THE LAWS UNDERLYING ALL COSTUMING OF WOMAN
That every costume is either right or wrong is not a matter of general
knowledge. "It will do," or "It is near enough" are verdicts responsible
for beauty hidden and interest destroyed. Who has not witnessed the mad
mental confusion of women and men put to it to decide upon costumes for
some fancy-dress ball, and the appalling ignorance displayed when, at
the costumer's, they vaguely grope among battered-looking garments,
accepting those proffered, not really knowing how the costume they ask
for should look?
Absurd mistakes in period costumes are to be taken more or less
seriously according to temperament. But where is the fair woman who will
say that a failure to emerge from a dressmaker's hands in a successful
costume is not a tragedy? Yet we know that the average woman, more
often than not, stands stupefied before the infinite variety of
materials and colours of our twentieth century, and unless guided by an
expert, rarely presents the figure, _chez-elle_, or when on view in
public places, which she would or could, if in possession of the few
rules underlying all successful dressing, whatever the century or
circumstances.
Six salient points are to be borne in mind when planning a costume,
whether for a fancy-dress ball or to be worn as one goes about one's
daily life:
* * * * *
First, appropriateness to occasion, station and age;
Second, character of background you are to appear against (your
setting);
Third, what outline you wish to present to observers (the period of
costume);
Fourth, what materials of those in use during period selected you will
choose;
Fifth, what colours of those characteristic of period you will use;
Sixth, the distinction between those details which are obvious
contributions to the costume, and those which are superfluous, because
meaningless or line-destroying.
* * * * *
Let us remind our reader that the woman who dresses in perfect taste
often spends far less money than she who has contracted the habit of
indefiniteness as to what she wants, what she should want, and how to
wear what she gets.
Where one woman has used her mind and learned beyond all wavering what
she can and what she cannot wear, thousands fill the streets by day and
places of amusement by night, who blithely carry upon their persons
costumes which hide their good points and accentuate their bad ones.
The _rara avis_ among women is she who always presents a fashionable
outline, but so subtly adapted to her own type that the impression made
is one of distinct individuality.
One knows very well how little the average costume counts in a theatre,
opera house or ball-room. It is a question of background again. Also you
will observe that the costume which counts most individually, is the one
in a key higher or lower than the average, as with a voice in a crowded
room.
The chief contribution of our day to the art of making woman decorative
is the quality of appropriateness. I refer of course to the woman who
lives her life in the meshes of civilisation. We have defined the smart
woman as she who wears the costume best suited to each occasion when
that occasion presents itself. Accepting this definition, we must all
agree that beyond question the smartest women, as a nation, are English
women, who are so fundamentally convinced as to the invincible law of
appropriateness that from the cradle to the grave, with them evening
means an evening gown; country clothes are suited to country uses and a
tea-gown is not a bedroom negligée. Not even in Rome can they be
prevailed upon "to do as the Romans do."
Apropos of this we recall an experience in Scotland. A house party had
gathered for the shooting,--English men and women. Among the guests were
two Americans; done to a turn by Redfern. It really turned out to be a
tragedy, as they saw it, for though their cloth skirts were short, they
were silk-lined; outing shirts were of crêpe--not flannel; tan boots,
but thinly soled; hats most chic, but the sort that drooped in a mist.
Well, those two American girls had to choose between long days alone,
while the rest tramped the moors, or to being togged out in borrowed
tweeds, flannel shirts and thick-soled boots.
PLATE IV
Greek Kylix. Signed by Hieron, about 400 B.C. Athenian. The
woman wears one of the gowns Fortuny (Paris) has reproduced
as a modern tea gown. It is in two pieces. The characteristic
short tunic reaches just below waist line in front and hangs
in long, fine pleats (sometimes cascaded folds) under the
arms, the ends of which reach below knees. The material is
not cut to form sleeves; instead two oblong pieces of
material are held together by small fastenings at short
intervals, showing upper arm through intervening spaces. The
result in appearance is similar to a kimono sleeve.
(Metropolitan Museum.)
[Illustration: _Metropolitan Museum of Art_
_Woman in Greek Art about 400 B.C._]
That was some years back. We are a match for England to-day, in the
open, but have a long way to go before we wear with equal conviction,
and therefore easy grace, tea-gown and evening dress. Both _how_ and
_when_ still annoy us as a nation. On the street we are supreme when
_tailleur_. In carriage attire the French woman is supreme, by reason of
that innate Latin coquetry which makes her _feel_ line and its
significance. The ideal pose for any hat is a French secret.
The average woman is partially aware that if she would be a decorative
being, she must grasp conclusively two points: first, the limitations of
her natural outline; secondly, a knowledge of how nearly she can
approach the outline demanded by fashion without appearing a
caricature, which is another way of saying that each woman should learn
to recognise her own type. The discussion of silhouette has become a
popular theme. In fact it would be difficult to find a maker of women's
costumes so remote and unread as not to have seized and imbedded deep in
her vocabulary that mystic word.
To make our points clear, constant reference to the stage is necessary;
for from stage effects we are one and all free to enjoy and learn.
Nowhere else can the woman see so clearly presented the value of having
what she wears harmonise with the room she wears it in, and the occasion
for which it is worn.
Not all plays depicting contemporary life are plays of social life,
staged and costumed in a chic manner. What is taught by the modern
stage, as shown by Bakst, Reinhardt, Barker, Urban, Jones, the
Portmanteau Theatre and Washington Square Players, is _values_, as the
artist uses the term--not fashions; the relative importance of
background, outline, colour, texture of material and how to produce
harmonious effects by the judicious combination of furnishings and
costumes.
To-day, when we want to say that a costume or the interior decoration of
a house is the last word in modern line and colour, we are apt to call
it à la Bakst, meaning of course Leon Bakst, whose American "poster" was
the Russian Ballet. If you have not done so already, buy or borrow the
wonderful Bakst book, showing reproductions in their colours of his
extraordinary drawings, the originals of which are owned by private
individuals or museums, in Paris, Petrograd, London, and New York. They
are _outré_ to a degree, yet each one suggests the whole or parts of
costumes for modern woman--adorable lines, unbelievable combinations of
colour! No wonder Poiret, the Paris dressmaker, seized upon Bakst as
designer (or was it Bakst who seized upon Poiret?).
Bakst got his inspiration in the Orient. As a bit of proof, for your own
satisfaction, there is a book entitled _Six Monuments of Chinese
Sculpture_, by Edward Chauvannes, published in 1914, by G. Van Oest &
Cie., of Brussels and Paris. The author, with a highly commendable
desire to perpetuate for students a record of the most ancient
speciments of Chinese sculpture, brought to Paris and sold there, from
time to time, to art-collectors, from all over the world; selected six
fine speciments as theme of text and for illustrations.
Plate 23 in this collection shows a woman whose costume in _outline_
might have been taken from Bakst or even Vogue. But put it the other way
round: the Vogue artist to-day--we use the word as a generic term--finds
inspiration through museums and such works as the above. This is
particularly true as our little handbook goes into print, for the reason
that the great war between the Central Powers and the Entente has to a
certain extent checked the invention and material output of Europe, and
driven designers of and dealers in costumes for women, to China and
Japan.
Our great-great-grandmothers here in America wore Paris fashions shown
on the imported fashion dolls and made up in brocades from China, by the
Colonial mantua makers. So we are but repeating history.
To-day, war, which means horror, ugliness, loss of ideals and illusions,
holds most of the world in its grasp, and we find creative
artists--apostles of the Beautiful, seeking the Orient because it is
remote from the great world struggle. We hear that Edmund Dulac (who has
shown in a superlative manner, woman decorative, when illustrating the
_Arabian Nights_ and other well-known books), is planning a flight to
the Orient. He says that he longs to bury himself far from carnage, in
the hope of wooing back his muse.
If this subject of background, line and colour, in relation to costuming
of woman, interests you, there are many ways of getting valuable points.
One of them, as we have said, is to walk through galleries looking at
pictures only as decorations; that is, colour and line against the
painter's background.
Fashions change, in dress, arrangement of hair, jewels, etc., but this
does not affect values. It is _la ligne_, the grand gesture, or line
fraught with meaning and balance and harmony of colour.
The reader knows the colour scheme of her own rooms and the character of
gowns she is planning, and for suggestions as to interesting colour
against colour, she can have no higher authority than the experience of
recognised painters. Some develop rapidly in this study of values.
If your rooms are so-called period rooms, you need not of necessity
dress in period costumes, but what is extremely important, if you would
not spoil your period room, nor fail to be a decorative contribution
when in it, is that you make a point of having the colour and texture of
your house gowns in the same key as the hangings and upholstery of your
room. White is safe in any room, black is at times too strong. It
depends in part upon the size of your room. If it is small and in soft
tones, delicate harmonising shades will not obtrude themselves as black
can and so reduce the effect of space. This is the case not only with
black, but with emerald green, decided shades of red, royal blue, and
purple or deep yellows. If artistic creations, these colours are all
decorative in a room done in light tones, provided the room is large.
A Louis XVI salon is far more beautiful if the costumes are kept in
Louis XVI colouring and all details, such as lace, jewelry, fans, etc.,
kept strictly within the picture; fine in design, delicate in colouring,
workmanship and quality of material. Beyond these points one may follow
the outline demanded by the fashion of the moment, if desired. But
remember that a beautiful, interesting room, furnished with works of
art, demands a beautiful, interesting costume, if the woman in question
would sustain the impression made by her rooms, to the arranging of
which she has given thought, time and vitality, to say nothing of
financial outlay; she must take her own decorative appearance seriously.
PLATE V
Example of the pointed head-dress, carefully concealed hair
(in certain countries at certain periods of history, a sign
of modesty), round necklace and very long close sleeves
characteristic of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Observe angle at which head-dress is worn.
[Illustration: _Metropolitan Museum of Art_
_Woman in Gothic Art Portrait showing pointed head-dress_]
The writer has passed wonderful hours examining rare illuminated
manuscripts of the Middle Ages (twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries), missals, "Hours" of the Virgin, and Breviaries,
for the sole purpose of studying woman's costumes,--their colour, line
and details, as depicted by the old artists. Gothic costumes in Gothic
interiors, and Early Renaissance costumes in Renaissance interiors.
The art of moderns in various media, has taken from these creations of
mediæval genius, more than is generally realized. We were looking at a
rare illuminated Gothic manuscript recently, from which William Morris
drew inspirations and ideas for the books he made. It is a monumental
achievement of the twelfth century, a mass book, written and illuminated
in Flanders; at one time in the possession of a Cistercian monastery,
but now one of the treasures in the noted private collection made by the
late J. Pierpont Morgan. The pages are of vellum and the illuminations
show the figures of saints in jewel-like colours on backgrounds of pure
gold leaf. The binding of this book,--sides of wood, held together by
heavy white vellum, hand-tooled with clasps of thin silver, is the work
of Morris himself and very characteristic of his manner. He patterned
his hand-made books after these great models, just as he worked years to
duplicate some wonderful old piece of furniture, realising so well the
magic which lies in consecrated labour, that labour which takes no
account of time, nor pay, but is led on by the vision of perfection
possessing the artist's soul.
We know women who have copied the line, colour and material of costumes
depicted in Gothic illuminations that they might be in harmony with
their own Gothic rooms. One woman familiar with this art, has planned a
frankly modern room, covering her walls with gold Japanese fibre,
gilding her woodwork and doors, using the brilliant blues, purples and
greens of the old illuminations in her hangings, upholstery and
cushions, and as a striking contribution to the decorative scheme,
costumes herself in white, some soft, clinging material such as crêpe de
chine, liberty satin or chiffon velvet, which take the mediæval lines,
in long folds. She wears a silver girdle formed of the hand-made clasps
of old religious books, and her rings, neck chains and earrings are all
of hand-wrought silver, with precious stones cut in the ancient way and
irregularly set. This woman got her idea of the effectiveness of white
against gold from an ancient missal in a famous private collection,
which shows the saints all clad in marvellous white against gold leaf.
Whistler's house at 2 Cheyne Road, London, had a room the dado and doors
of which were done in gold, on which he and two of his pupils painted
the scattered petals of white and pink chrysanthemums. Possibly a
Persian or Japanese effect, as Whistler leaned that way, but one sees
the same idea in an illumination of the early sixteenth century; "Hours"
of the Virgin and Breviary, made for Eleanor of Portugal, Queen of John
II. The decorations here are in the style of the Renaissance, not
Gothic, and some think Memling had a hand in the work. The borders of
the illumination, characteristic of the Bruges School, are gold leaf on
which is painted, in the most realistic way, an immense variety of
single flowers, small roses, pansies, violets, daisies, etc., and among
them butterflies and insects. This border surrounds the pictures which
illustrate the text. Always the marvellous colour, the astounding skill
in laying it on to the vellum pages, an unforgettable lesson in the
possibility of colour applied effectively to costumes, when background
is kept in mind. This Breviary was bound in green velvet and clasped
with hand-wrought silver, for Cardinal Rodrigue de Castro (1520-1600) of
Spain. It is now in the private collection of Mr. Morgan. The cover
alone gives one great emotion, genuine ancient velvet of the sixteenth
century, to imitate which taxes the ingenuity of the most skilful of
modern manufacturers.