SIR,--You ask me to give you, in the form of a letter, my ideas on the
subject of ladies' dress.
It is not without considerable hesitation that I venture to approach so
sacred a mystery. I should indeed be disposed to decline your courteous
invitation to be "drawn" upon the question, on the ground that I am not
a figure painter, but for the consideration that although unhappily an
artist is obliged in his work to limit the range of his vision, yet the
beauty that exists in the world is the common heritage of us all, and
every artist is, or should be, equally appreciative of the loveliness of
our companions in life, and jealous of the safety and honour of the
shrine at which we all worship.
Replying to your letter, therefore, not as a specialist, but simply as
an artist, I would say:
The first essential in a woman's dress should be that _the beauty of it
must be a beauty that shall always be beautiful_. I do not deprecate
fashion--on the contrary, change is in itself pleasant to the eyes. But
it must be a change from one loveliness to another. To see a rose is
always an exquisite delight; so it is to see a lily. But we are not
called upon to decide once for all which we prefer, and if we choose the
rose to kill all the lilies. Thus it should be with dress: change is
desirable, but it must be on the understanding that no ugly thing shall
be tolerated for the sake of fashion.
That is, I think, the first great principle; and attention to it would
rid us for ever of the danger of the recurrence of those monstrosities
that have brought the very name of "fashion" into contempt. There have
been vagaries in dress to which our countrywomen have submitted, not
because they had an imperfect perception of what is really beautiful and
took the false for true, but because, in obedience to the inexorable
laws of fashion, they accepted regretfully what they knew to be ugly. I
hope the time will never come again when we may be tempted to lay a
finger on her ladyship's hoops, and ask, as the little maid did, "Pray,
madam, is that all yourself?" The leaders of fashion in Europe see
clearly enough that to mutilate a woman's foot, as the Chinese do, is a
barbarous custom; but they do not perceive that to make European ladies
walk painfully on stilts and tiptoe is barbarism of the same kind. But
the truth is that every attempt to modify the human form is an act of
savagery, and any form of dress that simulates a modification, whether
worn in Pekin or in Paris, or in London, is a savage dress, and carries
with it the additional shame of being a sham. Let us be content with
women as God made them. Let them be dressed, not altered. In a word, _no
dress can be really beautiful that suggests a personal deformity_.
Secondarily to this reverence for the human form should be fair
treatment of the fabric of which the dress is made. Velvet, silk,
linen,--each has its own natural way of falling into folds; and the
shape that a dress should take should be the natural result of the
folding of the material, and not the result of an artificial
construction. This principle may also be expressed in the simple form of
a negative. _No dress can be really beautiful that suggests the carrying
about of a machine._
Then as to colour. I think the present taste for soft, tertiary colours
is altogether favourable. Strong colours, in a mass, are destructive to
the delicacy of colour and expression in a woman's face. The vermilion
of her lips should not have to fight the red that is suitable enough for
pillar-posts. The blue of her eyes should not have to compete with that
of Reckitt. The missing colour, yellow, should not be flaunted against
her carnations and azure and pearly white. A woman is worth more than to
be subordinated to an aniline dye. _The primary or secondary colours
should be used (like brass instruments in a fine orchestra) very
sparingly._
These are, of course, very general principles. But I am not an expert in
millinery, and can only speak generally.
I think, however, that there is a tolerably safe test that might be
applied in carrying them out, viz., What will the dress look like in a
picture? Artists are every day finding their inspirations more and more
in the living men and women of their own time. Women are every day
making more history for men to paint. Let them dress so as to be
paintable. Dress how they will, they are always admired, and reverenced,
and loved. But I cannot say the same of their dress. The time has been
when, in order to paint a woman, the first necessity for the artist was
to get possession of her great-grandmother's gown. Under such
circumstances the painting of contemporary life must be limited to
portraiture; and everything that limits the range of art, limits its
splendour and the hold it should have on our affections.
There are only a few words that I care to add.
I think we lose something as a nation in not having a distinctive dress
for our peasantry and the _bourgeoises_ of our provincial
towns--nothing, I mean, to correspond with the square of linen folded on
the head, of which the Roman woman is so justly proud, or the white caps
of Normandy and Holland, varying in shape according to the township. The
picturesque way in which the shawl is used by our Lancashire lasses is,
indeed, some approach to it. But I recognise the impossibility of the
Continental system being established amongst us.
Would it, however, be too much to hope that the ladies of England may
see fit to adopt the beautiful custom of wearing a special garment for
church services? It would be in itself so seemly; it would add so much
to the grace and dignity of our worship; it would be so agreeable a
contrast to the parterre of bonnets in the lecture-room, and the pretty
grouping of black and brown and golden hair--yes, and of silver, too--in
the opera-house, that I believe the suggestion has only to be fairly
considered to be accepted.
I ask, "Will the ladies see fit to do this?" because, after all, it is a
woman's question. Men have a right to be considered, but _a woman's
dress, to be beautiful, must be the expression of a woman's mind, and
the work of a woman's hand_.--I am, Sir, yours faithfully,