IN BYGONE DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 13

IN BYGONE DAYS

TOYING WITH A FAN

Long skirts, growing hair, Old-World grace —and fans —have boon the outstanding features of the summer season, says an English writer. Lager, perhaps, wo shall have learnt to toy with a fan ami its accompanying flirtation as gracefully as they did in the days of Queen Anne. She it was who in 1709 gave to the Guild of Fanmakers tho last charter ever granted to a city company —a feminine monarch interesting herself practically in a feminine trade. Fans have been used throughout the ages, and it is impossible to say who invented them, or when. Over tlio head of Pharaoh, as he glided down tho Nile in his gilded barge, waved great half-moons of ■brilliant-hued feathers mounted on long handles of polished wood, and tho high-born ladies of Samoa, drying their glossy hair in the sun after the bathe, plied their fans of plaited .palm-leaf as"- they gossiped. Tho Dainiyo of Japan, sotting forth to war, never failed to fasten his huge paper fan to the ring provided for it on his breastplate; it was nearly as i important a part of his equipment as his sivord. Kins were introduced into England more as a luxury or a curiosity than as an abs'olutc necessity. Travellers abroad brought home tho fashion from hotter countries than ours, and it quickly found favour with tho upper classes. During tho Stuart period tho beaux, as well as their ladies, occasionally carried fans, and by tho onil of tho seventeenth century they had become so popular that a heavy duly wiis laid on all imported fans. Naturally the prices rose, and siueo a fan was (juito"indispensable to the smart woman of tho day, the Company of Fan makers was formed to encourage the production in Kn;;laml. T.';>iis ol: ili'J period were made mostly of vellum, p:i|>cr, and vIIU; some of Ihc loveliest were cnliivly of ivory,

piorccd until it resembled fragile lace, and painted with delicate miniatures or designs of birds and flowers. All, without exception, were mounted on magnificent sticks, sometimes of ivory, tortoiseshell, or mother-of-pearl, others of horn, bone, or cedar-wood. The guards wore richly decorated and carved, often painted with gay colours and gilt; frequently both sticks and guards were inlaid with gold and silver, and fitted with jewelled studs. The Spanish fans of tho early nineteenth contury arc especially fine in this way. These styles were imitated and improved on in England, and English fans were more varied than those of any other country, excepting perhaps France. The English artists used silk and satin for their mounts, enriched with gauze and lace, and tambour-work, and lavishly spangled and painted; the guards, as before, were embossed with precious metals.