ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3138, 9 October 1922, Page 7

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

HOW LADIES TOOK HOLIDAY. (By Mr si Herbert Richardson.) One of the many charms of a collection of fashion plates is the opportunity it affords us from time to time of comparing or contrasting our ordinary everyday doings with those of our ancestors under similar circumstances some hundred years or more ago. These dainty plates, steel engraved and hand colored, present to us our great-grand-mothers, through that most revealing of all media., their clothes, in almost every aspect of their lives; and it is restful at tinier to exchange our rather strenuous preoccupations for a study of their leisured days. Just now, for example, it has been pleasant to abandon for a moment the arduous contriving of beach-frocks anid bathing-gowns, and, turning over the leaves of a big fash-ion-plate collection, to. imagine greatgrandmamma a century ago doing exactly the same thing. It is pre-eminently the English fashion plates we must study, however, if we would find great-grandmamma in holiday humor. The ideals of sport and recreation of the contemporary Parisienne seem, judging from her fashion plates, to have been limited to a little love-making in the Bois de Boulogne (in a dainty and rather degagee frock after Fragoiiard), or an hour or two's devotion (in a clinging Empire gown 1 which must have constituted something of a handicap) to the Jen de Diablo, our not soi long since resuscitated friend Diabolo. But the Eglishwonmn was more practical and sportsmanlike. First and foremost, she approved a seaside holiday. Since George. 111. and his family had popularised Weymouth, and his scapegrace son had done similar service by Brighton, the summer "recess" at a bathing place had been tie rigueur. We may see great-grand-mamma there in the sevcnteeii-nineties, a pretty figure in slim muslin and a straw bonnet, under which a projecting green shade is fixed above her eyes to protect them and her complexion from the glare. In the early nineteenth century there is a vogue at the bathing places for laco capes with hoods covering both face and hair, and, later, for the gauged sunbonnet worn with a cambric or "Perkale" frock. But by 1820 Madame has adopted a frilled skirt of moderate length and a tucked muslin blouse (which she calls a "Canezou"), that most useful and popular combination first appearing, apparently, to meet the practical requirements of cliff paths and rambles over the rocks. With her blouse and skirt she carries a green sun-umbrella ringed about the middle, a rather-Oanip-like accessory, and not as pretty as the pagoda parasols, worn with scarf and hat ribbons to match, which for spine time succeeded the green eyeshade and lace hood for seaside wear. Thus prettily and appropriated attired, great-grandmamma wanders on the cliffs and surveys the bathing machines, preposterously bonneted, on the beach below; or, clad in blue coat and "NelHon's buttons," searches the Channel tor French craft with the aid of a friendly Jack Tar's telescope. But the discreet costume in which she was dipped by the bathing-woman or swam upon occasion we never see; though we are shown the pretty tasselled bag, quaintly styled a " bathing preserver" and not must larger than mv lad's "reticule," in which she carried it, and are told in the letterpress accompanying the fashion-plate that it holds "a dress for bathing more' suitable than anything at present in use, to which is attached a cap of delicate silk to keep the head dry/' The description certainly suggests something more attractive than the clumsy serge affairs of thirtv years later.

A seaside holiday by no means exhausted great-grandmamma's ideals of rest and recreation, however. The fable of her faintings and flutterings dies bard, but she was in fact a far more courageous and sporting lady than we, in the pride of our modern emancipation, always, like to believe First and foremost, she was a fearless horsewoman—and a very charming one. besides. A rare French plate of 1778 shows a jeune dame en militaire rifling astride, and one notorious Yorkshire lady rode for a wager in 1884 in buckskinbreeches and jockey cap and jacket ot reopard satin." But neither in the a i* °."-" En « fcl ' fashion-plates do Tif £ i-i «*»ntrictty repeated, and tiie ma ish gentlewoman always rode Hide-saddle. We can see her in Windsor Great Park in 1794, in scarlet cloth and black felt hat, with gold loop earrings, York tan gloves, and shoes of purple Spanish leather. The three latter persist as correct accessories to •fashionable riding "kit" for many years and the swinging earrings* have a charmingly gallant and picturesque effect, with the great plumed beavers and gaily-colored habits—purple and blue and "chocolate." worn with a white waistcoat or a gold lace sasltot tins period. But about 1807 there succeeds a vogue for plainer styles and coherer colors Fine seal-wool "cloth in green or "dust of ruins" ( a . rather dingy grey) is correct riding wear, with a 'Jockey bonnet" and plaited cambric mIJ, the skirt confined below the hips by a narrow band of elastic, the precursor of the modern safety habit. In this the Englishwoman looks exceedingly well, and the fashion for severe smartness obtains with slight modi'ticalions until late into the Regency, when the skirt again grows fuller (with a glimpse of white pantaloon below it) yards o-f black "choker" replace the cambric frill, and the mannish "convex hat or beaver "topper" are the only varieties of headgear. The "topper," had, however, achieved a much earlier vogue as an accessory to driving costume. Great-grand-mamma was a "whip" ~s well ae a horsewoman, and "handled the ribbons often enough. Sometimes she drove negligee, in "jonquilta" shoes and lilac ribbons. But she never looked! more sportsmanlike and attractive than when, behind a pair of bloodl horses, she took the Brighton road in tii yellow curricle, the capes of a grey "Coburg pelisse" widening her slim shoulders, and a needle-run veil floating gracefully beyond the curved brims of her silvery beaver. A hundred 1 years ago, we must remember, driving'was. next to boxing, the most popular of on rnational sports, and Madame took as keen an interest in it as her mankind. So much so that the best of her fashion publications have frequent plates of the latest thing in phaeton and barouche for her delectation, as well as the current modes from London or Paris.

It is interesting to turn for a moment to great-grandmamma's winter preoccupations. Winter sports had not yet "arrived," but, if winter came, shti "skait-ed" at least upon the Serpentine "with some display of limb," as the contemporary newspaper put it. The limb in question was invariably finished with a pretty fur-topped boot (a. fashion later immortalised by Arabella. YVingle). and must have looked rather charming beneath the cosy winter costume of 100 years ago. The long Polish Witzchoura and (after the famous retreat from Moscow) the Russian mantle were the most fashionable outdoor garments, both of the close-fitting pelisse description, edged with heavy fur. Carried out in white satin and they look delightful in the old fashion plates, especially when worn with a sable, or ermine and rose-pink cloth,

huge granny muff of the same fur, and! the adorably demure lace cap which was for many years smart wear beneath the large, dark winter hats. Sometimes Madame affected a pelisse in Indian red, made from a Cashmere shawl and hemmed witli narrow bands of leopard fur. But nothing realty impaired the popularity of the Witzchoura until the eighteen-thirtios, when its straight lilies become impossible over the wider spread! of feminine skirts, and it is succeeded by snake-like "boas" and the less graceful cape. We have surveyed great-grandmam-ma, at the seaside, in the saddle, or along the Brighton road, and upon the ice of the Serpentine. What of her as a "shot?" Well, here perhaps she fails us. The ''doggy" woman (the slender elegance of an Italian greybound best expressed great-grand-mamma's taste in dogs), and the lady who goes out with the guns are unknown to her generation. Hut one balf-forgotten sport of which sbe was past mistress yet remains. It is, roughly, from the year 1780 that the enthusiastic revival of the old English pastime of archery dates, to endure for seventy years or more. Throughout this period women shot at the butts with grace and skill, not unaware, perhaps, that few sports were better fitted to show off a. pretty figure to its fullest advantage. There was no recreation for which great-grandmamma dressed more carefully or with more sporting accuracy. Green gros de Naples was the most correct wear, with gloves and "brace" (worn on the right arm) of primrose kid; from the right side hung • green worsted tassel, on which to wipe the arrow, and the little quiver on the left hip was usually of green watered ribbon. Sometimes, the green was unchanged for white, hussarbraided with blue, and worn with white gloves and ''brave'' and boots of pale blue kid. But Lincoln green was naturally the most popular ''toxophilite" wear. A plumed Robin Hood hat, of the same shade as the gown, caught back with a gold button and loop, always, completed these archery dresses, which are typical of an extended period. And it is noteworthy that great-grandmamma in dressing for tEls long-popular sport never subordinated suitability to fashion, for even in the 'thirties when feminine shoulders attain their ugliest and most enormous proportions, she insisted on a comfortable and simplo sleeve which would not bo cut to ribbons by the "pull" of the bow.

After all, she was rather more of a sportsman than we are apt to give her credit for; though many fields of sporting opportunity open to us were barred to her. The sports that she did pursue she followed with no little skill and daring. And, though her skirts were longer than our own and her waist possibly tighter, she had that just sense of what is appropriate and right for sporting attire which is the peculiar posession of the English woman. Certainly she has handed down to us those standards of trimness and fitness to which, after more than a hundred years, we still adhere. It is a pitv that we some times forget, ;is she did not, that grace and restraint and even daintiness are not incongruous attributes of the trust sportswoman.