The Turn of Fashion’s Wheel

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 560, 12 January 1929, Page 18

The Turn of Fashion’s Wheel

Will History Ever Repeat Itself In the World of Women’s Dress?

Witchery of Stuart Costume —The Tyranny of the Hoop

How few among the fashions of all the cetnuries even remotely resemble to-day’s! The essence of modern dress is healthful grace and freedom, placing a premium on woman’s natural charms. Yet rumours never cease that we are about to witness a return to this or that old-fashioned vogue. Can

we go back to pads and bustles, wired petticoats and bodices of armourplate. or any of the thousand-and-one artificialities of the past? It seems impossible, but Ruffs and Farthingales When the farthingale was laughed out of Charles I.'s Court, it soon became looked upon as a monstrous memory. How strange, even then, the Elizabethan costume must have appeared! The farthingale itself, at the time of its introduction from Paris in the middle of the 16th century, was a bellshaped petticoat of canvas, distended by whalebone and covered with taffeta, but it soon grew so swollen at the hips as to become actually larger there than round the bottom. The stiff, pointed bodice was contrived by tightlaced corsets inspired by Catharine de’ Medici, who achieved a thirteeninch waist. It had huge leg-of-mutton sleeves, and was surmounted by the ruff, which attained a height of 12 inches in extreme cases, using up 18 yards of material! The folds of the ruff were wired in place—until Mistress Dingham thought of starching and made her fortune. With hair, dyed to the passing whim, dressed on wires, and with gloves, silk stockings, and fans, which came in at this time, the perfumed Elizabethan costume was sufficiently magnificent, especially if we take account of the gems sprinkled over it. “No realme in the worlde, no, not among the Turks and Sarasyns, dote so much on the vanity of their ap-

parell,” wrote a contemporary. But one imagines it as majestic and imposing rather than alluring. Frills and Lace Late Stuart fashions were almost neglige in comparison with the discarded farthingale, but their seeming

simplicity was extremely expensive.— Gorgeous silks were set off with exquisite lace, and rich velvets intricately embroidered with gold and silver thread. The furred muffs which were devised and the costly perukes and periwigs alone absorbed a great deal of pin-money. These bewitching gowns, made famous by the beauties of Chales ll.’s court, had low-cut necks, wide elbowslefeves, and but little waist, the fullness of the skirts being gathered to the sides. Pepys and Evelyn might well discredit the Elizabethan costume in face of these charms. Yet in came the hoop with Queen Anne, first in the guise of the panier, which was convenient for leaning one’s elbows upon, but soon in all its full-grown monstrosity. Tnd this second life of the farthingale was to last no less than a hundred years. A Time of Woe

Secretly, women must have grown heartily sick of the hoop. It was a fashion for the parks; its devastating sweep was almost unmanageable indoors. And then woman must needs walk, in fair weather and foul, for entering a carriage was usually beyond her wit to accomplish. She must stoically stand up stiffly to avert the direst accidents, and when this was impossible, as at the opera, an extra seat must be engaged to provide room! Over this rheumatic skirt, ballooned out with whalebone or wood, and over the outside stays that formed

the bodice, hung the gown. The gown was sometimes only narrowly open down the front, while again it might scarcely come past the hips, where it was often bunched up. Of contrasting texture and colour to the “petticoat,” . and with wide elbow sleeves frilled with lace or muslin, it frequently ended in a train. Some petticoats were decidedly short, especially those of shepherdess motif. Realism in Embroidery Dresses of such expanse invited large patterns, many of which we should scarcely care for to-day. One Court dress of white satin was embroidered round the bottom with "brown hills,” from which “old stumps of trees” ran up to the top. Round these grow “nasturtiurns, ivy. honeysuckles, periwinkles, convolvuluses, and all sorts of twining flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat. . . . Tl)e robings and facings were little green banks, with all sorts of weeds, and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose twining branches.” Then was a trying time for the face, for chemically dangerous paints and salves were employed in ignorance. There were false eyebrows of mouseskin, and, of course, the indispensable patch, which sometimes appeared

BETWEEN FRIENDS

People who are themselves sincere and simple in their outlook on life are sometimes deceived by people who are just the reverse. They can be taken in by audacity or skilful self-advertise-ment, or even by downright hypocrisy. Their own goodwill and good nature, their wish to be pleased, their child-like enjoyment of anything "as large as life,” or, for preference, a little larger, all combine together to make them easy victims of the selfish who love self-display, or who concentrate on greedy getting. Those of us who, possessing more perception and, alas, perhaps, less good nature, see the truth of the situation, find it hard to bear. There is our friend, the person we trust and admire, making herself foolish over this person who brags so adroitly, poses, with such hard outlines, as a dashing speaker of the truth and braver of results, or airs an imaginery delicacy of temperament and sensitiveness to beauty and the finer things of life. There are so many forms of pretence and deception, some of them more or less unconscious, but all equally annoying when seen as such. We ourselves, perhaps, could have played this very game, could have adopted the high-handed or the sympathetically sweet manner which has cast such a spell. But we preferred to show the respect we felt, to subordinate ourselves a little, to be genuine rather than impressive or “charming.” We would not have offered the friend we loved any imitation qualities; we paid her the greatest tribute of all, sincerity. But sincerity seems such a small, unemphatic thing in comparison with these much more noticeable performances. We feel for the time being quite ruled out. But only for the time being. If we are right in our estimate of the newcomer (if wrong, we must, of course, bear the brunt of our mistake), the spell will not last. The inferior must sooner or later find its own level. Life itself sorts out the gold from the dross; we need not hurry it in its inevitable process. Sincerity never makes a show, and often it seems to have taken what is known as a back seat. But have no fear. That relentless sifting, which throws out the false and the insufficient and retains the true and the satisfying, will guard all real friendships, will let slip into oblivion the dazzling things that deceived, the pleasures that were shams.

singly, but occasionally in battalions of fifteen or more. How Crinolines were Made When the hoop was at last succeeded by the "classical” Empire mode at the end of the ISth century, ladies managed to wear muslin even in midwinter, though they dined and danced in hats. This picturesque dress gave way to the terrible memories of 18301840, with long, thin bodices, small waists, and long, wide, shorter-in-froht skirts. But in the middle of the century, so as not to be outdone, up turned the farthingale again, as the crinoline —a calico slip ringed with four covered steels wires, the top one a complete circle 1§ yards round, and the others 2J yards, with a quarteryard gap in front. But sometimes its effect was achieved with hard, stiff material, or by means of up to fourteen petticoats, flounced and starched. We are told that it was ruinous to sit down in the last arrangement until just before laundry-day. With casaques of black silk, and mantles trimmed with gimp and fringe, this dress succeeded in making even the very youthful look well past middle age. Are we really due for a return to a bygone fashion in dress? Perhaps so. But one can scarcely think that it will be the good old fartingale again, be the good old farthingale again, look too silly.