MR. G. A. STOREY, A.R.A.
39, Broadhurst Gardens, N.W.
SIR,--It is difficult to pass an opinion upon "ladies' dress," because
its chief characteristic seems to be that it is ever changing. We no
sooner see a really pretty fashion than we hear ominous rumours--from
Paris (?)--that some abomination such as the crinoline is coming in
again, or the Gainsborough hat is to give place to the Pork-pie, or a
small copy of the Toriodero's head-gear. We are told that costume
indicates the phase or current of thought of the period and of the
country in which it is worn; that it becomes sumptuous in rich
communities and in prosperous times, but is sad and impoverished in
times of war and depression; that it marks the degree of civilisation,
of culture, of taste, and of wealth; and, like the other fine arts, has
its glorious periods as well as its decadence and restoration. Perhaps
it reached its lowest stage of ugliness, in this country, some thirty or
forty years ago, when corkscrew ringlets, high foreheads, flat bandeaus
plastered down the cheeks, evening dresses cut straight across the
collar bones, flounces and crinolines, and all the other horrors that
John Leech has so cleverly depicted in the early volumes of _Punch_ were
the fashions that set off our types of beauty. May we then conclude that
taste has improved since those days, and not only taste, but common
sense? At the present moment we see nothing outrageous to find fault
with, and much that is pretty to admire. It would take up too much space
to go into detail: to discourse on hats alone would require a separate
letter of some pages. I should have to show how some set off the face
and others do not, and how it often happens that the success of a hat
depends very much upon the face that looks out from under it. And so
with the way the hair is dressed, &c.; and I need scarcely say that a
pretty, graceful woman will make almost any costume look well if she
puts it on with taste, whereas there are certain other figures that
require special treatment.
There are some, whom I would not offend, but who nevertheless are
deficient in those graceful curves that Nature bestows upon her best
art, who require farthingales, hoops, improvers, and even flounces to
disguise the angularity of their structure, whilst others go the other
extreme of rotundity, such as a lady I knew, who was taller when she sat
down than when she stood up, and must baffle the most ingenious
contrivers of European costume, and whom nothing but a Chinese or loose
Japanese gown could make at all presentable.
I think female dress may be either very gorgeous, or very
simple--gorgeous as a Venetian lady when Titian and Paul Veronese
delighted to depict her in rich brocades and a wealth of pearls and
jewellery, or simple as in England a hundred years ago, when our
great-grandmothers wore muslin gowns with short waists and silk sashes,
the beauty and refinement of their faces making their chief attraction,
and the simplicity of the dress leaving full scope for the gracefulness
of the figure to display itself, as we see in the pictures of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Gainsborough, George Morland, Romney, and others.
But the great artists seldom adhere to the passing fashions; they
arrange the dress or reconstruct it so that it shall be most becoming to
their sitters and at the same time make a good composition of colour and
form for their pictures. This is also done by ladies of taste, who will
often turn some freak of fashion into a thing of beauty, and, regardless
of their milliner and dressmaker, will adopt some modification of the
passing style if it seems to them more suitable and becoming.
The sense of fitness in dress as in everything else, should, I think,
guide the fair sex of whatever degree--and I must say that there are
fewer costumes more suitable and, at the same time, much prettier than
those of some of our domestic servants, who, with their white caps, bibs
and aprons and black dresses make quite dainty little pictures, often
reminding us of that well-known print of "La Belle Chocolatière."
Whether this idea of fitness could be carried out in the cases of lady
Town Councillors, female clerks, &c., &c., I do not know. I must leave
that and many other matters connected with this subject to more
competent judges,--and remain, Yours obediently,