The Instinct of Dress.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 849, 8 June 1888, Page 4

The Instinct of Dress.

HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL. When one of ‘ Ouida’a ’ miraculous great ladies, who trail old laces on their bulayouses, and quote polyglot scraps about most things under heaven, says that, even if she were poor, and rodnoed to wearing dimity and serge, she would still have her gannenta fashioned so that Giorgione or Ga nab ‘r.mg'i might delight in her, she smalts «hot sounds and is good sense ; and yet thoro are many reasons which prevent women with slender purses from following out her idea. Even when they have a taste so perfect that, given money and time, they might eclipse most women in tho grace and harmony and richness of their raiment, the res angusta domi mean being careful and cumbered over many things. If a woman works for her living she is likely, at tho present rate of pressure and struggle, to be too weary to pay more than a fitful and careless attention to dress ; and the careful consideration of harmony and of tho suitableness of one garment to another is often pressed out of her mind by matters of more importance. Perhaps it ought not to be so, but it is. The small refinements and thoughtfulnesses of dress which give it, as it were, its grace and wif,' maybe cost little money, but much, thought and esue > an d 80 - a woman, who is keenly sensitive to beauty of raiment, often shows little sign of the instinct, and is dreary, even if neat, in her attire; she has so many other things ol which to think, that dress gets, a 3 Leslie Goldthwaite said, ‘crowded out.’ And yet it is a pity ; for to most women dress is a pleasure, and a right one ; and when the feminine instinct is crushed or lacking in a woman so that she does not care how she looks, it shows a want in her naturo. I am not speaking of slovenly women ; they are rightly an abomination in all eyes, but of the women who, from economy or carelessness, or want of time or taste, or from religious opinion, may be aDd most' likely are neat—painfully neat, but whose gowns are dreary, dull, unfitted, to the wearer, or possessed of no individuality whatsoever. The fashion of buying all things ready made has been a blessing in many ways, but it has deprived women of the necessity of thinking out their clothes for themselves, and as investing them with some degree of their own personalities. Tho ‘ esthetic set wero right when they set their faces against this custom, and declared that every woman s dross should be an expression of hev-elf ; but the mania for full bodices aud skimpy Bkirts, huge hats and little handkerchiefs defeated its object, for all the maidens aud matrons of the esotric coterie were arrayed in the same fashion, so that, while the individuality of their sot was assertod energetically by their attire, their own personal entity was more utterly disguised theioby than it would have been by tho moßt Frenoh and elaborate of ready-made costumes. A woman who has the instinct of dress shows it when she buys a gown ‘off a peg’ just as much as when she plans and arranges every detail of a costume after her own fancy. That a frock is pretty, or Quaint, or fashionable is no reason that she should purchase it; her test of it i 8» ‘Does it look like me?’ and though she may sometimes take a new departure, some new freak of fashion, which is unlike anything she has worn, but that yet approves itself to her as likely to suit her, sho lias the wit to know whether it will really mould itself to her, and utterly scorns the idea of being merely a dummy for the display of .Mr Worth’s last creation.

There are some women who pay for dress j others who look loveliest in riding habit or cotton frock or sailor’3 shirt ; but with these, advancing years make it a more difficult task to dress suitably, and they are apt to drift into the short hair, wide-awake hat and pea-jacket style of attire 7 whereas the

women whom dainty and delicate prettiness suited in girlhood take easily to more digni fled and richer, if more sober attire, as their youth turns into fuller maturity. And there is the beanty' which demands a simplicity and severity of sentiment which any hint of coquetry or consciousness in dress seems to degrade or belittle, as a masquerade habit might do, and which is unusually framed best in black or white, which enhances the austere purity of look and feature.

And the recognition of this fact is a leading part of the instinct of dress with women. The ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ when he tells us that a suit of mourning has transformed his coquette into a prude, and a new set of ribbons has given her younger sister more than ordinary vivacity, touches this neatly, as he does the feminine adaptation of character to attire when attire does not chance to suit the oharaeter, whioh may be studied at will at any fancy ball. How far a dress may aid in expression of personality, every actress knows, and a part that is well dressed seems half-way—at the entrance-to being well played. But to be well dressed on the stage by no means signifies being splendid, like ‘Dinah’ in the ballad of the illfated, ‘Villikins,’ ‘in gorgeous array,’ any more than it does in real life, and the over-dressing prevalent among actresses at the present time is a crying sin against art, and one to which an actress worth the name will not yield. Sarah Bernhardt, indeed, never chooses a part wherein she cannot ring the chahges on silk and velvet, lace and embroidery, crystal and feather and fur, all these having u naercone an apotheosis at the hands of the priests of the mysteries oE fashion ; bul Mme. Modjeska add Miss Terry both know how to enliance the splendor of garb requisite in one *cene by the simplicity in another, of a gown fashioned, it may often be, by their own hands, cr at all events, under their own directions.

Certain jt is that every year sees the different classes of dresses more clearly marked from one another. Our grandmothers would have Btared to see the hard-and-fast lines we now draw between dinner and ball dresses, visiting and morning gowns, town frocks and country ones, and the fashion which makes our tennis or boating frocks as distinct from others as is a man’s attire for those delights to his ordinary garb. Yot there is good sense in the present rule in such matters, and the fitness of things being studied, is no sign of extravagance, as long as no arbitrary and absurd whims are insisted on. A dress that is entirely suitable to the occasion will be much longer before it looks old-fashioned, than if it be worn at times for which it was not originally designed, and though more gowns may ho required at the outset, they will last much longer and look fresher to tho end than if they were worn in season and out of season. Of course when very strict economy is necessary, a woman who has tho instinct of dress will so arrange that almost every gown shall be ‘ contrived a double debt to pay,’ and chosen so as to be suitable.whenever it is worn. If she can only afford one evening dress she will choose it with reference both to ball, dinners, and ‘at homes,’ and her visiting gown will neither be too gorgeous nor too plain ; while in bonnets and hats she will, above all things show her wit, and to quote the old poem once more, prove For every reason she has dressings fit; For winter, spring and summer. Queen,