WHY WE WEAR CLOTHES

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 81, 14 March 1931, Page 8

WHY WE WEAR CLOTHES

ORNAMENT FIRST MOTIVE. Why do we wear clothes? Because, says Mr J. C. Flugel, 8.A., D.Sc, in his new .book, 'The Psychology of Clothes," clothes tserve 3 main purposes—decoration, modesty, and protection. And which of these is the primary motive? Protection? No. Modesty? No. Decoration? Yes (says Dr. Flugel) the author. The great majority of scholars have unliestitatingly regarded * decoration as the motive that led, in the first place, to the adoption of clothing, and consider that the warmth-and-modesty preserving functions of dress, however important they might later on Decome, were only discovered once the wearing of clothes had become habitual or other reasons.

Do you doubt the depth—the primacy —of this decorative instinct? j Then i-eflect on monkeys, whose "plea- j sure is visibly increased by draping things round themselves." Do you doubt man's ability to dispense with protection? Then cast an eye on the savages of Tierra del Fuego on whose hardy skins the snow melts hopelessly. RIGHT AND LEFT. The author traces a harmony .between architecture and dress:— "The return to a greatly increased elaboration of costume in the midVictorian period was accompanied by what now seems to us the over-detail-ed ornamentation of the Victorian drawing-room. "On the other hand we may perhaps be jus tided in seeing a parallel between the plain, wide-windowed, open style of post-war factory or ollice building, and the relatively simple style of modern dress, winch has no ornamental complications and seeks to hide no secrets." Among so much that is learned and psycho-analytical, one bmall passage will earn the gratitude of humanity. This suggests an explanation why man's garments button on the right and woman's on the left. "The practice may be connected with the desire to leave the right hand free, in the case of the man, in order that iie might hold his sword, and the left hand free in the case of the woman. "A woman, when buttoning up, would, it is supposed, grasp her attire with her right hand and push it over to the left., leaving her left arm free to carry a child. It is usual to carry children on the left arm. . . ." HUSSAR'S "TERROR." As for modesty—" The actual manifestations of modesty appear, indeed, to be entirely a matter of habit and convention." Mr Fiugel's book, being Number 18 of the linternational PsycholoAnalytical Library, is an elaborately documented, a profound, and a surprising study of his subject. We learn, for example, that the Hussars' traditional uniform, with heavy braiding across the chest, was "derived from an -attempt to imitate the ribs, .being thus (when completed by a representation of a skull on the head-dress) doubtless intended to strike terror through the symbolisaUon of death. The influence of this dress is still to be traced in the apparently harmless uniform of pageboys, or "buttons." The crinoline, ridiculous as we think it, rather than impressive, did confer a certain dignity on women. Indeed, "the crinoline has been looked on as a symbol of feminine domination," and "the relative size of men and women of that epoch inevitably suggests a comparison with a certain species of insects, such as the praying mantis, the males of which appear extremely small and insignificant beside the much more magnificently developed females."