RATIONAL DRESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2055, 13 July 1893, Page 47

RATIONAL DRESS.

(Repobt op Lecture delivered to the Oamabu Gibw' Club by Mas D. W. M. Burn.)

Mm Burn, being introduced by the president, said that before entering upon her subject she must thank the secretary of the Dress and Athletic Section of the Canterbury Woman's Institute for the very complimentary introduction she had given her to the club in the letter which the president had just read. She hoped she would succeed in at least interesting the club and their lady friends in a subject which the secretary and her section had very much at heart. This subjeot, as most of them knew, was

DRESS REFORM— a very hackneyed, and to some of them perhaps a vague and meaningless expression; but she hoped to clothe it with some 1 interest and give to it much vitality before the evening was over. She was very much in earnest about her subject, as they mast all see by her appearance amon£ them that night in what was now generally known as the " rational dress" — a dress so opposed to the conventional idea of what is correot and becoming in the womanly Woman that she knew well the risk she ran of 'prejudicing many minds against her and her subject before she had been fairly heard. She would ask her audience to take up a very lenient attitude, and if possible divest their minds of any prejudices that might creep in at first sight of so radical a change in woman's dress, at least to begin with ; by the end of the lecture they would be welcome to criticise adversely or otherwise to their heart's content; Aud if there were any present who knew so little and cared so little about the subject in question— who found that it afforded them only a little amusement to see one of their own sex in "bifurcated" garments at last— whomight be tempted afterwards to make fun, to put it colloquially, of dress reform and its advocates — she would ask them to consider for a moment that it may have cost her some effort and not a little courage to make up her mind to thus ran the gauntlet of their unkind criticism. They might be sure that it would have been a much easier matter for her to speak in the ordinary style of dress ; but for the sake of the principle involved, because she hoped to make several points more clearly understood with the much-debated dress before their eyes, and because she knew well the futility of preaohing without practice, she had put aside what personal feelings she might have had in the matter and done what she believed to be bast for the cause. There would be little point in her standing before them proclaiming the need of some radical change in dress, inveighing in strong language against the very clothes she stood up in ; especially when she claimed to know the form that this radical change should take, and was there specially to advocate it. They must see the force of this. Beside*, as she might have said at the beginning, whioh would have given sufficient exouse if excuse were needed, it was part of the creed of the section of the institute, whose representative she was that the advocates should on every available occasion wear some one of the rational dresses advocated, they holding it to be their duty to do all in their power to accustom the general publio to the change, knowing that every such stop smooths the course for those who wished to adopt the dress later. It was so easy to express dissatisfaction with and even to denounce the present dress. It was not so easy to remove the causes of dissatisfaction, and having decided on a, radical change, act

up to one's convictions when these led one right in the face of what coaventionality deemed modest and womanly. The dress reformer's lot was not a happy one. If any thought that notoriety was worth having for notoriety's sake they were advised to come and try. Nothing short of A STRONG SENSE OF THE IMPORTANCE OP THE MOVEMENT they expounded often carried the dress reformers through the persecution that their own Hex meted out to them. Of course they had their increased physical comfort and well-being and the approval of their own consciences to buoy them up. The best friends of truth, as Lowell said, are those Who to themselves are true, | And what they dare to dream of dare to do. But she mast to her subject proper. She had felb compelled to give a somewhat lengthy introduction because she knew well tne unsympathetic and somewhat unfriendly ground she was treading in Oamaru, where the topic of j rational dress had not yet been much discussed. The speaker then gave a brief sketch of the Canterbury Woman's.lnstitute, with its various departments of work and their subdivisions in sections, leading up to the decision of the dress aud athletic section to attempt to_ popularise the dress reform movement by giving lectures on their subject at as many centres as possible. Hence her presence among them that evening. The subject dress reform was a wide one, which must concern itself with all the multitudinous abußea in women's attire, as well as with the recent demand for a radical change in the outer garment, but she would only touch in passing on the more apparent and easilyavoided evils of the present system of clothing and deal more particularly with the form that this radical change tended to take, and with the arguments for and against its general adoption. At the very outset checking the growth, physical and mental, of her sex was THE OBSTACLE OF THE CORSET. Here the speaker said she was well aware she was on very dangerous ground, and she approached her task very- gingerly. As much as possible she would shift the responsibility of this attack from her own shoulders on to those of recognised authorities. Wherever she could make her point by quoting someone else she would do so. The speaker here read several passages from Checkley's "Natural Method of Physical Training" dealing with the corset, whioh declared that the corset worn ever so loosely produced lassitude of the muscles in the region of the waist. Nature needed no "supports" to her handiwork. Compression' resulted in distortion, and only tended to increase stoutness. Some of the direct results of corset - wearing were the curving of the spine, the tendency to hollow the chest and protrude the abdomen— the corset exerted a direct as well as an indirect deforming influence on the whole body. It threatened the very basis of health — a ready circulation of the blood. The distended abdomen so shocking to women, and the great increase of flesh on the legs and feet, were often due to the seizures of the corset. It was a constant obstacle to free play of the body, to facility in stooping and turning, and tended generally to curb the activity of the sex. In the same chapter Cheokley referred to the vicious tendenoy of badly-fitting shoes— too small, too thin in the sole, too high in the heel. The corset might be going out of fashion, as many asserted, but women were unquestionably, nearer an abandonment of the corset than of the tight shoe. Ninety-five per cent, of women of all classes were suffering from small or badlydesigned shoes. It was a blessing to many' women that their flowing skirts concealed the' fact that they walked very badly. "Small shoes" was written as plainly as could be in the gait of the average woman. This chapter closed with the remark that from' the- writer's' experience he had been led very much to doubt the long-accepted physical inferiority of woman. If it was admitted that there was no, essential boundary to woman's intellectual possibilities— if, she was no longer held to have an uneven chance with the other Sex in matters of the mmd — he thought it probably true that' she had an absolutely even chance with man in the development of the body. The speaker said she must emphasise the opinion held by Checkley as to the results of compression. Nine figures oat of ten among our modern women show the distortion that he warned them against. The extraordinary bceadth and balk in the region of the hips and the flabby, fleshy condition of the bust in many women was quite abnormal and unnatural, the result, direct or indirect, of tight clothing and lack of activity. If girls could only be persuaded to try life uncorseted— not for a day or a week, that was not enough to give the muscles of the back, so long inert, a chance to reassert themselves, but for a month or two : wear light, loosely-fitting olothes all suspended from the shoulders, nothing' tight or dragging round the waist— she was sure they would never want to change that state on the score of comfort ; and if they took active outdoor exercise along with a proper course of gymnastic training they would not want to change on the score of appearance. Their health and beauty would be enormously the gainers. But if, as Cheskley j suggests, Mrs Grundy herself is putting off "stays," we may safely consider the corset doomed to immediate death. The speaker could only mention such patent abuses as sleeves too tight, causing cold arms and hands; collars too tight and too high, causing flushed faces, sore . throats, and roughened voices — these could be readily avoided when the individual herself had decided to dress for health and comfort as well as ' for appearance. To turn to the larger and more pressing question of the need for A RADICAL CHANGE IN THB OUTER DHE3S OP "WOMEN. The cry was coming from all quarters of the world to-day that woman's dress was unsuited to her needs — to her new spheres of work and activity — they must have something more rational— a. dreis that should leave a woman free to follow her bent in work, pleasure, and exercise. While women's sphere had been the home solely and simply, and she had not been called upon to take an active share in life outside the home, she had not felt the need so strongly ; but now, with the advance of women to "equality with the other sex, and her admission into active spheres of labour, her recognised need of physical exercise and her own awakening to the barbarous fact that conventionality had clad her in garments totally unsuited to her needs had resulted in a rapid movement towards obtaining a new style of dress that would leave her free to develop physically and mentally to her full capacity. Hence the dress reform leagues innumerable in America, England, and the Conti-nent—three-quarter skirt leagues, short skirt and gaiter leagues, bloomer costume leagues, &0., &c, and finally the kniokerbocker and tunic costume, now generally recognised as "the rational dress." The short skirt and Turkish troaser suggestions had done and were doing good work, inasmuch as they were preparing the popular mind for a change, but they seem to have failed to meet general favour, on the score of beauty chiefly, though there were many Other obvious objections to this dress for ath-

letio purposes. With Lajly Harburton thelectarer deprecated half-hearted attempt! at dress reform, and despaired of success "until an obviously two-legged dress of some sort is recognised to be the only suitable dress for a two-legged creature." The short skirts, the baggy trousers, with their long tunics reaching below the knae, were really only an attempt to compromise with Mrs Grundy and the conventional idea that does not permit a woman to reveal the fact that she is, as Dr Richardson would put, it quadri-membral. Theso suggestions were a great advance on the long skirt of to-day, though the short skirt left room for all the present abuses of the corset and tight-fit-ting bodice. The bloomer costumes were not pretty enough to meet woman's taste, and were apt to make her look little and ungainly. Bat now what of the most radical dress of them all ? Did it hit the taste of women on the score of beauty as.well as comfort ? The comfort and suitability to all times wa3 undeniable ; as to the beauty, the speaker would return to this point later. ■ A SIUDY OF THB DBESS BEFOBM MOVEMENTS OF THIS CENTURY showed that the efforts of reformers had been a Btraggle for "an obviously two-legged garment." And that this struggle was a very real and important one could be seen when among ,these reformers were women like Harriet Martineau, Lady Harburton, Elizabeth Stewart Phelps, and Ocfcavia Bates, and among their supporters men like 0. B. Flower, editor of the Arena, Stead, of the Review of Reviews, [and Gail Hamilton. These names showed that the movement was a serious one, and not the fad of a few eccentric women in search of notoriety. What, then, kept women back from adopting this dress ? Chiefly a mistaken idea that it was irredeemably ugly andlackedjornamentation, coupled with a feeling that the twolegged garment was not modest or necessary except in the gymnasium. Oh, that cry of un womanliness !— that dread of doing anything that might be stigmatised as immodest or unwomanly, that bugbear of modern society ! In heaven's name, was their womanliness all' wrapped up in their skirts — was there no inherent quality of character that bespoke the womanly woman despite her dress P Had she (the speaker) surrendered one iota of her womanliness because she had acted up to her convictions and stood there before them "bifurcated and not ashamed"? Had she left her womanly qualities with her cloak there on the chair P If she had, she was content; to leavethem there, and would contrive to do without them. If there was anything in the cry for the cultivation of "the {esthetic in the nude which one heard so much of, in artist, circles — if it was -right and proper, showing just - right culture -and refinement of taste, to- admire and find 'pleasure in the contemplation of the nude, both in statuary and painting — if indeed the woman's form were the most beautiful in the wide range of animated Nature, why had fashion in dress so carefully obliterated any hint of that exquisite outline of form so prated of by women as well as men P No one considered that it showed anything but proper artistic culture for, men and .women, of all ages to admire side by side such' exquisite antiques as the Venus of Milo and even the Medici ; and yet, when some woman inspired perhaps with the desire to benefit' her sex suggested a rational, dress, "obviously twolegged" — revealing the terrible truth that she was possessed of nether limbs — forsooth, there came that cry of unwomanjiness. Here was a paradox hard to understand; Could it be explained except by exaggerated self-conscious-ness on the one hand and"purient-mindedness upon the other P U was from precisely 'the most refined, cultured,. and womanly of the sex that the most vigorous attempts came to introduce the new rational 'dress. " Women had their leaders as well as men, and .these were, from the - ranks 'of the best and : bravest, whose strength of character and parity of purpose had been well tested and recognised in other spheres 'of work. The light-minded and frivolous did not join the ranks of the reformers till all the hard work had been done. As far as- true womanliness was concerned then, rational dress might hope for success. It had been urged that THE QUESTION OF MORALITY should come into consideration before the adoption of the dress — the general moral effect on the community. 16 was hard to see where the morality or otherwise came in. It would be just as sensible to agitate to have men put back into skirts on this plea of moral effect as object to the rational costumes on that pretext. As Mrs Alice Stone Blackwall said: "Where a style of dress is concerned everything lies in being accustomed to it." They were accustomed on wet and dirty days to see 6in or Bin of a woman's leg, ankle, and calf as she caught up her trailing skirts in a vain attempt to cross the streets in decent condition ; they were not accustomed to see that woman modestly clad from neck to anklo - in decent, warm, suitable garments that showed a neatly-stockinged leg plainly visible— not surreptitiously so— from knee to ankle. But the sooner they became accustomed to this picture the better for the well-being, both moral and physical, of young New Zealand. There were those who saw in the more general adoption of the rational two-legged dress a new era of modesty and morality that should not be dependent on the clothes a woman wore. A writer says : " We shall not be surprised if refined taste attributes a higher modesty to the knicker than to the skirt costume." She had speut much time on this modesty point of view, because, absurd as it was, it had been the most widespread aud persistent objection to the new dress. IN POINT OF BEA.VCY, too, the rational dress need not fall far short of the ideal. There had been ho real evolution in woman's dress. The ever-shifting designs of the fashion plate could not be called evolution. The ideal of beauty in dreßS had hitherto been a variable thing, dependent on the taste of royalty, perhaps, or on the whim of some great money-making artist like the Paris Worth. There had been no attempt to make the dress speak the personality of the wearer. In an individual age like the present, the rational dress should meet with much approval, for it was nothing if not individual. This was one of its strong points — the beauty of the costume would be to some extent dependent on the good physique of the wearer ; the good physique could only be obtained by health and athletic training. The immense amount of time and ingenuity expended by women on their toilet would be spent to good purpose in" procuring health and beauty from active outdoor exercise. The rational dress made no attempt to conceal deformity — it could make no terms with the corset — the beauty of the costume would lie in the general effect of outline of form and pro* portions of figure, as well as in the style, colour of fabric, and ornamentation. It admitted of innumerable variations, and even the plump girl, unless abnormally so, would look well in some one or other of . the 'rational styles — though she would look better in the course of a month or two when light, loose clothing and free play of the body had induced more athletio proportions. The tunio, ranging

in length to suit the taste of the individual, admitted of much ornamentation and variety of style. The knickers might be fuller or narrower, trimmed, or plain. Gaiters could be worn, though the neatly-stockinged leg was preferable as far as appearance went. The knickers gave perfect freedom of the < limbs, the looselyarranged tunic revealing' in the most unsuggestive way the contour of * the figure,' and left perfect freedom of lung ; so far the dress was ideal. The question of beauty would settle itself with its more general use. The possibilities of the two-legged costume had not yet been exploited. Doubtless when artists in dress turned their attention to the work of beautifying it, it would be found as capable of ornamentation as the present dress, if that was a matter to be desired. The terms "dainty," "exquisite," "beautiful" had already been applied to costames exhibited by members of the Dress Section of the Institute. The difficulty in all such movements was HOW TO MAKE A BEGINNING. Of course, the easiest beginning could be made with the younger girls and children. Let them never be introduced to the corset or the skirt. Mothers were recommended to think over this point, that a suit of tnnic and knickers for little girls, who skip and tumble about, win go to public schools for both sexes, is in every way more decent, more modest, and more desirable. Many were beginning to recpgnise this and had determined to take the step while their children were small, preparatory to sending them to school. Were this more widely done, and younger children accustomed to wear and see worn the knicker dress, one of the most annoying sources of persecution would be done away with — that of the children in the streets. Girls who have the courage should take their active exercise in the dress on every available occasion— play tennis, ride and cycle in it. More timid ones might begin at home to accustom themselves to the dress — do their house work in it ; fatigue and labour would be incredibly lessened, and she would give herself time to cultivate natural proportions of figure and hold herself with grace and unconscious ease before going further. Many women when they first put off skirts for the knicker suit would be anything but straight of limb and graceful in carriage, but a very short time of activity and muscular exercise would right these conditions. These were matters on which the speaker could well be emphatic, as she had her own and many of her friends' experiences to guide her. There was nothing like right exercise and right clothing to restore the body to athletic and natural proportions and the limbs to Grecian straightness. Girls were naturally a little wider at the hips than men, but that did not unfit them for the rational dress. In towns where there was no Buch organisation as the Dress and Athletic Section in Christchurch, girls should club together in walking picnics, tennis parties, &c, gradually accustoming themselves and outsiders to the change. Ot course it would all take time — every such new movement did. Women would grow to it gradually, granting it first for exercise and times of great activity perhaps ; then for the ' street and everyday wear. Flowing- garments would perhaps be preferred for leisure and display — a purely optional matter. No one proposed to rush their mothers and grandmothers into the rational dress unless they felt specially called that way, but everyone who felt the need of a change should do her share towards ushering in the dress she desiied. To those who doubted the /wideness of the demand, at least here in Hew Zealand, and who felt inclined to wait a little till they could be sure they were not going to be left alone in their attempts, the following , passage from Colonel Higginson's " COMMON SENSE ABOUT WOMEN " might be productive of some comfort and gladness. It would apply equally well to both the ballot and the rational dress. ' ' If you Wish to know what is already decided, ask the majority ; but if you wish to find out what is likely to be done next, ask the leaders.' It is constantly said that the majority of women do not yet desire the vote. But to find oflt whether they are likely to wish for it, we must keep our eyes, on the women who lead their sex. The representative women — those who naturally stand for the rest, those most eminent for knowledge and self devotion — how do they view the thing? . . . The fact remains that the ablest women in the land — those who are recognised as ablest in other spheres before they took this particular duty upon them — are extremely apt to assume this cross when they reach a certain stage of development. They see farthest because they are in the highest place. Their judgment is as the judgment of the council of officers ; while Flora M'Flimsey's opinion is as the opinion of John Smith, unassigned recruit. But! if the generals make arrangements for a battle, the ohance is that John Smith will have tq take a hand in it, or else .run away." So dress reformers felt that, with names of men and women like those mentioned on their side, the 1 chances of ultimate success 'were pretty well assured. Advocates of the franchise for women would do well to bear in mind a point often put forward against their admission to the vote by the opposite sex— a point which it was a difficult one for women to get round— that it was useless to talk of the .equality of the sexes while women continued in slavery to their attire, and in order to be in the fashion deprived themselves of the use of their limbs. They cared more for their clothes than their freedom. Men had put off their swaddling clothes completely and finally some 200 years ago, whereas women still clung to this badge of servitude. Could a sex that had cot yet learntto clothe itself aright legislate aright and} in its own best interests P They did not find mankind wearing coat tails that trailed in the mud or holding up one side of their apparel from sheer necessity. England would not have been what she was that day had not its men abandoned the flowing robes and dressed for utility several centuries since. New Zealand was abreast in thought, and even ahead in practice, of the mother country and other colonies. Plucky little New Zealand, that some 20 years ago had thrown wide the doors of its colleges and universities to its women, a concession which other lands were only now granting to this hitherto cruelly repressed half of their communities. Why should not the little colony be first in the field here as in other women's movements. In all probability she would. In conclusion, the speaker would recommend anyone desirous of learning more on the subject to buy and read a little sixpenny pamphlet entitled "Notes on Dress Reform," by Miss Kate Walker and Mr J. B. Wilkinson, M.A., which would give them concise and valuable information on many points in connection with dress reform. ' -

— Here is an extract from a recent novel : ■'Husband and wife ate on together in t i ence. There was manifestly aa ill-feeling 1 eiween them. The husband devoured a I late of soup, half a fish, a pice of roast beef, atd a slice of plum pudding without ever once opening his mouth,"

— " Porridge and Tatere."— A traveller in Yorkshire found from some children in a village that' for breakfast, dinner, and supper they had •* porridge' and taterp." Heeaid: "Don't you ever have any meat or pudding 1" One of. them called out, "The cove thinks It's Obrißtmaa!"