to have reached the point where woman's
psychology demands of dress fitness for each
occasion, that she may give herself to her task
without a material handicap. May the good
work in this direction continue, as the pano-
rama of costumes for women moves on down
the ages that are to come.

CHAPTER XXVI

NATIONALITY IN COSTUME

|HEN seen in perspective, the cos-
tumes of various periods, as well as
the architecture, interior decoration
and furnishings of the homes of men appear
as distinct types, though to the man or woman
of any particular period the variations of the
type are bewildering and misleading. It is the
same in physical types; when visiting for the
first time a foreign land one is immediately
struck by a national cast of feature, English,
French, American, Russian, etc. But if we
remain in the country for any length of time,
the differences between individuals impress us
and we lose track of those features and char-
acteristics the nation possesses in common. To-
day, if asked what outline, materials and colour
schemes characterise our fashions, some would
say that almost anything in the way of line,

materials and colour were worn. There is,

296

PLATE XXXI

297

Costume of a Red Cross Nurse, worn while working in
a French war hospital, by Miss Elsie de Wolfe, of New
York. An example of woman costumed so as to be most
efficient for the work in hand.

Miss de Wolfe's name has become synonymous with
interior decoration, throughout the length and breadth of
our land, but she established a reputation as one of the
best-dressed women in America, long before she left the
stage to professionally decorate homes. She has done an
immeasurable amount toward moulding the good taste
of America in several fields. At present her energies are
in part devoted to disseminating information concerning
a cure for burns, one of the many discoveries resulting
from the exigencies of the present devastating war.

Miss Elsie de Wolfe in
Costume of Red Cross Nurse

NATIONALITY IN COSTUME 301

however, always an epoch type, and while more
than ever before the law of appropriateness
has dictated a certain silhouette for each occa-
sion,— each occupation, — when recorded in cos-
tume books of the future we will be recognised
as a distinct phase; as distinct as the Gothic,
Elizabethan, Empire or Victorian period.

As we have said, in studying the history of
woman decorative, one finds two widely sep-
arated aspects of the subject, which must be
considered in turn. There is the classifying
of woman's apparel which comes under the
head of European dress, woman's costume
affected by cosmopolitan influences; costumes
worn by that part of humanity which is in
close intercommunication and reflecting the
ebb and flow of currents — political, geograph-
ical and artistic. Then we have quite another
field for study, that of national costumes, by
which we mean costumes peculiar to some
one nation and worn by its men and women
century after century.

It is interesting as well as depressing for
the student of national characteristics to see
the picturesque distinguishing lines and colours

302 WOMAN AS DECORATION

gradually disappear as railroads, steamboats
and electric trolleys penetrate remote districts.
With any influx of curious strangers there
comes in time, often all too quickly, a regret-
table self-consciousness, which is followed at
first by an awkward imitation of the cosmo-
politan garb.

We recall our experience in Hungary. Hav-
ing been advised to visit the peasant villages
and farms lying out on the piistas (plains of
southern Hungary) if we would see the veri-
table national costumes, we set out hopefully
with letters of introduction from a minister
of education in Buda Pest, directed to mayors
of Magyar villages. One of these planned a
visit to a local celebrity, a Magyar farmer,
very old, very prosperous, rich in herds of
horses, sheep and magnificent Hungarian oxen,
large, white and with almost straight, spread-
ing horns, like the oxen of the ancient Greeks.
There we met a man of the old school, nearly
eighty, who had never in his life slept under
cover, his duty being to guard his flocks and
herds by night as well as day, though he had
amassed what was for his station in life, a

NATIONALITY IN COSTUME 303

great fortune. He had never been seen in any-
thing but the national costume, the same as
worn in his part of the world for several hun-
dred years. And so we went to see him in his
home. We were all expectation! You can
imagine our disappointment, when, upon ar-
rival, we found our host awaiting us, pain-
fully attired in the ordinary dark cloth coat
and trousers of the modern farmer the world
over. He had donned the ugly things in our
honour, taking an hour to make his toilet, as
we were secretly informed by one of the house-
hold. We tell this to show how one must per-
severe in the pursuit of artistic data. This was
the same occasion cited in The Art of In-
terior Decoration, when the highly decorative
peasant tableware was banished by the women
in the house, to make room, again in our
honour, for plain white ironstone china.

The feeling for line accredited to the French
woman is equally the birthright of the Magyar
— woman and man. One sees it in the dash of
the court beauty who can carry off a mass of
jewels, barbaric in splendour, where the average
European or American would feel a Christmas

3o4 WOMAN AS DECORATION

tree in the same. And no man in Europe wears
his uniform as the Hungarian officer of hus-
sars does; the astrachan-trimmed short coat,
slung over one shoulder, cap trimmed with fur,
on the side of his head, and skin-tight trousers
inside of faultless, spurred boots reaching to
the knees. One can go so far as to say there
is something decorative in the very tempera-
ment of Hungarian women, a fiery abandon,
which makes line in a subtle way quite apart
from the line of costume. This quality is also
possessed by the Spanish woman, and developed
to a remarkable degree in the professional
Spanish dancer. The Gipsy woman has it
too, — she brought it with her from Asia, as the
Magyar's forebears did.

Speaking of the Magyar, nothing so per-
fectly expresses the national temperament as
the czardas — that peasant dance which begins
with calm, stately repression, and ends in a
mad ecstasy of expression, the rapid crescendo,
the whirl, ending when the man seizes his
partner and flings her high in the air. Watch
the flash of the eyes and see that this is gen-
uine temperament, not acting, but something

NATIONALITY IN COSTUME 305

inherent in the blood. The crude colour of the
national costume and the sharp contrast in the
folk music are equally expressions of national
character, the various art expressions of which
open up countless enticing vistas.

The contemplation of some of these vistas
leads one to the conclusion that woman deco-
rative is so, either as an artist (that is, in the
mastery of the science of line and colour, more
or less under the control of passing fashion),
or in the abandonment to the impulse of an
untutored, unconscious, child of nature. Both
can be beautiful; the art which is so great as
to conceal conscious effort by creating the
illusion of spontaneity, and the natural uncon-
scious grace of the human being in youth or in
the primitive state.

CHAPTER XXVII

MODELS

N historical interest attaches to fash-
ions in women's costuming, which the
practised eye is quick to distinguish,
but not always that of the novice. Of course
the most casual and indifferent of mortals
recognises the fact when woman's hat follows
the lines of the French officer's cap, or her
coat reproduces the Cossack's, with even a feint
at his cartridge belt; but such echoes of the
war are too obvious to call for comment.

It is one of the missions of art to make
subtle the obvious, and a distinguished example
of this, which will illustrate our theme, — his-
tory mirrored by dress, — was seen recently. One
of the most famous among the great couturieres
of Paris, who has opened a New York branch
within two years, having just arrived with her
Spring and Summer models, was showing them

to an appreciative woman, a patron of many

306

PLATE XXXII

307

Madame Geraldine Farrar as Carmen.

In each of the three presentations of Madame Farrar
we have given her in character, as suggestions for stage
costumes or costume balls. (By courtesy of Vanity Fair.)

6. -5

$S

ll

MODELS 311

years. It is not an exaggeration to say that in
all that procession of costumes for cool days
or hot, ball-room, salon, boudoir or lawn, not
one was banal, not one false in line or its colour-
scheme. Whether the style was Classic Greek,
Mediaeval or Empire (these prevail), one felt
the result, first of an artist's instinct, then a
deep knowledge of the pictorial records of
periods in dress, and to crown all, that con-
viction of the real artist, which gives both
courage and discretion in moulding textiles, —
the output of modern genius, to the purest
classic lines. For example, one reads in every
current fashion sheet that beads are in vogue
as garniture for dresses. So they are, but note
how your French woman treats them. Whether
they are of jet, steel, pearl or crystal, she
presses them into service as so much colour,
massing them so that one is conscious only of
a shimmering, clinging, wrapped-toga effect,
a la Grecque, beneath the skirt and bodice of
which every line and curve of the woman's
form is seen. Evidently some, at least, are to
be gleaming Tanagras. Even a dark-blue
serge, for the motor, shopping or train, had

3i2 WOMAN AS DECORATION

from hips to the bust parallel lines of very
small tube-like jet beads, sewn so close to-
gether that the effect was that of a shirt of
mail.

The use of notes of vivid colour caught the
eye. In one case, on a black satin afternoon
gown, a tiny nosegay of forget-me-not blue,
rose-pink and jessamine-white, was made to
decorate the one large patch-pocket on the
skirt and a lapel of the sleeveless satin coat.
Again on a dinner-dress of black Chantilly
lace, over white chiffon (Empire lines), a very
small, deep pinkish-red rose had a white rose-
bud bound close to it with a bit of blue ribbon.
This was placed under the bertha of cobweb
lace, and demurely in the middle of the short-
waisted bodice. Again a robe d'interior of
white satin charmeuse, had a sleeveless coat
of blue, reaching to knees, and a dashing bias
sash of pinkish-red, twice round the waist, with
its long ends reaching to skirt hem and heavily
weighted.

Not at once, but only gradually, did it dawn
upon us that most of the gowns bore, in some
shade or form, the tricolour of France!

CHAPTER XXVIII

WOMAN COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB

VERY now and then a sex war is

predicted, and sometimes started,
usually by woman, though some pre-
dicted that when the present European war is
over and the men come home to their civilian
tasks, now being carried on by women, man is
going to take the initiative, in the sex conflict.
We doubt it. Without deliberate design to
prove this point, — that a complete collabora-
tion of the sexes has always made the wheels
of the universe revolve, many of the illustrations
studied showed woman with man as decoration,
in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and during later
periods.

The Legend of Life tells us that man can
not live alone, hence woman; and the Pageant
of Life shows that she has played opposite
with consistency and success throughout the
ages.

The Sunday issue of the Philadelphia Public

313

3 H WOMAN AS DECORATION

Ledger for March 25, 1917, has a headline,
" Trousers vs. Skirts," and, continues Margaret
Davies, the author of the article:

" This war will change all things for Euro-
pean women. Military service, of a sort, has
come for them in both France and England,
where they are replacing men employed in
clerical and other non-combatant departments,
including motor driving. The moment this
was decided upon in England, it was found
that 30,000 men would be released for actual
fighting, with prospects of the release of more
than 200,000 more. What the French demand
will be is not known as I write, but it will
equal that of England.

" How will these women dress? Will they
be given military uniforms short of skirt or
even skirtless? Of course they won't; but the
world on this side of the ocean would not gasp
should this be done. War industry already
has worked a revolution.

" Study the pictures which accompany this
article. They are a new kind of women's
' fashion pictures ' ; they are photographs of
women dressed as European circumstances now
compel them to dress. Note the trousers, like
a Turkish woman's, of the French girl muni-

COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB 315

tions workers. Thousands of girls here in
France are working in such trousers. Note the
smart liveries of the girls who have taken the
places of male carriage starters, mechanics and
elevator operators, at a great London shop.
They are very natty, aren't they? Almost like
costumes from a comic opera. Well, they are
not operatic costumes. They are every-day
working liveries. Girls wear them in the most
mixed London crowds — wear them because the
man-shortage makes it necessary for these girls
to do work which skirts do not fit. All French
trams and buses have * conductresses.'

" The coming of women cabmen in London
is inevitable — indeed, it already has begun. In
Paris they have been established sparsely for
some time and have done well, but they have
not been used on taxis, only on the horse cabs.

" I have spent most of my time in Paris for
some months now, and have ridden behind
women drivers frequently. They drive care-
fully and well and are much kinder to their
horses than the old, red-faced, brutal French
cochers are. I like them. They have a won-
derful command of language, not always en-
tirely or even partially polite, but they are
accommodating and less greedy for tips than
male drivers.

" At Self ridge's great store — the largest and

3i6 WOMAN AS DECORATION

most progressive in London, operated on Chi-
cago lines — skirtless maidens are not rare
enough to attract undue attention. The first to
be seen there, indeed, is not in the store at
all, but on the sidewalk, outside of it, engaged
in the gentle art of directing customers to and
from their cars and cabs and incidentally keep-
ing the chauffeurs in order.

"An extremely pretty girl she is, too, with
her frock-coat coming to her knees, her top-
boots coming to the coat, and now and then,
when the wind blows, a glimpse of loose
knickers. She tells me that she's never had
a man stare at her since she appeared in the
new livery, although women have been curious
about it and even critical of it. Women have
done all the staring to which she has been
subjected.

"Within the store, many girls engaged in
various special employments, are dressed con-
veniently for their work, in perfectly frank
trousers. Among these are the girls who
operate the elevators. There is no compromise
about it. These girls wear absolutely trousers
every working hour of every working day in
a great public store, in a great crowded city,
rubbing elbows (even touching trousered knees,
inevitably) with hundreds of men daily.

" And they like it. They work better in the

PLATE XXXIII

317

Madame Geraldine Farrar. The value of line was
admirably illustrated in the opera " Madame Butterfly "
as seen this winter at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Have you chanced to ask yourself why the outline of
the individual members of the chorus was so lacking
in charm, and Madame Farrar's so delightful? The
great point is that in putting on her kimono, Madame
Farrar kept in mind the characteristic silhouette of the
Japanese woman as shown in Japanese art; then she made
a picture of herself, and one in harmony with her Japanese
setting. Which brings us back to the keynote of our book
— Woman as Decoration — beautiful Line.

Sketched for "Woman as Decoration" by Thelma Cudlipp

Mme. Geraldine Farrar in
Japanese Costume as Ma-
dame Butterfly

COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB 321

new uniforms than they used to in skirts and
are less weary at each day's end. And no-
body worries them at all. There has not been
the faintest suspicion of an insult or an advance
from any one of the thousands of men and
boys of all classes whom they have ridden with
upon their ' lifts,' sometimes in dense crowds,
sometimes in an involuntary tete-a-tete.

" Other employments which girls follow and
dress for bifurcatedly in this great and pro-
gressive store are more astonishing than the
operation of elevators. A charming young
plumber had made no compromise whatever
with tradition. She was in overalls like boy
plumbers wear, except that her trousers were
not tight, but they were well fitted. A little
cap of the same material as the suit, com-
pleted her jaunty and attractive costume. And
cap and suit were professionally stained, too,
with oil and things like that, while her small
hands showed the grime of an honest day's
competent, hard work.

" The coming summer will see an immense
amount of England's farming done by women
and, I think, well done. Organisations already
are under way whereby women propose to help
decrease the food shortage by intelligent in-
crease of the chicken and egg supply, and this
is being so well planned that undoubtedly it

322 WOMAN AS DECORATION

will succeed. Eggs and chickens will be cheap
in England ere the summer ends.

" I have met three ex-stenographers who now
are at hard work, two of them in munition
factories (making military engines of death)
and one of them on a farm. I asked them how
they liked the change.

" ' I should hate to have to go back to work
in the old long skirts,' one replied. ' I should
hate to go back to the old days of relying upon
some one else for everything that really mat-
ters. But — well, I wish the war would end
and I hope the casualty lists of fine young men
will not grow longer, day by day, as Spring
approaches, although everybody says they will.'

"Mrs. John Bull takes girls in pantaloons
quite calmly and approvingly, now that she
has learned that if there are enough of them,
dad and the boys will pay no more attention to
them in trousers than they would pay to them
in skirts."

We have preferred to quote the exact word-
ing of the original article, for the reason that
while the facts are familiar to most of us, the
manner of putting them could not, to our mind,
be more graphic. Some day, when the Wateaus
of the future are painting the court ladies who

COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB 323

again dance pavanes in sunlit glades, wearing
wigs and crinoline, such data will amuse.

That the women of Finland make worthy
members of their parliament does not prove
anything outside of Finland. That the exi-
gencies of the present hour in England have
made women equal to every task of men so far
entrusted to them, proves much for England.
Women, like men, have untold, untried abilities
within them, women and men alike are mar-
vellous under fire — capable of development in
every direction. What human nature has done
it can do again, and infinitely more under the
pressure of necessity which opens up brain
cells, steels the heart, hardens the muscles, and
like magic fire, licks up the dross of humanity,
aimlessly floating on the surface of life, await-
ing a leader to melt and mould it at Fate's will
into clearly defined personalities, ready to serve.
This point has been magnificently proved by
the war now waging in Europe.

Let us repeat; that from the beginning
the story of woman's costuming proves her
many-sidedness, the inexhaustible stock of her
latent qualities which, like man's, await the call
of the hour.

IN CONCLUSION

[HE foregoing chapters have aimed at
showing the decorative value of
woman's costume as seen in the art
of Egypt, Greece, Gothic Europe, Europe of
the Renaissance and during the seventeenth,
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To prove
the point that woman is a telling note in the in-
terior decoration of to-day, the vital spark in
any setting, we have not dwelt upon the fash-
ions so much as decorative line, colour-scheme
and fitness for the occasion.

It is costume associated with caste which
interests us more than folk costume. We have
shown that it is the modern insistence on
efficiency that has led to appropriate dress
for work and recreation, and that our idea of
the chic and the beautiful in costume is
based on appropriateness. Also we have shown
that line in costumes is in part the result of

324

IN CONCLUSION 325

one's " form " — the absolute control of the body,
its " carriage," poise of the head, action of
legs, arms, hands and feet, and that form
means successful effort in any direction, because
through it the mind may control the physical
medium.

It is the woman who knows what she should
wear, what she can wear and how to wear it,
who is most efficient in whatever she gives her
mind to. She it is who will expend the least
time, strength and money on her appearance,
and be the first to report for duty in connection
with the next obligation in the business of life.

Therefore let us keep in mind a few rules
for the perfect costuming of woman:

Appropriateness for each occasion so as to
get efficiency, or be as decorative as possible.

Outline. — Fashion in silhouette adapted to
your own type.

Background. — Your setting.

Colour scheme. — Fashionable colours chosen
and combined to express your personality as
well as to harmonise with the tone of setting, or,
if preferred, to be an agreeable contrast to it.

Detail. — Trimming with raison d'etre, — not
meaningless superfluities.

326 WOMAN AS DECORATION

It is, of course, understood that the attain-
ment of beauty in the costuming of woman is
our aim when stating and applying the fore-
going principles.

The art of interior decoration and the art
of costuming woman are occasionally centred
in the same individual, but not often. Some
of the most perfectly dressed women, models
for their less gifted sisters, are not only igno-
rant as to the art of setting their stage, but
oblivious of the fact that it may need setting.

Remember, that while an inartistic room,
confused as to line and colour-scheme can abso-
lutely destroy the effect of a perfect gown, an
inartistic, though costly gown ran likewise be
a blot on a perfect room.

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