Monotonous Top Hat.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 23, 9 June 1906, Page 17

Monotonous Top Hat.

“The deadly gloom and monotony of men’s dress—one of the scandals of the age —is traceable to class inequality and the scramble for wealth,” said Mr Henry Holiday, the well-known artist, in a lecture on ‘ The Influence of Social Conditions on Dress.” to the members of the “05” Club in London. “There was a time when sumptuarylaws regulated the dress of the different classes,” he continued, “but free Briton did not tolerate this, and there are now no longer any sharp distinctions between the dress of the different grades of society. “John Stuart Mill declared that it was the chief aim of people to get out of one rank of society into the class above it, and it follows, therefore, that each class endeavours to dress likfe the one above it. “The aristocrat wears a top hat. a black tubular eoat and light stove-pipe trousers. The wealthy merchant or banker is eolnpelled to dress exactly the same. To introduce the smallest mark of individuality, or to indicate by one’s dress one’s calling in life, would Im to lose caste. There is a ridiculous understanding in society that a gentleman is a man who does not earn his own living, and it is. therefore, incumbent on every one ‘in society’ to wear a dress which looks as though its owner could not do any work in it. “In the same way the larger trader copies the merchant, and the smaller tradesman apes the man above him, and so on right down the scale, until even the working man turns out on Sundays in the top hat. blaek coat, and stovepipe trousers. If there were no classes no one would be afraid of losing caste, and consequently' every- one would consult his own comfort and convenience in dress. We can hope for no radical change in our dress until we have altered our social system. So long as the greed for profit continues, so long will our dress be vulgar.”