In his emancipation from Fashion man has made much more progress than
woman. There is still a considerable number of shallow-brained young
“society men” who naïvely and minutely accept the slight variations
introduced every year in the cut and style of cravats, shirts, and
evening-dress by cunning tailors, in order to compel men to throw away
last season’s suits and order new ones. But much larger is the number of
men who disregard such innovations, and laugh at the silly persons who
meekly accept them, even when their taste is offended by such new
fashions as the hideous collars and hats with which the market is
occasionally flooded.
There was a time when men spent as much time and money on dress in a
week as they now do in a year; a time when men were as strictly ruled by
capricious, cunning Fashion as women are to-day. Lord March, we read,
“laid a wager that he would make fashionable the most humiliating dress
he could think of. Accordingly, he wore a blue coat with crimson collar
and cuffs—a livery, and not a tasteful livery—but he won his bet.” After
the battle of Agincourt, it is said, “the Duc de Bourbon, in order to
ransom King John, sold his overcoat to a London Jew, who gave no more
than its value, we may be pretty sure, but nevertheless gave 5200 crowns
of gold for it. It seems to have been a mass of the most precious gems.”
The Duke of Buckingham “had twenty-seven suits of clothes made, the
richest that embroidery, lace, silk, velvet, silver, gold, and gems
could contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet, set all over,
both suit and cloak, with diamonds valued at fourscore thousand pounds,
besides a great feather stuck all over with diamonds, as were also his
sword, girdle, hat, and spurs.”
Mr. Spencer cites two amusing instances of masculine subjection to
fashion in Africa and mediæval Europe. Among the Darfurs in Africa, “If
the sultan, being on horseback, happens to fall off, all his followers
must fall off likewise; and should any one omit this formality, however
great he may be, he is laid down and beaten.” “In 1461, Duke Philip of
Burgundy, having had his hair cut during an illness, issued an edict
that all the nobles of his states should be shorn also. More than five
hundred persons sacrificed their hair.”
So far as men are still subject to the influence of ugly fashions, they
differ from women in at least frankly acknowledging the ugliness of
these fashions. Whereas most women admire, or pretend to admire,
corsets, high-heeled boots, crinolettes, bustles, etc., there are few
men who do not detest _e.g._ the unshapely, baggy trousers, which were
so greatly abhorred by the æsthetic sense of the ancient Greeks; and
most men to-day (except those who have ugly legs) would gladly wear
knee-breeches, if they could do so without making themselves too
conspicuous. Herein lies the greatest impediment to dress reform. To
make oneself very conspicuous is justly considered a breach of good
manners; and few have the courage, like Mr. Oscar Wilde, to make martyrs
and butts of ridicule of themselves.
But if individuals are comparatively powerless, clubs of acknowledged
standing might make themselves very useful to the cause of Personal
Beauty, as affected by dress, if they would vote to adopt in a body
certain reforms as regards trousers, hats, and evening-dress. Then it
would no longer be said of a man rationally dressed that he is
eccentric, but that he belongs to the X—— Club; and many outsiders would
immediately follow suit for the coveted distinction of being taken for
members of that club. Thus both the wise and the foolish would be
gratified.
As showing how invariably and consistently Fashion is the handmaid of
ugliness, it is curious to note that the several styles of dress worn by
men are fashionable in proportion to their ugliness. For the greatest
occasions the swallow-tail or evening-dress is prescribed. Next in rank
is the ugly frock-coat, for morning calls. Of late, it is true, the more
becoming “cut-away” has been tolerated in place of the frock-coat; but
the sack-coat, which alone follows the natural outlines of the body, and
neither has a caudal appendage, like the evening-dress, nor, like the
frock-coat, gives the impression that a man’s waist extends down to his
knees, is altogether tabooed at social gatherings, except those of the
most informal kind.
Man’s evening-dress is so uniquely unæsthetic and ugly that fashionable
women have of course long been eyeing it with envy and have gradually
adopted some of its features. One of these is the chimney-pot hat, the
cause of so much premature baldness and discomfort. But women are not
quite so foolish as men in this matter; for they do not wear tall hats
at evening-parties and the opera, but only when out riding, where the
necessity of dodging about to keep them on against the force of the wind
and the blows of overhanging boughs, compels them to go through all
sorts of grotesque gymnastics with neck and head. If they wore a more
rational and becoming head-dress on horseback they might easily look
pretty and graceful, which would be fatal to their chances of being
considered fashionable.
In comparing masculine and feminine fashions, we must note that trousers
and swallow-tailed coats, though ugly, are harmless; while high-heeled
shoes, corsets, chignons, etc., are as fatal to health as to Personal
Beauty.
It is sometimes claimed in behalf of Fashion that, though it often
favours ugliness, it establishes a rule and model for all; whereas, if
everything were left to individual taste, the result might be still more
disastrous. Nonsense. Rare as good taste is among women, a modicum is
commonly present; and there are extremely few who, if not overawed by
the Fashion Fetish, would ever invent or adopt such hideous
irrepressible monstrosities as bustles, crinolines, chignons, trailing
dresses, Chinese boots, bird-corpse hats, etc.
A protest must, finally, be made against the horrible figures which in
our fashion papers are constantly offered as models of style and
appearance. Even in the best of them, such as Harper’s _Bazar_, which
frequently points out the injuriousness of tight lacing, female figures
are printed every week with hideously narrow waists, such as no woman
could possibly possess unless she were in the last stages of
consumption, or some other wasting disease.