WOMAN AND HER CLOTHES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 1647, 11 March 1922, Page 2

WOMAN AND HER CLOTHES.

REPLY TO DEAN INGE

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CLOTHES

Do women waste too much precious time thinking about their clothes? Dean Inge lias said that they waste 10 years of their life in dressing and undressing. Dr Octavia Lewin, wellknown as a designer of hygienic and aesthetic garments for children, expresses her views of Dean Inge s dictum in the following interview.

“Waste of time?” exclaimed Dr Lewin, when Dean Inge’s dictum was quoted to her. “How absurd! It is immensely important to be suitably clothed—to be dressed in harmony with one’s surroundings.

“Psychologically, it is good for people to feel fittingly garbed for the occasion, whatever it may be. - If a woman is dressed out of harmony with her environment it sets up a jarring note , all through her subconsciousness. If the mind is subconsciously disturbed it is thrown out of its natural rhythm. So quite apart from the aesthetic value of being beautifully—and hence suitably clothed, I consider that it is by no means waste of time to give due thought to being dressed in harmony with one’s environment and fittingly for every occasion. Mental Serenity. “I can no more believe that a woman dressed in tweeds, thoroughly suitable for tramping over a moor with the guns in August, could feel anything but wretched in a drawingroom among a crowd of other women in soft silks and voiles, than I can credit with mental serenity a woman dressed in very high heels and long clinging skirts among the tweeds and brogues and woollen jumpers of other women comfortably and harmoniously dressed for a country scramble. Time given to changing the costume to dress the part of a person has to play is by no means ill-spent.” “You must understand me,” Dr Lewin continued, “that I am advocating dress that is really ‘suitable’ for its occasion. Dress is not suitable for any occupation, amusement, or occasion if it runs counter to all the rules of aesthetics. And beauty in dress is irreconcilable with anything that handicaps the natural functions of a healthy body. Clothes that hamper movement destroy grace and rhythm. Colour and Health. “Colour is just as important as form or ‘cut.’ We are coming more and more to realise colour as a factor in health production. Apart from its aethetic value, the colour of a garment—which is simply a selective absorption of different rays of light —probably has a physical effect on skin. Some violent colours definitely irritate the emotional subconsciousness. An inharmonious combination may do more than dazzle and weary the eye in its effort to accommodate itself; it may produce a serious jar subconsciously, and so promote illtemper and exasperation. “People should study colour and the artistic—which is also the logical or scientific—combination of colours. It has more influence on the state of the emotions, and, through the emotions, on the condition of the mind, than they suppose. “Finally, there is the purely physical aspect of the matter. Physically it is not a waste of time, but time well spent, to change one’s clothing. The ideal is not merely to change the outer garment, but to change to the skin as often as is feasible, especially after exertion. The waste products of the body got rid of through the skin do not remain upon the body. After hard exercise or work in the dirty atmosphere of an English city it is even of more importance to change the clothing than to bathe the skin. Nurses’ Torture Collars. “People do not realise how much unsuitable clothes damage health. I see so many children whose collars and armholes press on the veins and lymphatics—who are so tightly buttoned up to the chin that there is no escape lor the heated air within, and so the unfortunate child’s skin is constantly kept in a hoL steam bath. “While championing the average woman’s thought and care for her clothes, I would certainly abolish ‘torture’ collars for office clerks and hospital nurses. They inhibit natural breathing, they impede I lie free ventilation of the skin, and I hey produce mental .malaise l —all of which are responsible for much lassitude and unnecessary fatigue therefore wasting the wearer’s energy and restricting the output of work. “Believe me, there is more valuable time wasted by the habitual wearing ol unpractical clothing that reacts on health,, and thus on output, than hy all the changing of clothes of men and women put together!”