ESTABLISH HABITS OF CARRIAGE WHICH CREATE GOOD LINE
Woman's line is the result of her costume, in part only. Far more is
woman's costume affected by her line. By this we mean the line she
habitually falls into, the pose of torso, the line of her legs in
action, and when seated, her arms and hands in repose and gesture, the
poise of her head. It is woman's line resulting from her habit of mind
and the control which her mind has over her body, a thing quite apart
from the way God made her, and the expression her body would have had if
left to itself, ungoverned by a mind stocked with observations,
conventions, experience and attitudes. We call this the physical
expression of _woman's personality_; this personality moulds her bodily
lines and if properly directed determines the character of the clothes
she wears; determines also whether she be a decorative object which says
something in line and colour, or an undecorative object which says
nothing.
PLATE VIII
Queen Elizabeth in the absurdly elaborate costume of the
late Renaissance. Then crinoline, gaudy materials, and
ornamentations without meaning reached their high-water mark
in the costuming of women.
[Illustration: _Metropolitan Museum of Art_
_Tudor England Portrait of Queen Elizabeth_]
Woman to be decorative, should train the carriage of her body from
childhood, by wearing appropriate clothing for various daily rôles.
There is more in this than at first appears. The criticism by foreigners
that Americans, both men and women, never appear really at home in
evening clothes, that they look as if they felt _dressed_, is true of
the average man and woman of our country and results from the lax
standards of a new and composite social structure. America as a whole,
lacks traditions and still embodies the pioneer spirit, equally
characteristic of Australia and other offshoots from the old world.
The little American girl who is brought up from babyhood to change for
the evening, even though she have a nursery tea, and be allowed only a
brief good-night visit to the grown-ups, is still the exception rather
than the rule. A wee English maiden we know, created a good deal of
amused comment because, on several occasions, when passing rainy
afternoons indoors, with some affluent little New York friends, whose
luxurious nurseries and marvellous mechanical toys were a delight,
always insisted upon returning home,--a block distant,--to change into
white before partaking of milk toast and jam, at the nursery table, the
American children keeping on their pink and blue linens of the
afternoon. The fact of white or pink is unimportant, but our point is
made when we have said that the mother of the American children
constantly remarked on the unconscious grace of the English tot, whether
in her white muslin and pink ribbons, her riding clothes, or
accordion-plaited dancing frock. The English woman-child was acquiring
decorative lines by wearing the correct costume for each occasion, as
naturally as a bird wears its feathers. This is one way of obviating
self-consciousness.
The Eton boy masters his stick and topper in the same way, when young,
and so more easily passes through the formless stage conspicuous in the
American youth.
Call it technique, or call it efficiency, the object of our modern life
is to excel, to be the best of our kind, and appropriate dress is a
means to that end, for it helps to liberate the spirit. We of to-day
make no claim to consistency or logic. Some of us wear too high heels,
even with strictly tailored suits, which demand in the name of
consistency a sensible shoe. Also our sensible skirt may be far too
narrow for comfort. But on the whole, women have made great strides in
the matter of costuming with a view to appropriateness and efficiency.