THE BEAUTY’S PERSONALITY AND HER CLOTHES
Have you ever seen a jeweler at work making a gem as fine and handsome
as he can or as the nature of the jewel will permit? That is what you
must do for yourself. Polish your personality.
The jeweler makes the jewel shine with all its possible luster. That is
what every woman should do for the gem which is herself. The jeweler
holds the gem to the light to see what is its best angle and sets it
so that that angle is prominent. So should a woman do with her best
feature.
Study yourself in silhouette. Place yourself before a mirror so that
you can see yourself as one would see you who hurriedly brushed past
you in the street. See yourself sidewise. If you see that you have a
good profile and that the lines of your figure are graceful, keep your
side to the world, so to speak. Remember that this is your best line
and live up to it. Dress your hair so it will enhance the profile,
making it cameo like. If you discover a style of dressing your hair
that is becoming to you, and that makes that profile stand out in finer
relief, never mind whether it is the fashion of to-day or of ten years
ago. Its beauty will be its excuse and will make it the fashion for
you. So in your gowning. If your figure has a better silhouette when
draped in full gathered and shirred effects follow them. If, as is
liable to be true if you have a full figure, flat folds and tucks and
bands are more becoming, make abundant use of them.
Learn dressmaking yourself, if your means are limited, and learn to
apply your own principles of dressing. Make yourself individual. It
costs but little to dress well if you can make your own clothes. If
you find that your front view is better, face the world, as it were,
instead of turning your side to it.
I have heard of some women, “Her hair grows prettily.” When I have
scrutinized their faces I have found that what was meant by the phrase
was that it grew in odd, attractive little ripples or scallops about
the face. Yet I have seen the same women brushing their hair flat and
pressing it back in a hard, straight line from their faces. These human
jewelers were neglecting one of the best angles of their personality.
I have seen women whose rich, thick hair was their greatest charm draw
back the hair from their faces and twist it up in a hard little knot. I
wanted to cry out against this thoughtlessness.
I once overheard a pair talking while in the first stages of
love-making on board a transatlantic steamer. The man said, “You have
beautiful eyes, but you don’t know how to use them.” The next day as
I saw her while on a deck promenade I saw that he was right. She half
covered them with heavy, lazy looking lids. When she looked at any one
with them she looked with a slow, steady regard and without a smile in
them. If I had had eyes like that I should have been most industrious
with them. I would have opened them very wide, very often every day. It
would have illuminated conversation, and promoted mutual understanding.
And I would have taught them the pleasant trick of smiling.
I know a woman of whom it has often been said: “She is handsome when
she smiles, but she hardly ever smiles,” and this should have been
enough of a tip, as you say in America. Yet it wasn’t. Whenever I saw
her her lips drooped. Her cheeks muscles relaxed. If anything startled
her out of herself she smiled, quickly, roguishly, with a flash of
intelligence and good humor that was entrancing. Her smile transformed
her from a plain, dejected looking woman to a radiant, attractive one
ten years younger in appearance than she had looked a second before. If
she had polished her personality she would be always living up to that
smile.
I know another woman, more intelligent, though younger. She has lovely,
red-gold hair. At a time when it was fashionable to wear hats that come
low upon the face, completely hiding the hair, I said to her: “And do
you hide your beautiful hair beneath the foolish fashions?”
“No,” she answered. “Somehow, I always manage to show some of it.
Perhaps I draw it back from the forehead a little more than the
fashion requires. Or, I may tilt it a little more to the side than is
necessary. But I always show my hair.” Polishing her personality, you
see.
If a woman has a beautiful mouth she should be at more pains than
another to massage the lips to keep them full and moist. She should
massage the gums to keep them strong and red. And of her teeth she
should take infinite care. Such a woman should smile and smile again,
for fine teeth and a fresh, sweet mouth are always attractive.
If she has a classic chin and a fine throat she should keep the chin
well up to reveal the line from chin to chest.
If her hands are pretty she should wear her sleeves short enough to
display them. If her hands are shapely and tapering she should wear her
sleeves still shorter.
If the lines of her throat and shoulder are good she should form the
Dutch collar and low necked habit. If her figure is good she should
emphasize that within the limits of modesty.
In short make radiant your personality. Discover your best points and
keep, preserve and accent them. To use your plain Americanism: “Keep
your best foot forward.”
Fashions change, but taste endures. Fashions come and go, but
becomingness is a fixed quantity.
The woman who is wise in her own beauty will make this her creed. She
will determine after much observation of herself what is becoming to
her and what is not, never to cross the danger line between.
She will not aggressively defy fashion. She will adopt its becoming
modes, and adapt its unbecoming ones to the point only of becomingness.
But she will resolutely determine that she will wear nothing that will
detract from her beauty.
In the matter of dress, I have the courage of my convictions. I will
not wear that which I believe to be unbecoming to me. Sometimes I
may fancy I look well in what another may not admire as a part of
Cavalieri. In that I may be mistaken. But I never consciously wear what
makes me look less well than I would otherwise.
For instance, you will observe from my photographs that I almost never
change the style of wearing my hair. Long ago I found that flat waves
drawn low upon my brow and cheeks were becoming to me. In itself the
style is a trying one, but it happens to be becoming to my type of
face. The Italian women are almost the only nation that can wear it to
advantage. It seems to belong to the large, soft eyes, straight nose
and delicate chin of the race. And so through the succeeding years I
have worn them, and because I looked well in them have worn them in
the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, have worn them to
early musicales, to luncheons, to teas, for drives and the opera. I
have varied the style only when the times or character I was playing in
opera demanded that they be changed.
It is my opinion that the woman who discovers the style of hair
dressing that is adapted to her individual style and with some
possible slight modifications, which are concessions to the mode,
preserves that general style until the chiselling of the years has so
changed her face that she requires a different coiffure, is the clever
woman. Such a woman is Alexandra of England. The court hair dresser,
a great artist in his way, gave weeks to studying the coiffure that
should best frame the facial charms of the Princess of Wales.
He determined upon the present style. Queen Alexandra dressed her hair
in the same style for thirty years. It is admirable for her long,
patrician features, setting off their mingled delicacy and strength,
and her fine English coloring. In time she will doubtless change the
style to one softer and looser, calculated to lessen the effect of
aging features. But that time, happily, is far off for her gracious
Majesty. In general, it is true that preserving the same outlines of a
coiffure for most of a lifetime makes a woman seem younger.
In general, too, these rules may be followed in choosing the coiffure
that shall be yours. Do not accentuate that which nature has already
accentuated too much.
If nature has given you a round, chubby face counteract this too
decided tendency by building the hair high. Give the coiffure the
effect of a pyramid. The one high point at the top of the head will
materially lengthen the face and lessen the roundness which tends to
insipidity. The high coiffure will thus give distinction to a face that
had lacked it.
If the forehead is too low comb the hair loosely back from it. This
will add to the alertness and intelligence of the expression. If, on
the other hand, nature has given you the knobby, by which I mean what
you call the intellectual, forehead, the brow which is full and high
and broad, with projecting bumps, modify nature’s extreme by training
the hair to fall in loose tendrils upon it. Also comb the rest of the
hair, but loosely, from about it. Never tightly, for that will give the
drawn, frightened look which nature has already carelessly bestowed.
If your face be broad, the high coiffure increases its apparent length.
If yours be a slender countenance, then affect the low coiffure, for
its tendency is toward breadth.
If the face be broad, do not build the hair out loosely about the ears.
Instead comb it upward above the ears.
If the face be slender, its apparent breadth is added to by the
“fluffing” out of the hair about the ears.
If the face is angular, its hardness is reduced by a soft arrangement
of the hair.
In arrangement of the hair remember that balance is the law of beauty,
as it is of wisdom. For instance, balance the heavy jaw by drawing the
hair in a loose mass well forward above the brow. Balance the snub nose
by a loose coiffure with no jutting protuberance at the back to suggest
that it is the corresponding pole of the nose.
As to color of the hair, it is my judgment that we would better leave
it as nature painted it. Nature is the greatest colorist. She matches
complexion, eyes and eyebrows perfectly with the hair. Transform your
hair, and you will be at the trouble of transforming your entire person.
We are not to blame for our hair, but we are to blame for our hats.
They must look as though they belonged to us as our faces, our eyes,
our teeth belong to us.
I always trim my own hats. First I began to trim them because I had
not the money to buy them or to pay for trimming them. Now I trim them
because no one can do so to suit me.
I prefer simple hats, for the sufficient reason that they are more
becoming to me. But an overtrimmed hat is inartistic. It is ugly. It
is vulgar. The hat should serve its function of being a becoming frame
for the face. The head should not be a mere pedestal or milliner’s
dummy for a monstrous hat. Women answer criticisms of the terrible
travesties now worn, “But they are the fashion.” Yes, but who made them
the fashion? You and you and you. A fashion can be killed at its birth,
in the shops of Paris, if women will but determinedly say: “No, no, no.
I do not like it. I shall not wear it. Show me others.”
Remember the law of balance. A woman with a tapering chin should wear a
hat built to a corresponding peak at the top. The effect of these two
peaks should be to form an agreeable oval.
The round-faced woman’s safety of becomingness lies in the hat in
which angles predominate. It should have stiff ribbon bows and sharp
aigrettes, or pointed wings and dagger-like ornaments. This woman will
always be improved, too, by wearing V effects in coats and wraps and
gowns.
The hornlike effects should be avoided by the woman with sharp
features. Her task of lending a semblance of softness and roundness
to her face is made easier by a hat with a soft brim trimmed with a
fall of lace or a shirring of silk or velvet. Also the sharp-featured
woman should never wear a sailor hat. Neither should any woman over
twenty-five.
Here are some rules about dressing, so fundamental that I would
hesitate to give them were it not that every day I drive down Fifth
Avenue I see them flagrantly transgressed.
For instance, I see the short, stout woman wearing a short, stout coat.
The long, thin woman wears a long, thin coat. That is, each woman,
forgetting the law of balance, has chosen that which accentuates what
nature has already overaccentuated. The short coat should have been
worn by the tall woman. It would have made her seem shorter. The long
coat should have been worn by the short woman to disguise her brevity.
I see short women wearing horizontal trimming, when they should have
had lengthwise trimming, pointed trimming or no trimming at all.
I see a tall, slender woman wearing a long cape, when she could have
divided her superabundant height in two by wearing a short one.
I see a short woman wearing a flounce about her already absurdly short
skirt. By some perversity the short woman tries to emulate the barrel
and the tall woman the telegraph pole.
The woman with a crane-like neck bares its funny length to a grinning
world, and the woman with a mere line where a neck should be muffles
that up with ruches that make her look like a frightened setting hen.
If only they would have ever before them the thought, “What is becoming
to me?” and put far behind them the other question, “What is the
fashion?” then would women dress artistically, not ridiculously.
I do not preach that which I am not willing to practice. It happens
that I do not like white. To me it is a dead, trying color. Therefore
I never wear it. I am told this is to be a white season. I answer,
“It will not be for me.” And I continue to wear blue or black on the
street, and pale shades of rose or blue or green or yellow at night.
And merely because it happens to be “a white season” people do not
forget to look at La Cavalieri in rose or yellow or blue or green.
Let me recall to you the most beautiful of American women, Maxine
Elliott. One winter the coat covering the hips, forming a second
thickness of cloth upon them, was fashionable. Did Miss Elliott wear
it? Not at all. I saw her wearing a very pronounced cutaway coat, one
in which the frock part of the coat was cut at the very middle of her
hips, so taking from instead of adding to the width of her figure. And
the Maxine Elliott hats! Have you noticed how like they are, no matter
what the fashion?
Always beautiful, because of elegant, yet simple lines, but more
particularly beautiful because they are becoming to their wearer. They
are very little trimmed; usually with large, flat bows or low curving
feathers. Almost always they are black, or black with a touch of white,
but always they look as though they were designed for or by Miss
Elliott, as I doubt not they are.
The lank woman must shun the V-shaped corsage as His Satanic Majesty is
said to avoid the bowl of Holy Water. The broad corsage, draped with
full flounces of lace or tulle, will be most becoming.
In the same degree the stout woman must avoid the corsage with round
effects. She should seek the pointed effects to counteract her
redundancy of curves.
I will not go further into details on this subject. The intelligent
woman to whom this law of balance in dress has been presented will work
out successfully her own problems.
It applies as well to colors as to form. The high-colored woman needs
pale tinted colors to reduce her own exuberance of color, while the
neutral tinted woman, she with light gray or blue eyes and ash-brown
hair, requires in her youth at least brilliant shades.
When buying your wardrobe I beg of you to think less of the fashion
plates displayed by your tailor and dressmaker than of your own style.
Everyone has a style of her own, and that is good style for her. One
authority on woman’s dress even goes so far as to urge women to know
themselves so well as to decide whether in their composition mind or
soul or body dominates. “For,” according to this lecturer on womanly
beauty, “each of these three parts of your composition is represented
by a color. If you are a woman of intense spirituality you should wear
much yellow, for that represents the soul. Should you lean more to
the material side of life you are best represented by red. If you are
one of the growing army of the intellectuals, this authority advises
wearing much of the mental color, which is blue.”
It occurs to me to inquire whether that is the reason why women of
strong mentality are often referred to as “blue stockings.” I do not
wholly agree with this woman lecturer.
If, for instance, you are a red woman, why not wear considerable
yellow? It will give you a more soulful aspect, and, if our manners
react upon our characters, why should not colors? Wearing the soul
color may develop latent soul qualities. Or the red woman, by wearing
much blue, might, to use a term of the stage, “convey an illusion” of
greater mentality than she has, and perhaps stir that part of her self
to greater activity.
It is an interesting theory, but may, perhaps, be pursued to the point
of attenuation. One quality I like so greatly in you Americans is
that you are practical, and theories so tenuous as this I have quoted
move you to laughter. I recall that when one of your authors wrote of
the color of individual auras and talked of a “pink personality,” she
greatly interested the humorists. I leave with you this theory to smile
at or to adopt as you like.
But in what I shall say next I am most gravely serious. That is that
in selecting your wardrobe I would have you think far more about your
individuality than about the passing fashion. I do not know what will
be the next caprice in furs. I do not care. Being tall and slight I
shall choose long-haired furs, as the silver fox, because, to use an
Americanism, I can “carry them well.” But if you who read this are
short, and especially if you are short and stout, wear short-skinned
furs, as mink and seal and sable, if you can afford them, for
long-haired furs will render you out of drawing, absurdly costumed.
While choosing your hats and wraps, your gowns and gloves, be for once
self-centered. Self-centeredness is excusable when one is shopping. It
is in the direction of economy, for if we think steadily of ourselves
we will not purchase a fur coat in which our sister looks adorable but
ourself ridiculous, and we will not order a gown that will prove so
unbecoming that we will give it away after once or twice wearing it.
Keep in mind, after your own individuality, certain art principles
that apply to dress. This is a good one as to color. “Dress up to your
eyes, your hair or your complexion.” Permit me to explain. If a girl
has brown eyes she may not always wear brown gowns. But she can be
exceedingly careful to wear no tint that will make her creamy skin look
sallow. For her creamy shades are becoming, because they harmonize with
her complexion.
If a girl has red hair she will be wise if she wears shades, regardless
of the tint of the moment, that will throw the hair into relief--as
blue, or green, or black. If a woman has Irish eyes--that fascinating
mixture of blue and gray, that holds in its depths much of infant
innocence yet much of worldly wisdom, deep eyes that fascinate because
they are inscrutable--she will look her best in gowns that match her
eyes, the same indeterminate blue and gray.
Think of yourself steadily and not tenderly in the selection of stuffs.
If you are thin and active, soft materials, as chiffons, crêpe de
chines, light weight silks, will be becoming. If you are of heavier
habit, heavier silks and broadcloths are more expressive and so more
becoming.
The dividing line between the skirt and bodice is ugly. If you cannot
have a one part dress, then hide the dividing line by a girdle. If you
are stout, let the girdle be of the same shade and material as the
gown. If not slender, you may safely wear a girdle of different shade
than your gown.
Artists know the beauty of the straight line, and for a few seasons
coutourieres have groped their way toward it. Parallel lines running
lengthwise are the lines of beauty in dress because they consistently
follow those of the figure. For this reason a gown whose pronounced
lines are from the shoulder, the drapery curving slightly at the waist,
give grace and beauty to the figure. Trimmings that run around the
figure always lack beauty, and if of contrasting material they have a
ludicrous effect. The high girdle gives an appearance of greater length
to the limbs. The girdle, if not of the same color and material, should
not be of too glaringly the opposite.
Remember that stiff effects are always inartistic, so avoid the
appearance of being trussed up, as a fowl in the oven or soldier on
parade. For this reason shun tight sleeves, tight gloves, or skirts,
so heavy or narrow that they make your gait an awkward one. I am glad
that fashion permits the wearing of loose gloves. They give ease to the
hands and are far more graceful than the tight ones that gave the hand
the appearance of being stuffed into it.
When selecting your hat, a bit of brilliant color may be introduced;
but let it not be directly above the face, for it will give to the face
the illusion of being pale, whether it is or not.