FOR WHOM DO WOMEN DRESS?

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 169, 22 August 1914, Page 6

FOR WHOM DO WOMEN DRESS?

THREE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. FOR whom do women dress? The problem pierces deep down into human nature,' yet even Carlyle never tackled the psychology of a woman's clothes. Since the Fall, however, it has exercised a great and permanent influence on the world's destiny. No doubt Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and other less dangerous historical heroines dressed well. Did they dress for the men who fought for them, or for the fellow-women who were jealous of them, or simply tc please their pretty selves?. Each of these three schools' of thought has adherents. To which do most women belong, are most women (as is likely) right, and are the divergent views of this knotty point in any way • reconcilable? . Man's Pretensions. Man naturally flatters himself that his pleasure should be the main motive for women. And whether this were or were not the case he would certainly persevere in believing so. Nor would he hug an illusion. At root his pretensions are true, but so hidden has the root become that it is not realised. So long and triumphantly have women led the fashions (as an endin itself) that they have forgotten the beginning. They have forgotten that at first it was for men that they dressed. They have forgotten how entirely this holdsgood of the primitive life and of the dark ages when the fair sex had-no other or better recourse. As civilisation progressed, however, two other dominant factors; emerged and intervened. In the first place—sad to relate—the competition for man grew so. keen that-the, rivalry of women inspired their apparel. And in the second man's own horizon became so enlarged thai he had little time or inclination for the details of feminine, attire. At best the brute only considered the general effect. This is so still, except with very observant orvery finical men of ,limitless leisure. V

The average man seldom marks those little nuances, in costume which are all in all to a woman, the small curves and variations that express the sensibilities of her soul—or of the soul of her dressmaker, which, alas£ is sometimes the same. Men rarely notice such things,, bu£ most women except professional philanthropists doWhen men do, however, it is chiefly for such men of inaction that wtmien dress. This profound truth underlays the whole "sentimental movement in later eighteenth, century England. Sterne is always noticing a woman's, clothes. We may infer that to please this elderly j coquette of a clergyman his grisettes and widows, lri» i Kitty de Fourniantelle and his Eliza Draper (well so- | called) will have dressed. But Sterne is an exception.. JI do not fancy that in Prance —the mother of ; dress,, j dinner, and drama —any woman ever adorned herself jto please the equally sentimental Rousseau. In Francei there are men milliners and at home we can still divinejthe authprship of a pseudonymous novel by its descriptions of dress. , . J. 1 Woman's Standard of Taste. V We arrive, then, at this metaphysical positionOriginal dress (like original sin) was mainly for man, but in the process of refinement-this remains only consciously true. In the main, however, much man may still be an object,-it is to a woman's standard of taste that her frocks appeal. It is for women: that women dress, and, so far, the two first schoolsof thought on this important matter admit of reeon.eiliation. , - But then comes in the third school, whose I was hearing (and with admiration) the other day"You are quite wrong," she said; "a woman dresses solely to please herself. Of course women don't dres» for men—who know nothing about it. You might as well urge that chefs cook for people without palates; it is absurd. Why, do you suppose should see all those wonderful frocks upon the stage, - if-the-taste > and trouble were taken only for men.? Men don't want them." "It is to advertise the milliners," ! ventured to interpose. "If it is, it is, surely an. advertisement addressed to a woman:"" "To women, in the mass, then," I persisted. "No, wrong again,, mere man,'' she continued. '' Each woman as she at a supreme 'creation' isolates herself; she does'not look at it as ' woman,' but as a woman. . X maintain that the love of dress is an innate feminine instinct. Every woman has it and would have it, so to speak, if no other woman - has it -at all. Either awoman dresses for herself or i3he J "w<jul3 show no taste. The many have no standard. It is always the one; And personally if I were quite,.alone>-—-■'> "0n » desert- island,'' I suggested. '' Yes, oii 'a desert island,. I should still continue to make the best of myself with | the "materials available. I should dress as I should Seat, to satisfy a natural, an inexorable appetite." "But |if you had no looking-glass—how then?" ."That would :be impossible. At the worst there would be the sea on. a calm day, and of course the shells and corals and things would bring me a great deal to the seashore; and then as I watched the sunshine gilding the colours I should imagine myself at Ascot or Ranelagli or Goodwood watching the gay crowd and the horses; and then r as I perfected a clasp of coral, I might wish -" But that seemed to lead us back again to the beginning.