From the French of M. A. CHALLAMEL.
Fashion is the expositor of our habits and our social relations, from
the standpoint of costume. It is a much more serious subject than it
may seem at first; far from serving only as a source of frivolous talk,
even when it is specially concerned with our dress and ornamentation,
the subject of fashion, it has been wisely said, has its value as a
moral sign-post, and supplies the historian, the philosopher, and the
novelist with a guide to the prevailing ideas of the time.
It is of the French fashions we speak here; for in France, the land
of classic fancy, the empire of fashion, has assuredly been more
deeply felt than elsewhere. Even in primitive Gaul were the fashions
fixed, but their common sense is to be commended. The Gallic woman was
demanded by fashion to follow a strict course of bathing. In every
locality baths were established, and they were to her a delight, a
duty, and a necessity. At Marseilles young girls were forbidden by
custom the use of wine, lest it should injure the ivory whiteness of
their complexion. To guard against excess in dress, the law required
that the highest marriage portion of a woman should not exceed one
hundred golden crowns. The history of political events has had more
influence on fashion than may be generally supposed. Upon the conquest
of the country by Cæsar, Roman manners were introduced into primitive
Gaul, and the Gallic women, declining to be beaten in the art of
pleasing, as their husbands had in arms, adopted the fashions of
Rome. Extravagance in dress became boundless. We have in this early
period the beginning of two modern fashions. Some ladies chose to wear
garments which, on account of their breadth, were called by Horace
_palissades_. From these the crinoline appears to have been derived.
Ovid observes that to equalize the shoulders, if one were slightly
higher than the other, it was customary to drape lightly the lower of
the two. Thus originated padding. These Gallo-Roman ladies were elegant
in all their surroundings, and the Frenchwoman of to-day has not a
better sorted wardrobe. Parasols, mirrors, fans, perfumes, pomatums,
and cosmetics—all these things were known to the Gallo-Roman period.
It was not until about the tenth century that dress in France became
original. The women of the provinces adopted costumes of their
own, and, at their will, added details. Indeed, if the history of
fashion is studied, it will be seen that the original type of dress
has not changed. It is the subordinate parts that undergo continual
alteration. The skirt, the tunic (or overskirts), the mantle, the cap
and reticule have always existed since the time of our Gallic mothers.
One modification of the skirt produced a great furore in religious
circles—it was the trail to the gown. A disgusted prior said: “The tail
gives a woman the look of a serpent,” and the council of Montpellier
forbade the appendix in question on penalty of excommunication.
No fashion ever brought down more anathemas on the fair sex than
the “_hennins_.” It was introduced, too, in a period when it would
naturally be supposed that the very terror of the time would have
destroyed all passion for dress and capricious fashions—the melancholy
time of the Hundred Years’ War. This hennin was a kind of two-horned
head-dress, made of muslin, stiffly starched and kept in place by fine
wire, and of most exaggerated size. Paradin says: “It was peaked like a
steeple, or with tall horns; from these horns hang flags, capes, fringe
and other material. Such head-dresses were naturally very expensive,
and husbands were loud in complaint.” Confessors and monks added their
curses. They considered the hennin as an invention of the evil one,
and organized a deadly warfare against the obnoxious article; but this
uproar availed nothing, the women only gave up their hennins from a
caprice similar to that which had invented them.
One strange fashion of the whole Middle Ages related to the color of
the hair. Fair hair alone was considered beautiful. On this point the
French and the Greeks were of one mind. In Shakspere’s play of “As
You Like It” we find Rosalind as she hoots at Phœbe, laughing at her
“black silk-hair” as a mark of her plainness. The word “fashion” seems
to convey an almost absolute sense of novelty, but that which is new
to-day may be but a revival of what is old. “There is nothing new under
the sun,” applies with special force to fashion. The pretty trifles
worn by women of to-day are nothing but the reproduction of similar
ornaments worn by the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, or the Gauls,
and all our novelties find their origin many centuries in the past.