DRESS.
"Whatever clothing she displays,
From Tyre or Cos, that clothing praise;
If gold show forth the artist's skill,
Call her than gold more precious still;
Or if she choose a coarse attire,
E'en coarseness, worn by her, admire."
OVID, "Ars Amat." ii. 297, 300 (Yates, p. 180).
Having glanced at the decoration of the house, I must now proceed to
say a few words on Dress. Semper, Labarte, and Sir Digby Wyatt all
take it for granted that the Art of Dress preceded all other arts.
Every ancient record shows how early decoration of dress by needlework
began, and how far it had gone; and when we read of festal
hospitalities and marriage gifts, embroidered garments are invariably
named. Solomon in all his glory, though he praised the lily, yet shone
in splendid apparel. The Greeks refined the gold, and painted the
lily.
[Illustration: Pl. 50.
Italian Knight dressed for conquest, by Gentile da Fabriano.
Academia at Florence.]
As soon as dress became an art, and not merely an acknowledged
necessity for warmth and decency, I see no reason to deny that the
same decorative genius that embroidered the garment might at the same
time have imagined the carving of the chair and the inlaying of the
sword and bow; but as regards the precedence of the arts, we can only
guess at what is probable. Beauty in dress is certainly a universal
instinctive passion. Perhaps the birds (which Mr. Darwin and others
credit with preening their plumage, conscious that their spots are
the brightest, and their feathers the glossiest, and that they are
therefore adored by the hens, and the envy of the shabbier cocks)
suggested to men the same method for securing the preference of the
other sex, who in return willingly helped to adorn the idols of their
hearts and homes. (Plate 50.) This natural state of things still
prevails in Central Africa, where Schweinfürth describes a king
dancing before his 100 wives costumed in the tails of lions and
peacocks, and crowned with the proboscis of an elephant. It appears,
however, that, unlike Cleopatra, "custom had staled his infinite
variety," and the 100 ladies looked on the splendid display with blank
indifference.
This is only a barbarous illustration of the fact that in the earliest
civilizations magnificent garments were worn by men to dazzle and awe
the beholders by the splendour which represented wealth and conquest.
How glorious a man could appear apparelled to represent majesty and
dominion, may be learned by studying Canon Rock's book on the
coronation dresses of the Emperors of Germany--a book great in every
sense of the word. The portrait of Charles V. robed and crowned is a
dazzling example of the arts of dress, embroidery, and jeweller's
work. These garments have for ages been treasured at Vienna,
Aix-la-Chapelle, and in the Vatican at Rome.
The coronation garments of the Emperors of Russia are said to be
gorgeously beautiful.
It seems hardly necessary to assert that embroidery has always been
especially applicable to dress. Each garment, being individualized by
the design depicted on it, was fitted for individual uses and
occasions. The conqueror's palmated mantle, the coronation robe, the
bridal garment, the costume of the peasant for festival days, and the
officiating vestments of the priests for special services of prayer
and praise--these were loyally or piously worked; they descended from
generation to generation as family treasures or as historical
memorials, and sometimes as holy relics,[472] till they and the call
for them, were swept away at once by social changes; yet some still
remain and hold their place. Priestly garments, together with Church
decorations, never laid aside in the Roman and Greek Churches, are
being partially revived in our own; and for secular adornment the
embroiderer is often called upon to work a garland, to enwreathe the
form of a pretty woman, to lie on her shoulders and encircle her
waist.
The greatest loss to the art is that men as a rule have ceased to
individualize themselves, or their position or office by dress,[473]
and have left entirely to the women the pleasure and duty of making
themselves as lovely and conspicuous as their circumstances will
permit. The same linen and broadcloth are cut in the same shapes, of
which the only merit is that they are said to be comfortable, and
whose highest aim is to be spotless and unwrinkled; these show the
altered conditions of the highly civilized man, and woman too, for he
has long left behind him the idea of dazzling the female eye or heart
by the attraction of colour. This applies only to European costume at
home or in the colonies. The East still retains its pleasure in
gorgeous combinations, in which man enfolds his person, and shows how
beautiful he can make himself when thus clothed, in accordance with
the classical axioms, as to how much of the human form should be
revealed, and how much concealed.
The principle on which the ancients embroidered their garments was
like that of the Indians, the large surfaces plain, or covered with
quiet diapers or spots, the rich ornaments being reserved for the
borders, the girdles and the scarves. Their garments hung loose from
the shoulders or girdle; whether long or short they clung to the
figure or fluttered in the wind. The long flowing robes to the feet
veiled the form completely, and were only thrown off for the battle or
the chase, or in the struggles for victory in the races and games.
Dress, in the supreme reign of beauty, was intended to flow around, or
to conceal, but never to _disguise_, the human frame it enclosed.
Homer thus describes Juno's toilet before calling on Jupiter:--
"Around her next a heavenly mantle flow'd,
That rich with Pallas' labour'd colours glow'd;
Large clasps of gold the foldings gather'd round;
A golden zone her swelling bosom bound."
Iliad, xiv. v. 207.
The Greeks certainly wore delicate and tasteful embroidery on their
garments, frequently finished with splendid borders, while the large
space between was dotted with stars or some simple pattern. We learn
this from the paintings on Greek fictile vases. In the British Museum
there is a little bronze statuette of Minerva (with twinkling diamond
eyes). She has a broad band of embroidered silver foliage from her
throat to her feet.
As the beauty of Greek forms acted and reacted on the beauty of their
"Art of Dress," so we may be certain that all deformity of dress has
been produced by deformity of race in mind or body, and that climate
is an important factor in both. The cold of the farthest north has
produced people short, fat, and hairy; which natural gifts have been
supplemented by their warm clothes or coverings, in the same way that
a "cosy" covers a teapot. Flowing garments there would be utterly out
of place, petticoats are unknown, and the Lapp hangs out nothing that
can be the vehicle for carrying an icicle. Their dresses, or cases,
are planned to keep out the cold, and to place another atmosphere
between the heart of the breathing mass, and the cruel, cutting, outer
wind. Hence, the materials used are not only woven hair, but the furry
skins themselves. In the south, under the sunshine, dress is for the
greater part of the year only needed for decency and beauty. The
flowing and delicate cottons and silks and fine woollens, are shaped
to cover and adorn the beautiful forms, which for entire isolation
take refuge in the never-failing mantle. The mantle was the great
opportunity for the embroiderer's craft. Alkisthenes, the Sybarite,
had a garment of such magnificence that when it was exhibited in the
Temple of Juno at Lacinium, where all Italy was congregated, it
attracted such universal admiration that it was sold to the
Carthaginians by Dionysius the Elder for 120 talents. The ground was
purple, wrought all over with animals, except the centre, where were
seen Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Minerva, Venus, and Themis. On one border
was the figure of Alkisthenes himself, on the other was depicted the
emblematic figure of his native city, Sybaris. The size of the
garment was Homeric--it was fifteen cubits, or twenty-two feet in
breadth.[474]
That the ladies of Greece in the fourth century carried down the
historical and Homeric traditions of the embroidery frame, and made it
part of their daily lives, while the Persian women of rank left such
work to their slaves, is evident from the pretty legend told of
Alexander the Great, who desiring to beguile the weariness of his
prisoners, the wife and family of Darius, sent them some of his
garments to embroider. When it was reported to him that these
princesses were much mortified, believing it was a suggestion of their
fallen fortunes, Alexander hastened to reassure them--saying that his
own mother and sisters occupied themselves in embroidering dresses.
The Persians and Babylonians seem to have preferred subjects for their
embroidered dresses somewhat in the style of the mantle of
Alkisthenes, which was probably Oriental, and suggests the Babylonian
mantle in Jericho, "which tempted Achan to sin." The Egyptian frescoes
on the other hand, sometimes give us women and goddesses dressed in
small flowery patterns that remind one of Indian chintzes. These were
probably woven, painted, and embroidered, and filled in with threads
of gold. The Romans varied their fashions, but they preferred for a
time striped borders on their garments,[475] and called them
"molores," "dilores," "trilores," up to seven. The Greeks but seldom
departed from the rule of plain or quietly patterned surfaces with
rich borders in their delineations of dress, though there are examples
of large designs covering the whole garment.
The embroidered dresses of early Christian times are to be judged of
by mosaics and frescoes--mostly Italian. Those of the dark ages were
till lately only names and guesses. But a hiatus in our knowledge has
been filled up lately by the store of entombed textiles discovered in
the Fayoum in Egypt, and now at Vienna, in Herr Graf'schen's
Collection. Here we have a variety of shapes, designs, and stitches,
and every kind of subject, sacred and profane, Christian and Pagan,
and the missing links between Indian and Byzantine fabrics are
revealed. They cover nearly 400 years, from the third to the seventh
century, and many of them may be looked upon as apart from any
ecclesiastical or even Christian suggestions. I have spoken of them in
the chapter on Woollen Materials.[476]
After the seventh century, we again come into the dawning light of
history--and find here and there an illustrative fragment, nearly
always ecclesiastical, taken from the graves of priests and monarchs.
Charlemagne's mantle and robe embroidered with elephants and with
bees, preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle--his dalmatic in the Vatican--the
Durham embroideries, are rare and precious examples of that early
period.
Semper describes the difference between "the covering" and the
"binding." This seems to be little considered in modern costume, but
it is so essential that I would impress it on my readers. He says that
"the covering seeks to isolate, to enclose, to shelter, to spread
around, over a certain space, and is a collective unit," whereas
binding implies ligature, and represents a "united plurality,"--for
example, a bundle of sticks, the _fasces_ of the lictors, &c. "Binding
is linear, in dress it is either horizontal or spiral." What can the
united plurality be that justifies the binding often bestowed on the
figure in fashionable costumes? more fitted for binding together the
bones of the dead, than for permitting the agility of the muscles of
the living. Semper continues,--"Anything that goes against this
important axiom is wrong."[477]
I think we must all agree that the objects of dress are decency,
isolation, warmth, grace, and beauty. As long as fashion takes the
place of taste, and extravagant _chic_ supersedes grace and beauty, we
must not hope that fine designs to individualize dress will be called
for. The French machine-made embroideries are so beautiful, and
comparatively cheap, that we cannot compete with them. The best
artists design them, and the only fault to be found is this, that as
they are made by thousands of yards, and can only be varied by
interchange of colours, they become common the day they are produced.
It has been said that "fashion is made for a class, but taste for
mankind."[478] Fashion is the enemy of taste, though she makes use of
her services. The gown, of which the fashion is in every sense
imported from France, will probably never again be the vehicle for
home embroideries. But there are other articles of personal adornment
which will always be available for the fancies of decorative
taste--the fan, the purse or satchel, the apron, the fichu, the point
of the shoe, and the muff--all these are objects on which thought and
ingenuity may well be expended, and which will remain as records of
personal feeling when the workers and givers of such graceful
mementoes are far away. Carriage-rugs and foot-muffs, and embroidered
letter-cases, and book-covers, must be placed somewhere between
furniture and personal ornament. In all these the "_imprévu_," or
"unexpected," is what is valuable, including all that is original and
quaint.
Embroidery will, however, probably continue occasionally to be
employed in the adornment of dress--and will leave of each phase and
period of art some fine examples on which the archæologist of the
future may pause and reason.
There are in most old houses some specimens of old secular work--few
earlier than the date of Henry VIII. Gothic dress is very rare, except
the ecclesiastical. But from the fifteenth century till now, there
remains enough to exercise our curiosity, our artistic tastes, and our
power of selection and comparison; and hints for beauty and grace may
often be found and adapted to the style of our own day.
Planché's "Dictionary of Dress," and Ferrario's "Costumi antichi e
moderni di tutti i Popoli," are great works on dress and costume, and
both are splendidly illustrated and worthy of study.
FOOTNOTES:
[472] Elsewhere I have spoken of dress being continually
offered to the images of the pagan gods in the temples.
Herodotus (ii. p. 159) tells us that Pharaoh Necho
offered to the Apollo of Branchidæ the dress he happened
to have worn at both his great successes (the victory of
Magdalus and the taking of Cadytis). In the procession
of Ptolemy Philadelphus the colossal statue of Bacchus
and his nurse Nysa were draped, the former in a shawl,
the latter in a tunic variegated with gold. See Yates,
"Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 369. Old clothes were sent as
votive offerings to temples, and inscriptions recording
lists of such decorations are still extant. See Appendix
1. The Greeks honoured the menders and darners, and
called them "healers of clothes." Blümner, p. 202.
[473] Men in former days preferred to show by their
dress their station and the company they belonged to.
Guilds had their ceremonial dresses, and their
"liveries," and their cognizances, and considered it an
honour to wear them. See Rock, "Church of our Fathers,"
ii. p. 115.
[474] Aristotle, De Mirab. Auscult., xcvi.
[475] Asterius, Bishop of Amasis, in the fourth century,
describes both hangings and dress embroidered with
lions, panthers, huntsmen, woods, and rocks; while the
Church adopted pictorial representations of Christian
subjects. Sidonius alludes to furniture of like
character. See Yule, "Marco Polo," p. 68.
[476] "Katalog der Theodor Graf'schen Fünde in Ægypten,"
von Dr. J. Karabacek, Wien, 1883.
[477] Semper, "Der Stil," p. 28.
[478] Unfortunately this axiom may be reversed. Taste
only belongs to a small class, and mankind follows it,
whether good or bad, if it only be the fashion.