 CHAPTER XIII. WOMEN DECREATIVE IN HER MOTORCHA It is not easy to be decorative in your automobile, now that the manufacturers are going in for gay colour schemes, both in upholstery and outside painting. A putty-coloured touring car, lined with red leather, is very stunning in itself, but the woman who would look well when sitting in it does not carelessly don any bright moatcoat at hand. She knows very well that to show up to advantage against red, and be in harmony with a putty-colour paint, her tweed coat should blend with the car, also her furs. Black is smart with everything, but fancy how impossible mustard, cerise, and some shades of green would look against that scarlet leather. An orange car with black top, mud-guards and upholstery, calls for a costume of white, black, brown, tawny grey, or, if one would be a poster, royal blue. Some twenty-five years ago the writer watched the first automobile in her experience, driven down the Champs Elysees. It seemed an uncanny, hoarseless carriage, built to carry four people, and making a good deal of fuss about it. A few days later, while lunching at the Café de Réservoir, Versailles, we were told that some men were starting back to Paris by automobile, and if we went to a window giving on to the court, we might see the astonishing vehicle make it start. It was as thrilling as the first near-view of an aeroplane, and, all excitement, we watched the two Frenchmen getting ready for the drive. Their elaborate preparation to face the current of air to be encountered en route was not unlike the preparation to-day for flying. It was spring, June at that, but those Frenchmen wearing very English tweeds and smoking English pipes each drew on extra cloth trousers and coats, and over these a complete outfit of leather. We saw them get into the things in the public courtyard, arranged huge goggles, draw down cloth caps, and set out at a speed of about fifteen miles an hour. The above seems incredible, now that we have passed through the various stages of motor-car improvements and motor-clothes creations. The rapid development of the automobile, with its windshields, limousine tops, shock absorbers, perfected engines, and springs has brought us to the point where no more preparation is needed for a thousand-mile run across country, with an average speed of thirty miles an hour, than if we were boarding a train. One dresses for a motor as one would for driving in a carriage, and those done-coloured lineless monstrosities invented for motor use have vanished from view. More than this, woman today considers her decorative value against the electric blue velvet or lovely chintz lining of her limousine, exactly as she does when planning clothes for her salon. And why not? The manufacturers of cars are taking seriously their interior decoration as well as outside painting, and many women interior decorators specialise along this line, and devote their time to inventing colour schemes calculated to reflect the personality of the owner of the car. Special orders have raised the standard of the entire industry, so that at the recent New York automobile show many effects in cars were offered to the public. Besides the putty-coloured roadster lined with scarlet, black lined with russet yellow, orange lined with black, there were limousines painted a delicate custard colour, with top and rim of wheels, chassis and lamps of the same natya blue as the velvet lining, cushions and curtains. A beautiful and luxurious background, and how easy to be decorative against it to one who knows how. Another popular colour scheme was a mauve body with top of canopy and rims of wheels white, the entire lining of mauve like the body. Imagine your woman with a decorative instinct in this car. So obvious an opportunity would never escape her, and one can see the vision on a summer day as she appears in simple white, softest blue or pale pink, or better still treating herself as a quaint nose-gay of bluish roses, forget-me-nots, lilies and mignonnette, with her chiffons and silks or shearest of lawns. But how about me? one hears from the girl of the open car, a racer perhaps, which she drives herself. You are easiest of all, we assure you. To begin with, your car, being a racer, is painted and lined with durable dark colours, battleship grey, dust colour, or some shade which does not show dirt and wear. The consequence is, you will be decorative in any of the smart coats, close hats and scarfs in brilliant and lovely hues, silk or wool. Here is a plan to follow when getting up a period costume. We will assume that you wish to wear a Spanish dress of the time of Philip IV, early 17th century. The first thing to give your attention to is the station of life which you propose to represent. Granted that you decide on a court costume, one of those made so familiar by the paintings of the great Velazquez, let your first step be to get a definite impression of the outline of such a costume. Go to art galleries and look at pictures, go to libraries and ask for books on costumes with plates. You will observe that under the head of crinoline and hoop skirt periods there are a variety of outlines markedly different. The slope of the hip line and the outline of the skirt is the infallible hallmark of each of these periods. Let it be remembered that the outline of a woman includes hair, combs, headdress, earrings, treatment of neck, shoulders, arms, bust and hips, lined to the ankles and shoes. Also, fan, handkerchief or any other article which if a silhouette were made would appear. The next step is to ascertain what materials were available at the time your costume was worn and what was in vogue. Were velvets, satins or silksworn or all three? Were materials flowered, striped or plain? If striped, horizontal or perpendicular? For these points turn again to your art gallery, costume plates, or the best of historical novels. If you are unable to resort to the sources suggested, two courses lie open to you. Put the matter into the hands of an expert. There are many to be approached through the columns of first-class periodicals or newspapers. We do not refer to the ordinary dealer in costumes or theater accessories. Or make the effort to consult some authority in person or by letter, an actor, historian or librarian. It is amazing how near at hand help often is if we only make our needs known. If the reader is young and busy, dancing and skating and sleeping, and complains in her winsome way that days are too short for such work, we would remind her that as already stated, to carefully study the details of any costume of any period means that the mind and the eye are being trained to discriminate between the essentials and non-essentials of women's costume in everyday life. The same young beauty may be interested to know that at the beginning of Geraldine Ferrar's career, the writer visiting with her in exhibition of pictures in Munich was amazed at the then very young girl's familiarity with the manner of artists, ancient and modern, and exclaimed, I did not know you were so fond of pictures. It's not that, Ferrar said. I get my costumes from them and a great many of my poses. Outline and material being decided, give your attention to the character of the background against which you are to appear. If it is a ballroom and the occasion a costume ball, is it done in light or dark colors and what is the prevailing tone? See to it that you settle on a color which will be either a harmonious note or an agreeable, hence impressive contrast against the prevailing background. If you are to wear the costume on a stage or as a living picture against a background arranged with special reference to you and where you are the central figure, be more subtle and combine colors if you will. Go in for interesting detail provided always that you make these details have meaning. For example, if it be trimming, pure and simple, be sure that it be applied as during your chosen period. Trimming can be used so as to increase effectiveness of a costume by accentuating its distinctive features and it can be misused so as to pervert your period, whether that be the age of Cleopatra or the winter of 1917. Details such as lace, jewels, headdresses, bands, snuffboxes, work baskets and flowers must be absolutely of the period or not at all. A few details, even one stunning jewel, if correct, will be far more convincing than any number of makeshifts no matter how attractive in themselves. Paintings, plates and history come to our rescue here. If you think it dry work, try it. The chances are all in favor of your emerging from your search spellbound by the vistas opened up to you. The sudden meaning acquired by many inanimate things and a new pleasure added to all observations. That Spanish comb of great great grandmothers is really a treasure now. The antique Spanish plaque you own found to be Moorish luster and out of the attic it comes. A Spanish miracle cross proves the spiritual superstition of the race so back to the junk shop you go hoping to acquire the one that was proffered. Yes, Carmen should wear a long skirt when she dances, Spanish pictures show them and so on. The collecting of materials and all accessories to a costume puts one in touch not only with the dress, but the life of the period and the customs of the times. Once steeped in the tradition of Spanish art and artists, how quick the connoisseur is to recognize Spanish influence on the art of Holland, France and England. Lead your expert in costumes of nations into talking of history and we promise you pictures of dynasties and lands that few historical writers can match. This man or woman has extracted from the things people wore the story of where they wore them and when and how. For the lover of color we commend this method of studying history. If any one of our readers is casting about for a hobby and craves one with inexhaustible possibilities, we would advise try collecting data on periods in dress as shown in the art treasuries of the world, for of this there is barely no end. We warn the novice in advance that each detail of woman's dress has for one in pursuit of such data the allure of the siren. There is the pictured story of headdresses and hats and how the hair is worn from Cleopatra's time till ours, the evolution of a woman's sleeve, its ups and downs and ins and outs as shown in art, the separation of the waist from skirt and ever-changing line of both, the neck of woman's gown so variously cut and trimmed and how the necklace changed likewise to a cord, the passing of the sandals of the Greeks into the poetic glove-bidding slippers of today. One sets out gaily to study costumes full of the courage of ignorance, the joyous optimism of an enthusiast, because it is amusing and looks so simple with all the material, old and new lying about one. Ah, that is the pitfall, the very abundance of those plates in wondrous books, old-colored prints and portraits of the past. To some students this kaleidoscopic vision of period costumes never falls into definite lines in color, or if the types are clear, what they come from or merge into remains obscure. For the eager beginner we have tried to evolve out of the whole mass of data a system of origin and development as definite as the anatomy of the human body, a framework on which to build. If our historical outline be clear enough to impress the mental vision as indelibly as those primary maps of the earth did, then we feel persuaded the textless books of wonderful and beguiling costume plates will serve their end as never before. We humbly offer what we hope may prove a key to the rich storehouse. Simplicity and pure line were lost sight of when overabundance dulled the senses of the world. We could prove this, for art shows that the costuming of woman developed slowly, persevering as did furniture, the same classic lines and general characteristics until the 15th century, the end of the Middle Ages. With the opening up of trade channels and the possibilities of easy and quick communication between countries, we find, as we did in the case of furniture, periods of fashion developing without nationality. Nations declared themselves in the artistry of workmanship as today and in the modification and exaggeration of an essential detail resulting from national or individual temperament. If you ask, where do fashions come from, why periods, we would answer that in the last analysis one would probably find in the conception of every fashion some artists brain. If the period is a good one, then it proves that fate allowed the artist to be true to his muse. If the fashion is a bad one, the artist may have had to adapt his lines and color or detail to hide a royal deformity or to cater to the whim of some willful beauty ignorant of our art, but rich and in the public eye. A fashion, if started, is a demon or a godlet loose. As we have said, there is an interesting point to be observed in looking at woman as decoration. Whether the medium be fresco, bass relief, sculpture, mosaic, stained glass or painting, the decorative line shown in costumes presents the same recurrent types that we found when studying the history of furniture. For our present purposes it is expedient to confine ourselves to the observation of that expression of civilization which had root, so far as we know, in Assyria and Egypt and spread like a branching vine through Byzantium, Greece, Rome, Gothic Europe and Europe of the Renaissance on through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries down to the present time. Costumes for woman and man are supposed to have had their origin in accord tied about the waist, from which was suspended crude implements used for the slaying of beasts for food and in self-defense, trophies of war such as teeth, scalps, etc. The trophies suspended partly concealed the body and were for decoration as was tattooing of the skin. Clothes were not the result of modesty, modesty followed the partial covering of the human body. Modesty or shame was the emotion which developed when man accustomed to decoration, trophies or tattooing, was deprived of all or part of such covering. What parts of the body require concealment is purely a matter of the customs prevailing with a race or tribe at a certain time and under certain conditions. This is a theme the detailed development of which lies outside the purpose of our book. It has delightful possibilities, however, if the plentiful data on the subject given in scientific books were to be condensed and simplified. Our present modes of dress, aside from the variations imposed by fashion, are the resultant of all the professions of the last two thousand years. W. G. Sumner, in Forkways. The earliest Egyptian frescoes, invaluable prehistoric data, show as woman as she was accustomed, housed and occupied, when the painting was done. On those age-old walls, she appears as man's companion, his teacher, placing, slave and ruler, in whatever role the fates decreed. The same frescoed walls have pictured records of how Egypt tilt the soil, built houses, worked in metals, pottery and sculpture. Woman is seen beside her man, who slays the beast, at times from boats propelled through reeded jungles, and hers is always that rigid outline, those long, quiet eyes depicted in profile, with a massive headdress, and strange, upstanding ornaments, abnormally curled wig, and clothes straight garments to the feet, or none at all, heavy collar, wristbands and anklets of precious metals with jams in it, or chased in strange designs. About her, the calm, mysterious poise and childlike acquiescence, of those who know themselves to be the puppets of the gods, in this navy-tay, lies one of the great charms of Egyptian art. A sculptured karyotide, we see woman of Egypt clad and transparent she-slike skirt, nude above the waist, with the usual extinguishing headdress and heavy collar, bracelets and anklets. We see her as woman, mute, law-binding, supporting the edifice, a woman with steady gaze and silent lips, one wonders what was in the mind of that lotus-eater of the Nile, who carved his dream and stone. Those who would reproduce Egyptian colour schemes for costumes, house or stage settings, would do well to consult the book of Egyptian designs, brought out in 1878 by the École des Beaux-Arts Paris, and available in the large libraries. Among the wars of the Necropolis of Memphis, T. and his wife, Fifth Dynasty, appear in a delightful hunting scene. The man and the bro of his boat is about to spear an enormous beast, while his wife, seated in the bottom, wraps a arm about his leg. Among the earliest portraits of an Egyptian woman completely clothed, is of that of Queen Tyre, a wife of Amman office, 18th Dynasty, who wears a striped gown with sleeves of the Climber type, and a ribbon tied round her waist, the usual ornamental colour, and bracelets of gold, and an elaborate headdress with deep blue curtain extending to his waist behind. Full of illuminating suggestions, is an example of woman in Egyptian decoration to be seen as the fresco in the Necropolis of Thebes. It shows the governors of young Prince, 18th Dynasty, holding the child on her lap. The feet of the little prince rest on a stool, supported by nine crouching human beings, men. Each has a colour about his neck, to which a leash is attached, and all nine leashes are held in the hands of the child. The illustrations of the Egyptian funeral, per Paris, the Book of the Dead, show woman in the role of wife and companion. It is a story of a high-born Egyptian woman, Tutu, wife of Arnie, royal scribe and scribe of the sacred revenue of all the gods of Thebes. Tutu, the long-eyed Egyptian woman, young and straight, was raving her in active form, a keymate of Amon, which means she belonged to the religious chapter or congregation of the great god of Thebes. She was what might be described as lady-and-waiting, or honorary priestess, to the god Amon. She, too, wears the typical Egyptian headdress, and strayed long wide gown, hanging in closed folds, to her feet. One vignette shows Tutu with arm about her husband's leg. This seems to have been a naive Egyptian way of expressing that eternal womanliness, that tender care for those beloved, that quality inseparable from woman if worthy the name, and by reason of which, with man her maid, she has her on the gamut of human experience, meeting the demands of her time. There is no dodging the issue. Woman's story recorded in art shows that she has always responded to fate's call, followed, led, ruled, been ruled, amused, instructed, sent her men into battle, as Spartan mothers did, to return with honor or on their shields, and when fate so decreed, led them to battle, like Joan of Arc. 2. Egypt and Assyria In Egypt and Assyria, the lines of the torso were kept straight, with no contracting of body at waistline. Woman was clad in a straight sheet-like garment, extending from waist to feet with only metal ornaments above, necklace, bracelets and armlets, or a straight dress from neck to meet the heavy anklets. Sandals were worn on the feet. The head was encased in an abnormally curled wig, with pendant ringlets, and the whole clasped by a massive headdress, following the contour of head, and having as part of it, a curtain or veal reaching down behind, across shoulders, and approaching waistline. The Sphinx wears a characteristic Egyptian headdress. 3. Egypt, Byzantium, Greece and Rome During the periods and to date in Christ, when the Roman Empire was all-powerful, the women of Egypt, Byzantium, Greece and Rome wore gilded wigs, sea-plate one, from this piece. Arranged in psykinots and bandit, sandals on their feet, and a one-piece garment, confined at the waist by a girdle, which fell in close faults to the feet, a style to develop later into the classic Greek. The Greek garment consisted of a great square of white linen, draped in the deft manner of the east, to adapt it to the human form, at once concealing and disclosing the body to a gree of perfection, never since attained. There were undraped Greek garments left to hang in close clinging folds, even in the classic period. It is this undraped and finely pleated robe, sea-plate twenty-one, hanging close to the figure, and the two-piece garment, sea-plate four, with its short tunic of the same material, extending just below the waistline and front, and robing in a cascade of ripples at the sides, as low as the knees, that Fortuni, Paris, has reproduced in its teacowns. An English woman told us recently that a great-great-grand mother used to describe how she and others of her time, Empire period, wet their clothes to make them cling to their forms à la grecque. The classic Greek costume was often a sleeveless garment, falling in folds, and when confined at waistline with cord, the upper part bloused over it. The material was draped so as to leave the arms free, the folds being held in place, by ornamental clasps upon the shoulders. The fitting was practically unaided by cutting, squares or straight lengths of linen, being adjusted to the human form by clever manipulation. The adjusting of these folds, as we have said, developed into an art. The years of large squares or shores of brilliantly dyed linen, wool, and laid silk, is conspicuous in all the examples showing woman as decoration. The long gothic cape succeeded, that enveloping circular garment, with and without a hood, and clasped at the throat, in which the mother of God is invariably depicted. Her cape is a celestial royal blue. The stained silk gauzes, popular with Greek dancers, were made into garments following the same classic lines, and so were the gymnasium costumes, of the young girls of Greece, Isadora Duncan reproduces the letter in many of her dances. In the chapter entitled, The Story of Textiles in the Art of Interior Decoration, we have given a resume of this branch of our subject. The type of costume worn by woman throughout the entire Roman Empire, during its most glorious period, was classic Greek, not only in general outline, but in detail. Note that a colourless neck was cut round and a trifle low. The lines of gown were long and followed each other. The trimming followed the hem of the neck and sleeves and skirt. The hair, while artificially curled and sometimes intertwined with pearls and other gems, after being gilded, was so arranged as to show the conch of the head, then gathered into a psykinot. Gold bands, plain or jeweled, clasped and held the hair in place. In the gold room of the Metropolitan Museum, in noted collections in Europe, in portraits and costume plates, one sees that the earrings worn at that period were great heavy discs, or half discs, of gold, large gold flowers in the Etruscan style, large rings with groups of pendants, usually three on each ring and the drop earrings, so much in vogue today. Necklaces were broad, like colours, round and made of hand-reward links and beads with pendants. These filled in the neck of the dress, and were evidently regarded as a necessary part of the costume. The simple cord, which confined the Greek woman's draperies at the waist, in Egypt and Bicentium became a sash. A broad strip of material, which was passed across the front of body at the waist, crossed behind and broad tied over the hips to tie in front, low down, the ends hanging square to knees or below. In Egypt, a shoulder cape with kerchief effect in front, broadened behind to a square and reached to the waistline. We would call attention to the fact that when the classic type of furniture and costume were revived by Napoleon I and the Empress Josephine, it was the Egyptian version as well as the Greek. One sees Egyptian and Etruscan styles, in the straight, narrow garment of the first empire, reaching two ankles, with parallel rows of trimming at the bottom of skirt. The empire's style of powdered hair, with cascade of curls each side, righteous curling locks outlining face, which one or two ringlets brought in front of ears, and the cyclonod, which later in Victorian days lent itself to caricature, in a feather-duster effected crown of head, were inspired by those curled and gilded creations, such as Thaïs War. Heads, as we use a term today, were worn by the ancients. Some will remember the Greek head Sibyl Sanderson War, with the classic robes when she sang Massonnets Fidre, in Paris. It was Chinese in type. One sees this type of head on Tonegra statuettes in our museums. A propos of heads, designers today are constantly resurrecting models found in museums, and some of us recognize the lines and details of ancient headdresses in heads turned out by our most up-to-date milleners. Parasols and umbrellas were also used by Assyrians and Greeks. Sandals, which only covered the soles of the feet, were the usual footwear, but Greeks and Etruscans are shown in Ardes wearing also moccasin-like boots, and shoes laced up the front. Of course, the strapped slippers of the empire were a version of classic sandals. As we have said, the Greek gown and toga are found wherever the Roman empire reached. The women of what are now France and England closes themselves at that time in the same manner as a cultured class of Rome. Naturally, the Germanic branch, which broke from the parent's stem and drifted northward, to strike root and unbroken forests, bordering on undried seas, wore skins and crudely woven garments, few and strongly made, but often picturesque. Though but slightly reminiscent of the traditional costume, we know that women of the third and fourth centuries were assured one-piece garment, with large earrings, heavy metal armlets above the elbow, and at wrists. The chain about the waist, from which hung a knife for protection and domestic purposes, is descended from the savages' court and ancestor to that lovely bauble, the chattelaine of later days, with its attached fan, snuffbox and jeweled watch. CHAPTER XVI DEVELOPMENT OF GOTHEN COSTUM To the Romans, all who were not of Rome and her empire were foreigners, outsiders, people with a strange viewpoint, so they were given a name to indicate this. They were called barbarians. Cuspicuous among those tribes of barbarians, moved by human lust for gain to descend upon the Roman empire and eventually bring about its fall, was the tribe of Goths. End of the course of century, Gothic has become a generic term, implying that which is not Roman. We speak of Gothic architecture, Gothic art, Gothic costumes, when we mean, strictly speaking, the characteristic architecture, art and costuming of the late Middle Ages, 12th to 15th centuries. But we find the so-called Gothic outline in costume as early as the fourth century. Over the undraped, one-piece robe of classic type, a second garment is now worn, cut with straight lines. It usually fastens behind, and the uncorseted figure is outlined. The neck is still collarless and cut round. The space filled in with the neckline. The sleeves of the tunic appear to be the logical evolution of the folds of the toga, which fall over the arms when bent. They cling to the outline of the shoulder, broadening of the hand into what is called angel sleeves. In art, the traditional angel wears them. Roman Christian women wore their hair parted, no psyche not, and interesting, large earrings. The gowns were not draped, but were in one piece with no fullness. A tunic, following lines of the form, reached below the knees and was belted. This garment was trimmed with bands from shoulders to hem of tunic, and kept the same width throughout. If narrow, but if wide, the bands broadened to the hem. The neck continued to be cut round and filled in with a neckline. The cape, fastening on shoulders or chest, remnant of the Greek toga, was worn, and veils of various materials with the usual head coverings. Between the 5th and 10th centuries, there are examples of the overgarment or tunic having a broad stomacher of some contrasting material, held in place with a cord, which is tied behind, brought around to the front, knotted and allowed to hang to bottom of skirt. Visiting art between a hundred and a thousand AD still shows women wearing tunics, but hanging straight from neck to hem of skirt, fastened on shoulders, and opened at sides to show gown beneath. Close sleeves with trimming at the wrists, often large, roughly cut jewels, forming a border on tunic, and the hair worn in long braids on each side of the face. The coil of hair, which was wrapped with pearls or other beads, was parted and used to frame the face. This fashion was carried to excess by the Franks. We see some of their women, between 400 and 600 AD, wearing these heavy, rope-like braids to the hem of the skirt in front. In the 14th century, the Gothic costume was perhaps at its most beautiful stage. The long robe, the upper part, following the lines of the figure, with long, closed sleeves, half covering hands, or flowing sleeves, then touched the floor. About the waist was worn a silk cord or jeweled girdle, finally wrought and swung low on hips, from the end of which was suspended the money bag, fan, and keys. The girdle begins now to apply an important part of decoration. This theme, the evolution of the girdle, may be indefinitely enlarged upon, but we must not dwell upon it here. In some cases we see that the tunic opened in the front, and that the large square, shall like outer garment of Greece, now became the long circular cape, clasped on the chest, one or two clasps, made so familiar by the art of the Gothic and Renaissance periods. Turn to the illuminated manuscripts of those periods to paintings on wood, frescoes, stained glass, stucco, carved wood, and stone, and you will find the mother of God invariably costume in the simple one-piece robe and circular clasped cape. In the most sacred art of the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, the Virgin and other saints are depicted in the current costume of women. The Virgin was the most frequent subject of artists in every medium during the ages when the church dominated the state in Europe. The furnishing of the Virgin's wardrobe has long been, and still is, a pious task in one clamored form by adherence to the churches in which the Virgin's image is displayed to worshipers. We regret to say, for aesthetic reasons, that there is no effort made on the part of modern devotees to perpetuate the beautiful medieval type of costume. In some old paintings, which come under the head of folk art, the Holy Family appears in national costume. The writer recalls a bit of 18th-century painting showing Saint Anne holding the Virgin as child. Saint Anne wears the bizarre, fit attire of a Spanish peasant. A gigantic headdress and veil, large earrings, wide stiff skirts showing gay flowers on a background of gold. The skirt is rather short to display wide trousers below it. Her sleeves have thinly frills of deep white lace executed with skill. To return to the girdle, as we have said, it slipped from its position at the waistline, where it confined the classic folds, and was allowed to hang loosely about the hips, clasped low in front, from this clasp a chain extended, to which were attached the housewife's keys or purse and the dame of fashion's fan. In fact, one can tell to a certain extent the woman's class and period by carefully inspecting her shadow line. The absence of waistline and the long, straight effect produced in the body of gown by wearing the girdle swung about the hips gives it the so-called Moyen Age silhouette, revived by the fashion of today. In the 13th century, the round, collarless neck, low enough to admit a neckline of lengths or beads, persists. A new note is the outer sleeve lays to cross an inner sleeve of white. Let us remember that the costume of the 13th and 14th centuries was distinguished by a quality and beautiful sweeping line, masked color, detail with raison d'être, which produced dignity with graceful movement found nowhere today, unless it be on the Wagnerian stage or in the boudoir of a woman who still takes time in our age of hurry to wear her negligee beautifully. In the 14th century, the round neck continued, but one sees low necks too, which left the shoulders exposed, our 1830 style. Another new note is the tuna grown into a garment, reaching to the feet of one-piece princess gown with belts or girdle. Sometimes a Juliet cap was worn to merely cover the crown of head, with hair parted and flowing, while on matrons we see head coverings with sides turned up, like ecclesiastical caps, and floating veils falling to the waist. Notice that through all the periods that we have named, which means until the 14th century, the line of shoulder remains normal and beautiful, sloping and melting into folds of robe or line of sleeve. We see now for the first time an inclination to tamper with the shoulder line, an inoffensive scallop pierce, or some other decoration as capped to sleeve, no harm done yet. The 15th century shows another style, a long, sleeveless overgarment reaching to the floor, fastened on shoulders, and swinging loose to show at sides the undergown. It suggests a priest robe. Here we discover one more of the Moyan Age styles we have today. The 14th century gowns with necks cut out round to admit a necklace with pendants are still popular. The gowns are long on the ground, and the most beautiful of the characteristic headdresses, the long, pointed one, with veil covering it, and floating down from point of cap to hammer floating skirt behind, continues the movement of costume, the long lines which follow one another. When correctly posed, this pointed headdress is a delight to the eye. We recently saw a photograph of some fair young woman in this type of medieval or Gothic costume worn by them at a costume ball. Failing to realize that the pose of any headdress, this means half as well, is all important. They had placed the quaint, long, pointed caps on the very tops of their heads, like fools caps. The angle at which this headdress is worn is half the battle. The importance of every woman's cultivating an eye for line cannot be overstated. In the 15th century, we first see puffs at the elbow, otherwise the outlines of gown are the same. The garment in one piece, the body of it outlining the form, its skirts sweeping the ground, a girdle about the hips, and long, close or flowing sleeves wide at the hem. Despite the 14th century innovation of necks cut low and off the shoulders paraded by the church, most necks in the 15th century are still cut round at the throat, and the necklace worn instead of collar. Some of the gowns cut low off the shoulders are filled in with a puffed tucker of muslin, the pointed cap with a floating veil is still seen. Notice that the restraint in line, color, and detail gradually disappears with the abnormal circulation of wealth in those departments of church and state, to which the current of material things was diverted. We now see humanity tricked out, in which attire, and staggered to its doom through general debaucheries. Rich brocades, once from Damascus, are now made in Venice, and so are wonderful satins, felvets, and silks, with jewels many and massive. Sometimes a broad, jeweled band crossed at the breast from shoulder diagonally to underarm at waist. The development of petticoat begins now. At first we get only a glimpse of it, when our Lady of the Pointed Cap lifts her long skirts, lined with another shade. It is of a rich contrasting color, and is gradually elaborated. The waistline, when indicated, is high. A new note is the hair, with throat and neck completely concealed by a white veil, a style we associate with nuns and certain folk costumes, as fashioned it had a passing vogue. Originally the habit of covering woman's hair indicated modesty, an ideal held among the folk. Now the gradual shrinking of the dimensions of her quaff records the progress of the peasant woman's emancipation in certain countries. This is especially conspicuous in Brittany, as Muscher and Atal Le Brass, the eminent Breton scholar, remarked recently to the writer. Note the silk bag, quite modern on the arm, also the jeweled line of chain hanging from girdle to the middle of front, to hem of skirt, both for use and ornament. To us of a practical era, mysterious charm attaches to the long pointed shoes worn at this period. In the 15th century the marked division of costume into waist and skirt begins. The waistline more and more pitched in, the skirt more and more full, the sleeves and neck more elaborately trimmed, the headdresses multiplied in size, elaborateness and variety. Textiles develop with wealth and ostentation. In the 16th century the neck usually cut out and worn low on the shoulders. In the 16th century the neck was usually cut out and worn low on the shoulders, sometimes filled in, but we see also high necks, necks with small roughs and necks with large roughs, roughs turned down forming stiff linen cape collars trimmed with lace, close to the throat or flaring from neck to show the throat. The hair is parted and worn low and is snoo'd, or by young woman, flowing, the ears are covered with the hair. The Virgin in Art. When writing of the Gothic period in the Art and Interior Decoration we have said, Gothic art proceeds from the Christian Church and stretches like a canopy over western Europe during the late Middle Ages. It was in the churches and monasteries that Christian art, driven from pillar to post by wars, was obliged to take refuge, had there produced that marvelous development known as the Gothic Style of the Church for the Church and by the Church, perfected in countless Gothic cathedrals, crystallized glories, lifting their manifold spirals to heaven, ethereal monuments of an intrepid faith which gave material form to its adoration, its fasting and prayer, in an unrivaled art. Crystallized glories, hymns to the Virgin, is as concise a defining of the nature and spirit of this highest type of medieval art, perfected in France as we can find. Here we have deified women inspiring an art miraculously decorative. Schotter's Cathedral and Reims, before the German invasion in 1914, with Monse Michel, are distinguished examples. If the reader would put to the test or claim that woman as decoration is a beguiling theme worthy of days past in the broad highways of art, a mini an hour in crossroads and unbeaten paths, we would recommend to them the fascinations of a marvelous storyteller, one who, knowing all there is to know of his subject, has had the genius to weave the innumerable and perplexing threads in a tapestry of words when the main ideas take their places in the foreground, standing up clearly defined against the death of the woman, intelligible, but on a treating background. The author is Henry Adams, the book, the cathedrals of Monse Michel and Schotter. He tells you in striking language how woman was translated into pure decoration in the Middle Ages. Woman as the Virgin Mother of God, the manifestation of deity, which took precedence over all others during the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, and if you will follow him to the Schotter's Cathedral, particularly if you have been there already, and will stand facing the Great East Window, wherein stained glass of the ancient jeweled sword, women as mother of God, is enthroned above all. He will tell you how, out of the chaos of warring religious orders, the priestly schools of Abelard, St. Francis of Assisi, and others, there emerged the form of the Virgin, to woman as mother of God and man, the instrument of reproduction, of tender care, of motherhood, the disputatious, grouping mind of man agreed to bow, silent and odd by the mystery of her calling, and view of the recent enrolling of womanhood in the stupendous business of the war, now waging in Europe, and the demands upon her to help in arming her men, or nursing back to life the Schotter remains a fair youth, which so bravely went forth. The thought comes that woman will play a large part in the art to arise from the ashes of today. Woman as woman, ready to supplement man, pouring into less cauldron the best of herself, unstinted, unmeasured, woman capable of serving beyond her strength, rising to her greatest height, bending but not breaking to the end, if only assured, she is needed. End of Chapter 16 Recording by Jennifer Stearns, Co. New Hampshire is Neck's cut square, and elaborate, drooled chains draped from shoulders, outlining neck of gown, and describing if astune, on fronts of waist, which is soon to become independent of Skirt to develop on its own account. As in the fifteenth century, when Neck's were cut low off the shoulders, they were, on occasion, filled in with tuckers. The Skirt now registers a new characteristic. It parts at the waistline over a petticoat, and the opening is decorated by the ornamental heavy chain which hangs from girdle to hem of gown. One sees the hair still worn coiled low in the neck, concealing the ears and held in a snood, or in Italy cut Florentine fashion with fringe and brow. Observe how the wealth of the Roman Empire, through its new trade channels opening up with the East, the result of the Crusades, led to the importation of rich and many-coloured oriental stuffs. The same wealth ultimately established looms in Italy for making silks and velvets to decorate man and his home. There was no longer simplicity in line and color scheme. Gorgeous apparel fills the frames of the Renaissance, and makes amusing reading for those who consult old documents. The clothes of man, like his over-orned furniture, shows a debauched and vulgar taste. Instead of the lines which follow one another, solid colors and trimmings kept to hem of neck and sleeve and skirt, great designs in satins and velvet brocades distort the lines and proportions of man and woman. The good Gothic lines lift on in the costumes of priests and nuns. Jewelry ceased to be the decoration with meaning, lace and fringe, tassels and embroidery, with color combinations to rival the African parrots, disfigured man and woman alike. During November of 1916, New York was so fortunate as to see, at the American Art Galleries, the great collection of late Gothic and early Renaissance furniture and other art treasures brought together in the restored Devonsati Palace of Florence, Italy. The collection was sold at auction and is now scattered. Of course, those who saw it in its natural setting in Florence were most fortunate of all. But with some knowledge and imagination, all the sight of those wonderful things, hand made all of them. The most casual among those who crowded the galleries for days must have gleaned a vivid impression of how women of the early Renaissance lived, in her kitchen, dining room, bedroom and reception rooms. They displayed her cooking utensils, her chairs and tables, her silver, glass and earthenware, her bed, linen, satin damask, lace and drawn work, the cushions she rested against, portraits in their gorgeous Florentine frames, showing us how those early Italians dressed, the coloured terracottas, unspeakably beautiful presentments of the virgin and child, molded and painted by great artists under that same exaltation of faith, which brought into being the sister art of the time, in viewing them with something truly divine. There is no disputing that quality which radiates from the face of both the mother and the child, one all but kneels before it. Their expression is not of this world. That is woman as the mother of God in art, woman as the mother of man, who looked on these inspired works of art, lived for the most part in small houses built of wood with attached roofs, unpaved streets, dirty interiors, which were cleaned but once a week on Saturdays. The men of the aristocracy hunted and engaged in commerce and the general rank and file gave themselves over to the gaining of money to increase their power. It sounds not unlike New York today. Gradually the cities grow large and rich, people changed from simple sober living to elaborate and less temperate ways, and the great families, with their proportionately increased wealth, gained through trade, built beautiful palaces and built them well. The gorgeous coloring of the frescoed walls shows Byzantine influence. In the art of interior decoration, we have described at length the house finishing of that time. Against this background moved woman, man's mate. Note her color scheme, and then her role. We quoted from John Ruscani in Liza, Paris, August 1911. Donna Francesca de Albizi's cloak of black cloth ornamented on a yellow background with birds, parrots, butterflies, pink and red roses in a few other red and green figures, dragons, letters and trees in yellow and black, and again other figures made of white cloth with red and black stripes. Extravagants ran high, not only in dress, but in everything. Laws were made to regulate the amount spent on all forms of entertainment, even on funerals, and the cook who was to prepare a wedding feast had to submit his menu for approval to the city authorities. More than this, only two hundred guests could be asked to a wedding, and the number of presents which the pride was allowed to receive was limited by law. But wealth and fashion ran away with laws, the same old story. As the tide of the Renaissance rose and swept over Europe, the awakening began in Italy. The woman of the gorgeous cloak and her contemporaries, according to the vivid description of the last quoted author, were, quote, subject to their husband's tyranny, not even knowing how to read in many cases, occupied with their household duties, in which they were assisted by rough and uncrewed slaves, with no other mission in life than to give birth to a numerous posterity. This life ruined them, and their beauty quickly faded away. No wonder then, that they summoned art to the aid of nature. The custom was so common, and the art so perfect, that even a painter like Tadeo Gadi acknowledged that the Florentine women were the best painters in the world. Considering the mental status of women, it is easy to imagine to what excesses they were given in the matter of dress, end quote. The above assertions relate to the average woman, not the great exceptions. The marriage coffers of women of the Renaissance in themselves gave an idea of her luxurious taste. They were about six feet long, three feet high, and two and a half feet deep. Some had dumb covers opening on hinges. The whole was carved, gilded, and painted. The background of reds and blues throwing the gold into relief. Scenes taken from mythology were done in what was known as pastille, composition work raised and painted on a gold background. On one fifteenth-century marriage coffer, Bacchus and Ariane were shown in the triumphal car drawn by winged griffins, a young baccanti driving them on. Another coffer, decorated in the same manner, had as decoration, quote, the rape of prosopine, end quote. Women rocked their infants in sumptuous carved and emblazoned walnut cradles, and crimson sat in the mask covered their beds and cushions. This blaze of gold and silver, crimson and blue, we find as the wake of Byzantine trade via Constantinople, Venice, Rome, Florence, Onto France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Flanders, and England. Carved wood, crimson, green, and blue velvet sat in the mask, tapestries, gold and silver fringe, and lace against all this moved women, costumed sumptuously. Gradually, the line of women's and man's neck is lost in a broth, her sweeping locks, instead of parted on her brow, entwined with pearls or other gems to frame her face and make long lines down the length of her robe, are huddled under grotesque headdresses, monstrous creations, rising and spreading until they become caricatures, defying art. In some 16th century Italian portraits, we see the rough flaring from a neck cut out square and low in front, then rising behind to form a head covering. The last half of the 16th century is marked by gowns cut high in the neck with a close color and the appearance of a small rough encircling the throat. This rough almost at once increased to absurd dimensions. The tightly laced long pointed bodies now appears with and without padded hips. The superlative degree of this type is to be seen in portraits by Velazquez. Long pointed toes to the shoes give way to broad square ones. Another 16th century departure is the absurdly small hat, placed as if by the wind at a careless angle on the hair, which is curled and piled high. Also, we see hats of normal size with many plumes on both men and women. Notice the sleeves, some are still flowing with tight under-sleeves, others slashed to show full white sleeve beneath. But most important of all is that the general license, moral and artistic, lays its ruthless hand on women's beautiful sweeping shoulder line and distorts it. Anne of Cleves, or the progressive artist who painted her, shows in a portrait the queen's flowing sleeves with medieval lines, clasped by a broad band between elbow and shoulder, and then pushed up until the sleeve forms an ugly puff. A monstrous fashion this, and one soon to appear in a thousand mad forms. Its first vicious departure is that small puffy, senselessly insinuated line between armhole and top of sleeve in garments for men as well as women. Skirts button from point of bask to feet just before we see them, in the 17th century parting down the front and separating to show a petticoat. In Queen Elizabeth's time the acme of this style was reached by Spanish women as we see in Velázquez's portraits. Gradually the overskirt is looped back at first only a few inches, and tied with narrow ribbons. The second quarter of the 17th century shows the waistline drawn and bodies with skirts a few inches in depth. These skirts are the hallmark of a basque. Very short, full coats, flaring from underarms now appear. After the skirt has been pushed back and held with ribbons, we find gradually all fullness of upper skirt pushed to hips to form panniers and across the back to form a bustle effect until we have the Marie-Antoinette type, last 18th century, far more graceful and seduisant than the costume of Queen Elizabeth's time. The figures presented by Marie-Antoinette and her court powdered wigs and patches, panniers and enormous hats, surmounting the horsehair erections, heavy with powder and grease, lace, ribbon flowers and jewels are quaint, delightful and diverting, but not to be compared with the Greek or medieval lines in women's costume. Extremely extended skirts gave way to an interlude of false skirts, but flowing lines in the 18th century English portraits. The directoire reaction towards simplicity was influenced by English fashion. Empire formality on the classic influence came next, when Victorian hoops, which were succeeded by the Victorian bustles, pantalettes, black velvet at throat and wrists and lockets. End of Chapter 17 Read by J. C. Guan, Montreal, July 2009 Chapter 18 of Women as Decoration This is a LibriVox recording. Oh, LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The 18th century is unique by reason of scientific discoveries, mechanical inventions and chemical achievements, coupled with the gigantic political upheaval of the French Revolution. It is unique, distinguished and enormously fruitful. For example, the modern frenzy for chint, which has made our homes burst into bloom in endless variety, had its origin in the 18th century looms at Jouy, near Versailles, under the direction of Oberkampf. Before 1760, silks and velvets decorated Ma and his home. Royal patronage cooperating with the influence of such great decorators as Persia and Fontaine gave the creating of beautiful stuffs to the silk factories of Lyon. Printed linens and painted wallpapers appeared in France simultaneously, and for the same reason. The revolution set mass taste, which is often stronger than individual inclination, toward unustentatious, inexpensive materials for house furnishing and wearing apparel. The revolution had driven out royalty and a higher aristocracy, who, with changed names, lived in seclusion. Society therefore, to meet the mass desire, was driven to simple ways of living. Men gave up their silks and velvets and frills, lace and jewels for cloth linen and somber neck cloths. The women did the same. They wore muslin gowns and their own hair, and went to great length in the effectation of simplicity and patriotic fervour. We hear that, apropos of America having at this moment entered a great struggle with the central powers. Simplicity is decreed as smart for the coming season, and that those who costumed themselves extravagantly furnished their homes ostentatiously, or allow their tables to be lavish, will be frowned upon as bad form and unpatriotic. These reactions are inevitable, and come about with the regularity of tides in this world of perpetual repetition. The bells of the directorate shook their heads and bobbed their pretty locks at the artificiality Marie Antoinette and Company had practiced. I fear they called it sinful art to deftly place a patch upon the face, or make a headdress in the image of a man of war. Madame de Steyel's familiar headdress, twisted and wrapped around her head at the Turk, is said to have had its origin in the improvisation of the court hairdresser. Desperately groping for another version of the top-heavy erection, to humor the lovely queen, he seized upon a piece of fine lace and muslin, hanging on a chair at hand, and twisting it, wrapped the thing about the towering wig. As it happened, the chiffon was my lady's chemise. We begin the 18th century with a full petticoat, trimmed with rows of ruffles or bands, and overskirt looped back into panniers to form the bustle effect. The natural hair powdered, the hairdress of lace, standing out stiffly in front and drooping in a curtain behind. It was not until the whim of Marie Antoinette decreed itself that the enormous powdered wigs appeared. Viennese temperament alone accounts for the moods of this lovely tragic queen, who played at making butter in cap and apron over simple muslin frocks, but outdid her artificial age in love of artifice, not art in dress. This gay and dainty puppet of relentless fate propelled by varying moods must needs lose her lovely head at last, as symbol of her time. END OF CHAPTER XIII MONTREAL, JULY 2009 19. WOMEN IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD The first seventy years of the 19th century seem to us, of 1917, absolutely incredible in regard to dress. How our great-great-grandmothers have forgot about on foot in a carriage or a stagecoach, moved in a crowd, or even sat in any measure of serenity at home is a mystery to us, of an age when comfort, convenience, fitness, and shake have at last come to terms. For a vivid picture of how our American society looked between 1800 and 1870, read Miss Elizabeth McClellan's Historic Dress in America, published in 1910 by George W. Jacobs and Company of Philadelphia. The book is fascinating, and it not only amuses and informs, but increases one's self-respect if a woman, for modern women, trusts in accordance with her role. We can see extravagant wives point out, with glee, to tyrants' mates, how, in the span of years between 1800 and 1870, our maternal forebears made many fly even in the Quaker City. Fancy paying in Philadelphia at that time, fifteen hundred dollars for a lace scarf, four hundred dollars for shawl, a hundred dollars for the average gown of silk, and fifty dollars for a French bonnet. Miss McClellan, quoting from Mrs. Roger Pryor's memoirs, tells how she, Mrs. Pryor, as a young girl in Washington, was awakened at midnight by a note from the daughter of her French milliner to say that a box of bonnets had arrived from Paris. Mama had not yet unpacked them, and if she would come at once, she might have her pick of the treasures, and mama not know until too late to interfere. And this was only back in the fifties, which should say. Then think of the hoops and wigs, and absurdly furbished headdresses, paper-sold shoes, some intended only to sit in, bonnets, enormous, laces of cobweb, shawls from India by camel and sailing craft, rouge, too, and hair-grease, patches and powder, laced waists and crumped feet, low necks, and short sleeves for children in school rooms. Man was then still decorative here and in western Europe. Today he is not decorative, unless in sports clothes or military uniform. Woman's garments finish all the color. Whistler circumvented this fact when painting Theodore de Ré, Metropolitan Museum, in somber black broadcloth. Modern evening attire, by flinging over the arm of de Ré, the delicate pink taffeta and chiffon cloak of a woman. And in Mr. de Ré's hand, he places a closed fam of palm granite red. End of Chapter 19. Red by J. C. Guan, Montreal, July 2009. Chapter 20. Of Woman as Decoration. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by J. C. Guan, Woman as Decoration, by Emily Burbank. Chapter 20. Sex in Costume. European dress is the term accepted to imply the costume of man and woman, which is entirely cosmopolitan, the crying continuity of types of costume and thoroughly plastic in the hands of fashion. Today we say parrot-like, that certain materials, lines and colors are masculine or feminine. They are so merely by association. The modern costume of man, the world over, if he appear in European dress, we accept called regalia, is confined to cloth, linen or cotton, in black, white, and inconspicuous colors, a prescribed and simple type of neckwear, footwear, hat, stick and haircut. The progenitor of the garments of modern men was the Lutheran Puritan revolutionary garb, the hallmark of democracy. It is true that when silk was first introduced into Europe from the Orient, the Greeks and early Romans considered it too effeminate for man's use. But this had to do with the doctrine of a steer denial for the good of the state. To wear the costume of indolence implied inactivity and induced it, as a matter of fact some of the master spirits of Greece did wear soaks. In ancient Egypt, Assyria, Medea, Persia, and the Far East, men and women wore the same materials as in China and Japan today. Egyptian men and their contemporaries throughout Byzantium wore gowns in outline identical with those of the women. Among the tugs, trousers were always considered as appropriate for women as for men, and both men and women wore over the trousers a long garment not unlike those of the women in the Gothic period. Thais wore a gilded wig, but so did the man she knew, and they added gilded false beards. Assyrian kings wore earrings, bracelets, and wonderful claps which chains, by which the folds in their draped garments, cut like the women's, might be caught up and held securely, leaving feet, arms, and hands free for action. When the genius of the Byzantine, Greek and Venetian manufacturers of silks and velvets, rich in texture and ablaze with color, were offered for sale to the Romans, whose passion for display had increased with their fortunes and consequent lives of dissipation, we find there was no distinction made between the materials used by men and women. It is no exaggeration to say that the Renaissance spells brocade. Great designs and small ones sprawled over the figures of men and women alike. Lace was as much his as hers to use for wide, elaborate colors and cups, and broader belonged to both, and the men, like the women, of Germany, France, Italy, and England wore many plumes on their big straw hats and metal helmets. The intercommunication between the Orient and all of the countries of the Western Hemisphere and the abundance and variety of human trappings bewildered and viscated taste. Unfortunately, the change in line of costume has not moved parallel to the line in furniture. The revival of classic interior decoration in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, England, etc., did not at once revive the classic lines in women's clothes. Chapter XXI. Line and Color of Costumes in Hungary. The idea that man decorative, by reason of color or line in costume, is of necessity either masquerading or effeminate, proceeds chiefly from the conventional nineteenth and twentieth-century point of view in America and Western Europe. But even in those parts of the world we are accustomed to color in the uniforms of army and navy, the crimson hood of the university doctor, and red sash of the French Legion of Honor. We accept color as a dignified attribute of man's attire in the cases cited, and we do not forget that our early nineteenth-century American masculine forebears wore bright blue or vivid green coats, silver and brass buttons, and red or yellow waistcoats. The gentlemen sportsmen of the early nineteenth century hunted in bright blue-tailed coats with brass buttons, scarlet waistcoat, tight breeches and top hat. We refer to the same class of man who today wears rough, natural-colored tweeds, leather coat and close cap that his prey may not see him. In a sense, color is a sign of virility when used by man. We have the North American Indian with his gay feathers, blankets and war-paint, and the European peasant in his gala costume. In many cases, color is as much his as his woman's. Some years ago, when collecting data concerning national characteristics, as expressed in the art of the Slavs, Magyars and Czechs, the writers studied these peoples in their native settings. We went first to Hungary, and were disappointed to find Budapest far too cosmopolitan to be of value for the study of national costume, music or drama. The dominating and most artistic element in Hungary is the Magyar, and we were there to study him. But even the Gypsies who played the Magyar music in our hotel orchestra wore the black evening dress of Western Europe and patent leather shoes, and the music they played was from the most modern operettas. It was not until a world-famous Hungarian violinist arrived to give concerts in Budapest that the national spirit of the Gypsies was stirred to play the Magyar airs in his honor. Gypsies take on the spirit of any adopted land. We then realized what they could make of the rickoxymarch and other folk music. The experience of that evening spurred us to penetrate into southern Hungary, the heart of Magyar land, armed with letters of introduction from one of the ministers of education to mayors of the peasant villages. It was impossible to get on without an interpreter, as usually even the mayors knew only the Magyar language, not a word of German. That was the perfect region for getting its Magyar character expressed in the color and line of costume, manner of living, point of view, folk song and dance. It is all still vividly clear to our mind's eye. We saw the first Magyar costumes in a village not far from Budapest. To make the few miles quickly we had taken an electric trolley vastly superior to anything in New York at the time of which we speak, and were let off in the center of a group of small, low, thatched cottages, whitewashed and having a broad band of one, two or three colors, extending from the ground to about three feet above it, and completely encircling the house. The favorite combination seemed to be blue and red in parallel stripes. Near one of these houses we saw a very old woman with a long lashed whip in her hand, guarding two or three dark, curly, long-legged Hungarian pigs. She wore high boots, many short skirts, a shawl and a headkerchief. Presently two other figures caught her eye. A man and a long cape to the tops of his boots, made of sheepskin, the wool inside, the outside decorated with bright colored wools, outlining crude designs. The black fur color is the skin of a small black lamb, legs and tails showing, as when stripped off the little animal. The man wore a cone-shaped hat of black lamb, and his hair reached to his shoulders. He smoked a very long-stemmed pipe with a china bowl as he strolled along. Behind him a woman walked, bowed by the weight of an immense sack. She wore boots to the knees, many full, short skirts, and a yellow and red silk headkerchief. By her head covering we knew her to be a married woman. They were a farmer and his wife. Among the Magyars the man is very decidedly the peacock. The woman is the pack-horse. On market days he lounges in the sunshine, wrapped in his long sheepskin cape and smokes, while she plies the trade. In the farmer's homes of southern Hungary, where we passed some time, we, as Americans, sat at table with the men of the house, while wife and daughter served. There was one large dish of food in the centre into which everyone dipped. The women of the peasant class never sit at table with their men. They serve them and eat afterwards, and they always address them in the second person as, will your graciousness have a cup of coffee? Also they always walk behind the men. At country dances we have seen young girls in bright, very full skirts, with many ribbons braided into the hair, clustered shyly at a short distance from the dancing platform in the fairgrounds, waiting to be beckoned or whistled to by one of the sturdy youths with skintight trousers, tucked into high boots, who, by right of might, has stationed himself on the platform. When they have danced, generally as Ardas, the girl goes back to the group of women, leaving the man on the platform in command of the situation. Yet already in 1897 women were being admitted to the University of Budapest. There in Hungary one could see women run the whole gamut of her development, from man's slave to man's equal. We found the national colour scheme to have the same violent contrasts which characterised the folk music and the folk poetry of the Magyars. Primitive man has no use for half-tones. It was the same with the Russian peasants and with the Poles. Our first morning in Krakow, a great clattering of wheels and horseshoves on the cobbled court of our hotel, accompanied by the cracking of a whip and voices, drew us to our window. At first we thought a strolling circus had arrived, but no, that man with the red crown to his black fur cap, a beacock's feather fastened to it by a fantastic brooch, was just an ordinary farmer in Sunday garb. In the neighbourhood of Krakow, the young men wear frock coats of white cloth, over bright red short tight coats, and their light-coloured skin-tight trousers worn inside knee-boots are embroidered in black down the fronts. One afternoon we were the guests of a Polish painter who had married a pretty peasant, his model. He was a gentleman by birth and breeding, had studied art in Paris, and spoke French, German, and English. His wife, a child of the soil, knew only the dialect of her own province, but with the sensitive response of a pole eagerly waited to have translated to her what the Americans were saying of life among women in their country. She served us with tea and liquor, the red heels of her high boots clicking on the wooden floor as she moved about. As colour and as line of a kind, that young Polish woman was a feast to the eye, full scarlet skirt standing out over many petticoats and reaching only to the tops of her knee-boots, full white bodice, a sleeveless jacket to the waistline, made of brightly coloured croton, outlined with coloured beads, a bright yellow headkerchief bound her soft brown hair, her eyes were brown, and her skin like a yellow peach. On her neck hung strings of coral and amber beads. There indeed was a decorative woman. As for her background, it was simple enough to throw into relief the brilliant vision that she was. Not, however, a scheme of interior decoration to copy. The walls were whitewashed. A large stove of masonry was built into one corner, and four beds and a candle stood on the other side of the room, over which hung in a row five virgins, the central one being the black virgin beloved by the Poles. The legend is that the original was painted during the life of the virgin on a panel of dark wood. Here, too, was the marriage chest, decorated with a crude design in bright colours. The children, three or four of them, ran about in the national costume, miniatures of their mother but barefoot. It was the same in Hungary, where we were taken by the mayor of a Magyar town to visit the characteristic farmhouse of a highly prosperous farmer, said to be worth two hundred thousand dollars. The table was laid in the end of a room having four beds in it. On inquiring later, we were told that they were not ordinarily used by the family but were heaped with the reserve bedding. In other words, they were recognised by the natives as indicating a degree of affluence, and were a bit of ostentation, not the overcrowding of necessity. From Hungary, we continued our quest of line and colour of folk costume into Russia. Strangely enough, Russia throws off the imperial yoke of autocracy, declaring for democratic principles at the very moment we undertake to put into words the vivid picturesqueness resulting largely from the causes of this astounding revolution. Have you been in Russia? Have you seen with your own eyes any phase of the violent contrasts which, at last, have caused the worm to turn? Our object being to study national characteristics as expressed in folk costume, folk song, folk dance, traditional customs and fits, we consulted students of these subjects whom we chanced to meet in London, Paris, Vienna, and Budapest, with the result that we turned our faces towards southern or little Russia as the part least affected by cosmopolitan influences. Kiev was our headquarters, and it is well to say at once that we found what we sought—ample opportunity to observe the genuine Russian, the sturdy, dogged, plodding son of toil, who, more than any other European peasant, seems a part of the soil which in sullen persistency he tills. We knew already that Russians of Petrograd and Moscow, one meets them in Paris, London, Vienna, at German and Austrian cures, and on the Riviera. They are everywhere, and all is distinctive by reason of their slov temperament, a magnetic race quality which is asiatic in its essence. We recognize it, we are stirred by it, we are drawn to it in their literature, their music, their painting, and in the Russian people themselves. The quality is an integral part of Russian nature, polishing merely increases its attraction as with a gem. One instance of this is the folk melody as treated by Tchaikovsky compared with its simple form as sung or danced by the peasant. Some of the Russian women of the fashionable world are very decorative. Our first impression of this type was in Paris, at the Russian church on Christmas, or was it some other holy day. When to the amazement of the uninitiated, the Russian women of the aristocracy appeared at the morning surface hatless and in full evening dress, wearing jewels as if for a function at some secular court. Their masculine escorts appeared in full regalia, the light of the altar candles adding mystery to the glitter of gold, lace, and jewels. Those occasions are picturesque in the extreme. The congregation stands, as in the Jewish synagogues, and those of highest rank are nearest the altar, invariably ablaze with gold, silver, and precious stones, while on occasions the priest wears cloth of gold. In Paris, this background and the whole scene was accepted as part of the pageant of that city, but in Kiev it was different. There we got the other side of the picture, the man and the woman who are really Russia, the element that finds an outlet in the folk music for its age old rebellious submission. One hears the soul of the Russian pulsating in the continued reiteration of the same theme. It is like the endless treadmill of a life without vistas. We were looking at the Russia of Maxim Gorky, the Russia that made Tolstoy a reformer that has now forced its Tsar to abdicate. We reached Kiev just before the Easter of the Greek Church, the season when the pilgrims, often as many as fifty thousand of them, tramp over the frozen roads from all parts of the empire to expiate their sins, kneeling at the shrine of one of their mummied, sainted bishops. The men and women alike clad in grimy sheepskin coats, moved like cattle in straggling droves over the roads which lead to Kiev. From a distance one cannot tell man from woman, but as they come closer one sees that the woman has a bright kerchief tied round her head, and red or blue peasant embroidery dribbles below her sheepskin coat. She is as stocky as a shetland pony, and her face is weather-beaten, with high cheekbones and brown eyes. The man wears a black astrocan conical cap, and his hair is long and bushy from rubbing bare grease into it. He walks with a crooked staff, biblical in style, and carries his worldly goods in a small bundle flung over his shoulder. The woman carries her own small burden. As they shuffle past, a stench arises from the human herd. It comes from the sheepskin, which is worked in, slept in, and what is more often inherited from a parent who had also worn it as his winter hide. Added to the smell of the sheepskin is that of an unwashed human, and the reek of stale food, for the poorest of the Russian peasants have no chimneys to their houses. They cannot afford to let the costly heat escape. Kiev, the holy city and capital of ancient Russia, climbs from its ancestral beginnings on the bank of a river Gnieper, up the steep sides and over the summit of a commanding hilltop, crowned by an immense gold cross, illumined with electricity by night, to flash its message of hope to footsore pilgrims. The driver of Ardrosky drove us over the rough cobble so rapidly, despite the hill, that we were almost overturned. It is the manner of Russian Drosky drivers. The cathedral, our goal, was snowy white, with frescoes on the outer walls, onion-shaped domes of bronze turned green, or gold, or blue with stars of gold. We entered and found the body of the church well filled by peasants, women and men in sheepskin. One poor doe-eyed creature crouched to presses for had twenty times at least on the stone floor of the church. Eagerly, like a flock of sheep, they all pushed forward to where a richly robed priest held a cross of gold for each to kiss, taking their proffered copex. The setting sun streamed through the ancient stained glass, dying their dirty sheepskin crimson, and purple, and green, until they looked like illuminations in old missiles. To the eye and the mind of Western Europe it was all incomprehensible, yet those were the people of Russia who are today her mass of armed defenders, the element that has been counted on from the first by Russia and her allies stood penniless before an altar laid over with gold and silver and precious stones. Just before we got to Kiev, one of those men in sheepskins with uncut hair and dogged expression who had a sense of values in human existence broke into the church and stole jeweled chalices from the altar. They were traced to a pawn shop in a distant city and brought back. It was a common thing to see men halt in the streets and stand uncovered while a pitiful funeral courtage passed. A wooly, half-starved, often lame horse was harnessed with rope to a simple four-wheeled farm wagon, a long-haired peasant at his head, women and children holding to the sides of the cart as they stumbled along in grief, and inside a rough wooden coffin covered with a black pall on which was sewn the Greek cross in white. Heartless, hopeless, weary, and underfed those peasants were taking their dead to be blessed for a price by the priests in cloth of gold without whose blessing there could be no burial. End of Chapter 22 Recording by Miriam Esther Goldman The public thinks of Mark Twain as being the apostle of white during the last years of his life, but those who knew him well recall his delightfully original way of expressing an intense love for bright colors. This brings to mind a weekend at Mark Twain's beautiful Italian villa in Redding, Connecticut when, one night during dinner, he held forth on the compelling fascination of colors and the American Indians' superior judgment in wearing them. After a lengthy elaboration, not to say exaggeration of his theme, he ended by declaring in uncompromising terms that color and plenty of it, crimson and yellow and blue, wrapped around man as well as woman, was an obligation shirked by humanity. It was all put as only Mark Twain could have put it with that serious vein showing through broad humor. This quality, combined with an unmatched originality, made every moment passed in his company a memory to treasure. It was not alone his theme, but how he dealt with it that fascinated one. Mark Twain was elemental and at the same time a great artist, the embodiment of extreme contradictions, and his flair for gay color was one proof of his elemental strain. We laughed that night as he made word pictures of how men and women should dress. Next morning, toward noon, on looking out of a window, we saw, standing in the middle of the driveway, a figure wrapped in crimson silk, his white hair flying in the wind, while smoke from a pipe encircled his head. Yes, it was Mark Twain, who in the midst of his writing, had been suddenly struck with the thought that the road needed mending, and had gone out to have another look at it. It was a blustering day in spring and cold, so one of the household was sent to persuade him to come in. We can see him now, returning reluctantly, wind-blown and vehement, gesticulating, and stopping every few steps to express his opinion of the men who had made that road. The flaming red silk robe he wore was one his daughter had brought him from liberties in London, and he adored it. Still wrapped in it, and seemingly unconscious of his unusual appearance, he joined us on the balcony to resume a conversation of the night before. The red-robed figure seated itself in a wicked chair and berated the idea that mortal man ever could be generous, act without selfish motives. With the greatest reverence in his tone, sitting there in his whimsical costume of bright red silk at high noon, an immaculate French butler waiting at the door to announce lunch, Mark Twain concluded an analysis of modern religion with,—why, the God I believe in is too busy spinning spheres to have time to listen to human prayers. How often his words have been in our mind since war has shaken our planet. The world has the habit of deriding that which it does not understand. It is the most primitive way of bolstering one's limitations. How often the woman or man, with a God-given sense of the beautiful, the fitting, harmony between costume and setting, is described as posure, or posus, by those lacking the same instinct. In a sense, of course, everything man does, beyond obeying the rudimentary instincts of the savage, is an affectation, and it is not possible to claim that even our contemporary costuming of man or woman always has raison d'être. We accept, as the natural, unaffected raiment for women and man, that which costume has taught us to recognize as appropriate, with or without reason for being. For example, the tall, shiny, inflexible silk hat of man, and the torturous, high French heels of woman, are in themselves neither beautiful, fitting, nor made to meet the special demands of any setting or circumstance. Both hat and heels are fashions, unbeautiful and uncomfortable, but to the eye of man today serve as insignia of formal dress, decreed by society. The artist's nature has always assumed poetic license in the matter of dress, and as a rule defied custom, to follow an inborn feeling for beauty. That, much maligned, short velvet coat, and soft loose tie of the painter or writer, happen to have a most decided raison d'être. They represent comfort, convenience, and in the case of the velvet coat satisfy a sensitiveness to texture, incomprehensible to other natures. As for the long hair of some artists it can be opposed, but it has in many cases been absorption in work or poverty, the actual lack of money for the conventional haircut. In cities we consider long hair on a man as effeminate, an indication of physical weakness, but the Russian peasant, most sturdy of individuals, wears his hair long, and so do many others among extremely primitive, masculine types, who live their lives beyond the reach of fashion and barbers. The short hair of the sincere woman artist is to save time at the toilette. There is always a limited number of men and women who, in ordinary acts of life, respond to texture, color, or line, as others do to music or scenery, and to be at their best in life must dress their parts as they feel them. Japanese actors who play the parts of women dress like women off the stage, and live the lives of women as nearly as possible in order to acquire the feeling for women's garments. They train their bodies to the proper feminine carriage, counting upon this to perfect their interpretations. The woman who rides, hunts, shoots, fishes, sails her own boat, paddles, golfs, and plays tennis is very apt to look more at home in habit, tweeds, and flannels than she does in strictly effeminate attire. The muscles she has acquired in legs and arms, from violent exercise, given actual, not and assumed, stride and a swing to the upper body. In sports clothes or severely tailored costume this woman is at her best. Most trying for her will be demi toilette, house gowns. She is beautiful at night because of certain balance, dignity and grace, or lenter, by the décolletage and train of a dinner or ball gown. English women who are devotees of sport demonstrate the above fact over and over again. While on the subject of responsiveness to texture and color we would remind the reader that Richard Wagner hung the room in which he worked at his operas with bright silks, for the art stimulus he got from color, and it is a well-known fact that he derived great pleasure from wearing dressing gowns and other garments made from rich materials. Clyde Fitch, our American playwright, when in his home, often wore velvet or brocaded silks. They were more sympathetic to his artist nature, more in accord with his fondness for wearing jeweled studs, buttons, scarf pins. In his town and country houses the main scheme leading features in every smallest detail were the result of Clyde Fitch's personal taste and effort, and he, more than most men and women, appreciated what a bolt of inartistic human being can be on a room which of itself is a work of art. Tapet himself will tell you that all periods have had their beautiful lines and colors, their interesting details, that to find beauty one must first have the feeling for it, that if one is not born with this subtle instinct there are manifold opportunities for cultivating it. His claim is the same as that made in our art of interior decoration. The connoisseur is one who has passed through this schooling to be acquired only by contact with masterpieces. Those treasures sifted by time and preserved for our education in great art collections. Tapet emphasizes the necessity of knowing the background for a costume before planning it, the value of line in the physique beneath the materials, the interest to be woven into a woman's costume when her type is recognized, and the modern insistence on appropriateness, that is, the simple gown and close hat for the car, vivid colors for field sports or beach, a large fan for the woman who is mistress of sweeping lines, etc., etc. Tapet is absolutely French in his insistence upon the possible eloquence of line, a single flower well poised, and the chic which is dependent upon how a hat or gown is put on. We have heard him say, no, I will not claim the hat in that photograph, though I made it, because it is a mal passé. In England and far more so in America, men are put down as effeminate, who wear jewelry to any marked extent. But no less a person than King Edward VII always wore a chain bangle on his arm, and one might cite countless men of the continent as thoroughly masculine, Spaniards in particular, who wear as many jeweled rings as women. Apropos of this, a famous topaz, worn as a ring for years by a distinguished Spaniard, was recently inherited by a relation in America, a woman. The stone was of such importance as a gem that a record was kept of its passing from France into America. As a man's ring it was impressive, and the setting as to do it honour, but being a man's ring it was too heavy for a woman's use. A pendant was made of the stone, and a setting given it which turned out to be too trifling in character. The consequence was the stone was lost in value as a Rubens canvas would if placed in an Art Nouveau frame. Whether it is a precious stone, a valued painting, or a woman's costume, the effect produced depends upon the character of its setting. The Chelsea Group of Revolutionary Artists in New York, doubtless sea, perhaps but dimly, the same star that led Goethe and Schiller on in the storm and stress period of their time. We smile now as we recall how Schiller stood on the street corners of Leipzig, wearing a dressing gown by day to defy custom, but the youth of Athens did the same in the last days of Greece. In fact, then the darlings of the gilded world struck attitudes of abandon in order to look like the Spartans. They refused to cut their hair and they would not wash their hands, and even boasted of their ragged clothes after fistfights in the streets. Yes, the gentlemen did this. In the 15th and 16th centuries there was a cult that wore furs in summer and thin clothes in winter to prove that love made them strong enough to resist the elements. You will recall the euphuis of England, the presuses of France, and the Illuminati of the 18th century, as well as slave-mervieu and less encroyable. The rich during the Renaissance were great and wise collectors, but some followed the fashion for collecting manuscripts, even when unable to read them. It is interesting to find that in the 4th and 5th centuries it was fashionable to be literary. Those with means for existence without labour wrote for their own edification, copying the style of the ancient poets and philosophers. As early as the 15th and 16th centuries Venetian women were shown the Paris fashions each ascension day on life-sized dolls displayed by an enterprising importer. It is true that fashions come and go not only in dress but how one should sit, stand and walk, how use the hands and feet and eyes. To squint was once deemed a modest act. Women of the 15th and 16th centuries stood with their abdomens out, and so did some in 1916. There are also fashions in singing and speaking. The poses and portraits express much. Compare the exactly prim coplemus with a recent portrait by Cecilia Bow of a young girl seated with dainty satin-covered feet outstretched to full extent of the limbs in casual impertinence, our age. To return to the 16th century it is worthy of note that some Venetian belts were patins, that is, shoes with blocks of wood, sometimes two feet high, fastened to the soles. They could not move without a maid each side. As it was an age when elemental passions were good form, jealous husbands are blamed for these. In the 17th century the idle dancing youth of today had his prototype in the Cavalier Cervante, who hovered at his lady's side, affecting extravagant and effeminate manners. The corrupt morals of the 16th century followed in the wake of social intercourse by travel, literature, art, and styles for costume. Madame Recamille, the exquisite embodiment of the direct voir style, as depicted by David in his famous portrait of her, scandalised London by appearing in public, clad in transparent Greek draperies and scarves. Later, Madame Jerome Bonaparte, a Baltimore bell, quite upset Philadelphia by repeating Madame Recamille's experiment in that city of brotherly love. We are also told on good authority that one could have held Madame's wedding gown in the palm of the hand. Victorian hoops for public conveyances, paper-sold slippers and snowdrifts, wigs immense and heavy with powder, hair oil and furblows, hourglass waistlines producing the vapours, fortunately, are no more. Taken by and large, we of the year 1917 seem to have reached the point where woman psychology demands of dress witness for each occasion, that she may give herself to her task without a material handicap. May the good work in this direction continue as the panorama of costumes for women moves on down the ages that are to come. When seen in perspective, the costumes of various periods as well as the architecture, interior decoration and furnishings of the homes of men appear as distinct types, though to the man or woman of any particular period, the variations of the type are bewildering and misleading. It is the same in physical types. When visiting for the first time a foreign land, one is immediately struck by a national caste of feature, English, French, American, Russian, etc. But if we remain in the country for any length of time, the differences between individuals impresses and we lose track of those features and characteristics the nation possesses in common. Today, if asked what outline materials and color schemes characterize our fashions, some would say that almost anything in the way of line, materials and color, were worn. There is, however, always an epic type, and while more than ever before the law of appropriateness has dictated a certain silhouette for each occasion, each occupation, when recorded in costume books of the future, we will be recognized as a distinct phase, as distinct as the Gothic, Elizabethan, Empire, or Victorian period. As we have said, in studying the history of woman decorative, one finds two widely separated aspects of the subject, which must be considered in turn. There is the classifying of woman's apparel, which comes under the head of European dress, woman's costume affected by cosmopolitan influences, costumes worn by that part of humanity, which is enclosing their communication and reflecting the ebb and flow of currents, political, geographical, and artistic. Then we have quite another field for study, that of national costumes, by which we mean costumes peculiar to some one nation, and worn by its men and women, century after century. It is interesting as well as depressing for the student of national characteristics to see the picturesque distinguishing lines and colors gradually disappear as railroads, steamboats, and electric trolleys penetrate remote districts. With any influx of curious strangers, there comes in time, often all too quickly, a regrettable self-consciousness, which is followed at first by an awkward imitation of the cosmopolitan garb. We recall our experience in Hungary, having been advised to visit the peasant villages and farms lying out on the pustas, plains of southern Hungary. If we would see the veritable national costumes, we set out, hopefully, with letters of introduction from a minister of education in Budapest, directed to mayors of Magyar villages. One of these plans a visit to a local celebrity, a Magyar farmer, very old, very prosperous, rich in herds of horses, sheep, and by magnificent Hungarian oxen, large, white, and with almost straight, spreading horns, like the oxen of the ancient Greeks. There we met a man of the old school, nearly eighty, who had never in his life slept undercover, his duty being to guard his flocks and herds by night as well as day, though he had amassed what was for a station in life a great fortune. He had never been seen in anything but the national costume, the same as worn in his part of the world for several hundred years, and so we went to see him in his home. We were all expectation. You can imagine our disappointment when upon arrival we found our host awaiting us, painfully attired in the ordinary dark clothed coat and trousers of the modern farmer the world over. He had done the ugly things in our honor, taking an hour to make his toilet, as we were secretly informed by one of the household. We held us to show how one must persevere in the pursuit of artistic data. This was the same occasion cited in the Art of Interior decoration, when the highly decorative present tableware was banished by the woman in the house, to make room again in our honor for plain white ironstone china. The feeling for line accredited to the French woman is equally the birthright of the Marguer, woman and man. One sees it in the dash of the court beauty, who can carry off a mass of jewels, barbaric in splendor, where the average European or American would feel a Christmas tree in the same. And no man in Europe wears his uniform as the Hungarian officer of Husar's does. The astretian trimmed short coat, slung over one shoulder, cap trimmed with fur on the side of his head, and skin-tight trousers inside of faultless, spurred boots reaching to the knees. One can go as far as to say there is something decorative in the very temperament of Hungarian women, a fiery abandon, which makes line in a subtle way quite apart from the line of costume. This quality is also possessed by the Spanish woman, and developed to a remarkable degree in the professional Spanish tensor. The gypsy woman has it too, she brought it to with her from Asia, as the Marguer's forebears did. Speaking of the Marguer, nothing so perfectly expresses the natural temperament as the Xadar's, the peasant's dance which begins with calm, stately repression, and ends in a mad ecstasy of expression, a rapid crescendo, the whirl ending when the man seizes his partner and flings her high in the air. Watch the flash of the eyes and see that this is genuine temperament, not acting, but something inherent in the blood, the crude color of the national costume, and the sharp contrast in the folk music are equally expressions of national character, the various art expressions of which open up countless enticing vistas. The contemplation of some of these vistas lead one to the conclusion that woman decorative is so, either as an artist, that is in the mastery of the science of line and color, more or less under the control of passing fashion, or in the abandonment to the impulse of an untutored, unconscious child of nature. Both can be beautiful, the art which is so great as to conceal conscious effort by creating the illusion of spontaneity and the natural unconscious grace of the human being in use or in the primitive state.