DRESS AND CHARACTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2565, 13 May 1903, Page 69

DRESS AND CHARACTER.

By Constance Clyde.

Passing a fashionable milliner's place the other day, I was astonished at what seemed to be a birthday cake in the window placed beside another object that looked like a miniature chandelier. A further glance revealed the fact that nothing in the way of confectionery or drawing room ornamentation adorned the interior. These two objects were merely the latest freaks of fashion in the way of headgear — freaks calculated to remind one of the eighteenth century days, when ladies built their hair into the forms of castles or bridges, or, in warlike humour, tried to look as if they carried a whole forti-ess above their foreheads. It must be confessed, however, that our modern women obtain their occasionally weird effects quite unintentionally. "Boys love to play, girls to display," was written by a little riuglelted scholar when asked to compose an essay on "Children." A woman does not show her character in her dress as much as is imagined, for she must conform to fashion and to her purse ; while, if she is wise, she will not wear the colours she likes, but those that like her. "I hate blue; moreover an authority on the psychology of dress says that it shows a commonplace character ; but what can one do with a complexion that shouts at greens and yellows?" So spoke one daughter of Eve, more wise than many of her contemporaries. Yet if character does not influence dress overmuch, dress has a strong influence on character. A woman does not always attire herself for mere display ; the silk lining that nobody sees, the small expensive shoes, hardly visible beneath her voluminous skirts, give her as r.iuch satisfaction as the Paris hat that ; .tracts the eye at once or the perfectly fitting glove that is no less observed. In the social crises of her life, she is not upheld by rectitude ; but by so much silk and luce, and the knowledge that they are three time;-' dearer than other women can afford- to buy. In her immature days woman often shows her weakness with al-" most brutal callousness. The little girl forced to appear at school in the recognisable frock of an elder «>ister must bear the penalty of social ostracism ; and the small aristocrat with the new hat every month or so seldom associates with the other who wears hers from one year to another. With little boys it is different. It is the princeling in the Fauntleroy costume who clamours to play with the nice, dirty boys in the street, and sees a fascination in their rags. They, not he, generally do the cold-shouldering. "We want more individuality in dress," is a remark one frequently hears ; "let girls exercise their own taste and strike out for themselves.' Alas! very few of us have beauty great enough and purses long enough to do this successfully, and the woman who attempts to be chic and unusual when Providence has clearly intended her for the common or garden type of woman, generally makes a mess of it. Sometimes she has heard that a "Frenchwoman never puts her hat on straight," and in attempting the true Parisian nnt?le converts herself into a seeming larrikiness at a touch. At other times she goes right out of her cc-ntury altogether, and attempts to introduce the early nineteenth century costume, with its hi^h-waisted effects, its mittens, and its

sandals, -which show ncr twentieth century feet to least advantage. The damsel who skewers a large flat piece of tulle on her chest and calls it artistic has at least half her acquaintances to keep her in counter*, ance ; but the dress reformer, whether artistic or so-called rational, must stand alon«.

— An authority on microscopy states that the hair of a woman can be distinguished by its construction from that of a man.