THE TYRANNY OF FASHION

Press, Volume XII, Issue 1581, 30 November 1867, Page 3

THE TYRANNY OF FASHION

[From the "Australasian."] A suggestion has been thrown opt by the London " Examiner " which is sg rational that we fear it will, on that account alone, meet with little acceptance. Our contemporary proposes that some of the leaders of fashion among the English nobility, with one of her Majesty's daughters at their head, should form themselves into a society for resisting-the tyranny of the mode, and restdring female costume to simplicity, elegance, and ineXpensiveness. It is shown that the Protean changes of fashion, its extravagant caprices and irrational decrees, emanate, not from ladies themselves, but from a certain number of milliners and dressmakers, hairdressers and wig-makers, in London and Paris, Whose interest it is to vary the fashions from month to month,, and even fcom week to week, and to encourge the consumption of costly materials in large, quantities, just in order to enrich the Madame Mantalinis who provide the wives of the upper • ten thousand with their wearing apparel. Ladies of ton, to employ the slang of the modiste, are literally the submissive instruments of the women for whose establishments .are designed those hideouscaricatures of humanity, those pink and white dolls in rainbow plumage, which, smile and smirk at us from the illustrated pages of " Le Foller "- and such like inane publications. At the bidding of the female Mantalinis our beautiful ; countrywomen torture their hair-.into something resembling a mop in convulsions ; or attach to the back [their heads an excrescence resembling a huge goitre concealed beneath a coverture, of hair ; and plant upon their crowns', a fantastic little plaster, decorated with beads, lace, artificial flowers, or otber gew-gaws ; and bring the waists of their dresses Tip to the vicinity of the armpits ; and walk about with reins of riband streaming down their backs ; and, generally, do all-that in them lies to disfigure the graceful contour of their forms and mar the natural loveliness of their faces.*; Sensible women candidly acknowledge the unseemliness, the Uglinesß, and the semi-indecency of many of the fashions imposed upon them ; but they complain that they are powerless to resist the tyranny which deforms them and impoverishes their husbands. They admit that the! head of one of Murillo's madonnas, with its simple and natural fe-angemeut of the hair, possesses a charm which is never effaced. by the juxtaposition of Buch a head with that of any living beauty upon whose coiffure art may have They; Confess that the costume of Greek and Roman matrons combined dignity with simplicity, and elegance with becpmingness, and that whether ia sculpture or upon the stage it commands the admiration alike of the educated eye of the artist and of the uneducated eye of the common crowd. They look with dismay upon the Mutability of the fashions, and cower under their;_despotic authority; but they have not the courage to rebel. They are. afraid to adhere for any length of time to a style df dress which, as now and then happens, is tasteful as well as modish. They stand in awe of Mrs Grundy. They exclaim, with the young lady in the old comedy, " Let mc be genteel, or I die!" They have committed to memory divers little proverbs — proverbs indented by feeble-minded mantua•piakers—the purport of which is, that it is better to be out of the world than out of the fashion ; and so they go on prostrating themselves before an idol they fear, and submitting to a despotism which many of them detest. And, remembering that the fashions of any one year are regarded as ludicrous caricatares and preposterous exaggerafeoDjwhea we turnover some sketche*

of them three or .four jjears, .afterwards —that the coal-scuttle bonnet of one epoch is not more ridiculous than the cheese-plate which does duty for headgear iv another — and that every absurdity in costume is unreservedly admitted to be such the moment it has gone completely out of fashion, it does appear to be little less than amazing that the tyranny of the mode should be so obsequiously acquiesced 'in by our fair countrywomen at home and abroad. Many fashions are wholly destructive of comfort ; others are repulsively ugly ; some are inconceivably tasteless; and all are calculated to divert domestic expenditure from channels into which it might be beneficially directed into permanent and exhaustive drains. Those who minister to fashion and fatten on its follies will be found riding in their carriages, while the poor artist and the man of letters trudges along on foot with a patched pair of boots, and a coat that is white at the seams and napless at the elbows. You will find a rustling of silks and a Bheen of satins in houses where the furniture is shabby, .and the carpets are threadbare, and the butcher, and baker, the milkman and grocer, have to make pertinacious appeals for the settlement of " that small account." For fashion exercises its imperious sway over all classes of society, from the lady who has a couple of carriages at her disposal to Molly Bawn who broils our chop and boils our eggs. On the whole Molly Bawn is much less to, blame. than the wife of the rich gentleman ; since the latter enjoys an assured position, and might, if she had the requisite courage, taste, and good sense, repudiate all allegiance to fashion, and attire herself with modest elegance and inexpensive simplicity; whereas poor Molly is only imitating her betters, and maybe excused for supposing that fashionable materials and fashionable modes of making them up are of immense importance, since they are held to be so by educated women, who claim to be the leaders, guides, and models of good society.

To abate the power and restrain the excesses .of fashion is a duty that must devolve upon women, themselves Sumptuary laws are out of the question; and nothing is to be hoped for from those who set the fashions—the Mantalini tribe. Half-a-dozen influential aud intelligent ladies might beneficially take the lead in one of the greatest social reforms of the present day. Let them select from the many graceful, becoming, and picturesque costumes which have been worn at different periods of English history that which fulfils all these conditions in a pre-eminent degree; let them adopt it, and let them adhere to it. A really beautiful costume never ceases to b6 attractive' and admired. And the form being determined upon, there is plenty of scope for the exercise of individual taste and fancy in the selection of colour and material. If the ladies distrust their own judgment, let them invite a jury of artists to decide upon the point; and we will engage to say that such a jury would furnish them with a,design which would command the approbation of all who saw it. Without a reform of this kind, the ruinous prodigality of expenditure and the craving for finery into which fashion is betraying all classes of the community, threaten to drive hundreds of husbands into the Insolvent Court, and to fill our streets with more and more of those unfortunates who owe their fall from virtue lesß to vicious principlesthanantoinorordinate love of dress, coupled with a disinclination for honest work.