Chapter XXXVII: The Rise and Fall of Fashions

REASONS WHY FASHIONS ARE FOLLOWED--GAY CLOTHES SEEN WHEN PERIODS
OF DEPRESSION ARE OVER--CONDEMNATION OF FASHIONS BY THE
CLERGY--QUAKERS--SUMPTUARY LAWS--THE KILLING OF FASHIONS

The rise and fall of fashions is a matter that affects every nation and practically every individual, for savages are quite as much harassed and tortured by them as any civilized people are. Fashions are perpetuated, as Herbert Spencer has pointed out, by imitation, and from two motives which are widely divergent. It may be prompted by reverence for the one imitated, on the one hand, or by a desire to assert equality with him. In the beginning, no doubt fashions arose with an idea to improve upon nature, though notions as to ideals of beauty must have been hazy in many cases.

Fashions have been advanced as evidence in support of the proverb that there is nothing new under the sun, and the way in which some of them come round again goes a very long way to prove it in the case of clothes. Luckily some enormities seem to have died out, but in the light of past history we can never feel quite safe, and we never know, on the other hand, where some slight change which in itself seems novel may not lead us to ridiculous extremes. Of course, many garments and styles are importations from other countries. The pelisse came from Persia at the time of the Crusaders, just as the kimono was brought in recent times from Japan. Fads and peculiarities and even deformities of Royalty, as we saw in the case of the peruke, have introduced fashions. The crinoline, according to all accounts, was first devised to hide the shape of a princess. Perhaps no other contrivance has brought more nuisance in its train or had more ridicule poured upon it; but it is only one instance of many fashions that have been carried to excess. It is true, as we shall have occasion to mention, that in earlier times laws were enacted to restrict the size of ruffs and the length of the toes of shoes, but often with little effect, and when shape and size did not occupy attention, the costliness of the garment caused restrictions to be made, while the clergy seem never to have ceased from inveighing against the follies of fashions.

In the twelfth century the devil was represented by an old illustrator in the costume of a fine lady with the long hanging sleeves and tightly laced bodice of the time. A hundred years later English preachers took exception to laced openings through which ladies showed their costly under-linen, and dignified them with the name of "gates of hell." In the twentieth century ministers in the United States have wasted their time in scolding the lady members of their congregations for wearing fancy stockings. Sometimes, on the other hand, the clergy themselves have laid themselves open to criticism with regard to the gorgeousness of their apparel.

Periods of depression have been followed by fashions of the gayest. We may recall the times of Charles II, when England breathed again after the civil wars. After the French Revolution, when the reign of terror was over, the Merveilleuses went back to the dresses of antiquity, such as the Athenian costume and that of the Lacedemonian girls, whose tunics were slit down the sides from the hips. When this was not done the skirts were looped up on the left side above the knee with a cameo brooch. (See Figure 168.) One writer records a wager in which a lady betted that her dress, including trinkets, did not weigh two pounds. She afterwards retired and took off the dress, which was weighed, and the whole costume turned the scales at a little over a pound. One of these dresses went by the name of the "female savage," and consisted of a gauze chemise over pink fleshings, with golden garters. It is not surprising that such costumes, like others before, brought down upon them the condemnation of the Church, and the following "bull," dated at Rome on the 16th October, 1800, is reprinted from _The Times_ of January 28th, 1801:--

"The Pope, so long engaged in reducing the Gallican Church within the Catholic pale, has not been negligent of the duty of recalling the female form within the petticoat and the handkerchief. After speaking in appropriate terms of the present scarcity of clothing, and of the sensations it may excite even in the withered bosom of a monk, and quoting the authority of St. Clement of Alexandria, His Holiness strictly enjoins his officers, civil and ecclesiastical, to repress, by fine or corporal punishment, according to the circumstances of the case, these crying enormities. He directs, too, that their punishment should be extended to such damsels as though at first sight they appear properly attired, are nevertheless decked in transparent robes, and with a voluptuous and magnificent attire display themselves in very seductive and tempting attitudes. Moreover, fathers, husbands, heads of families, who weakly or negligently permit their wives, daughters, servants, etc., to trespass against these rules, shall not escape with impunity. Also, all taylors, haberdashers, milliners and men-milliners, hairdressers, and others who contribute to these enormities of dress shall in no wise pass unpunished." The bull goes on to state that "all priests, confessors, overseers, churchwardens, and others shall in no wise admit such delinquents to the Holy Supper; that they shall not allow women improperly dressed to enter the church, and if they come they shall be driven out, and if they resist, the higher powers shall be required to lend their aid."

It is said that a Russian nobleman who was used to judge the position of ladies by the amount of furs and clothes that they wore, on seeing an English lady in a costume of the merveilleuse style offered her money in the belief that she was a beggar.

Fashions may have a special significance, as in the case of bell-bottom trousers of the costermonger, for it is said that by the cut of these garments the progress of the wearer's courtship can be traced. When he first "walks out," the bottoms of his trousers are of such an ample size that only the toes of his boots can be seen. As matters proceed and the wedding comes into view, the trousers assume more moderate dimensions below the knee, and when at last the man is married he is content with a bell of quite modest proportions, with what a writer in one of our comic papers describes as an almost total absence of "sauciness" in the cut of the garment.

The lengths to which women will go in their desire to appear in the fashion, even if they are not, is shown by the business which a lady in New York is said to have founded. According to all accounts, she deals in nothing but discarded Paris waistbands--that is to say, those which bear the names of well-known dressmakers. Women in plenty in New York will buy these little strips of silk in order to have them stitched into their own dresses, to give their friends the impression that their garments were made in the French capital.

Laws intended for the good of trade have brought in fashions, as in the case of the statute cap. The very objections made by religious sects such as the Puritans and Quakers, who have departed from extravagance and superfluity, have given rise to new fashions of plainness. Even Quaker ladies must have shown their love of dress, for at a meeting in 1726 the following message was sent by some of the stronger-minded of them to their fellow-women:--

"As first, that immodest fashion of hooped petticoats or the imitation, either by something put into their petticoats to make them set full, or any other imitation whatever, which we take to be but a branch springing from the same corrupt root of pride. And also that none of our ffriends accustom themselves to wear their gowns with superfluous folds behind, but plain and decent, nor go without aprons, nor to wear superfluous gathers or plaits in their caps or pinners, nor to wear their heads drest high behind; neither to cut or lay their hair on their foreheads or temples.

"And that ffriends be careful to avoid wearing striped shoes or red and white heeled shoes or clogs or shoes trimmed with gaudy colours.

"And also that no ffriends use that irreverent practice of taking snuff or handing a snuff-box one to the other in meeting.

"Also that ffriends avoid the unnecessary use of fans in meeting, lest it direct the mind from the more inward and spiritual exercises which all ought to be concerned in.

"And also that ffriends do not accustom themselves to go with bare breasts or bare necks."

Perhaps in a minor way superstitions also have tended to keep up fashions. At a wedding, for instance, it is always said that a bride should wear

Something old and something new,
Something borrowed and something blue.

The enactments, however, which were directed against excess in dress do not seem to have always been so successful. The part which the law has played with regard to dress in our own country has been very considerable, and it may be of interest to consider briefly one or two of the so-called sumptuary laws.

In Edward III's reign the people were ordered to dress according to their station, and those who were not of high rank were forbidden to use expensive furs and ornaments. These orders were so neglected that Henry IV revised and strengthened them. Slashed sleeves at the time of Edward IV were prohibited to yeomen and any one below their rank. Legislation was also introduced to lessen the preposterous length to which the toes of shoes had grown, for it was enacted that not even the gentlemen should have them of a greater length than two inches.

The Recorder of Chester shows the following order made by Henry VIII: "To distinguish the head-dresses of married women from unmarried, no married woman to wear white or other coloured caps; and no woman to wear any hat, unless she rides or goes abroad into the country (except sick or aged persons), on pain of 3s. 4d."

Another law amounted to a tax on persons who dressed elegantly, for those who would not keep a horse and armour ready for the wars were fined heavily if they or their wives wore fine clothes or ornaments. It is probable, too, that Henry VIII's officers took care to collect the fines.

Mary brought in a law against the use of silk, and a little later on the great ruffs claimed attention, for in 1562 it was ordered that no more than a yard and a half of kersey should be used in making a ruff. James I repealed all the sumptuary laws, though we have seen that he and his successors occupied themselves somewhat with the dress of the clergy.

In Scotland, after the rising of 1745, an Act was passed forbidding the wearing of tartan as part of Highland dress, under the penalty of six months' imprisonment for the first offence and transportation beyond the seas for seven years for the second. No Highlander could receive the benefit of the Act of Indemnity without first taking the following oath: "I, A.B., do swear, and as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgement, I have not, nor shall have, in my possession any gun, sword, pistol, or arm whatsoever, and never use tartan, plaid, or any part of the Highland garb; and if I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, family, and property,--may I never see my wife and children, father, mother, or relations,--may I be killed in battle as a coward, and lie without Christian burial, in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred; may all this come across me if I break my oath." This severe and harsh Act caused great discontent, and was repealed in 1772.

As showing the hindrances caused to trade by some of the peculiar regulations, we find that in 1565 the Recorder of London describes an interview which he had with civic tailors, who were puzzled as to whether they should "line a slop hose, not cut in panes, with a lining of cotton stitched to the slop over and besydes the linen lining straight to the leg." The Recorder, on considering the words of the proclamation which had caused the trouble, gave it as his opinion that they could not; but the tailors, though they went away satisfied, came back to say that their customers had gone to other tailors outside the City, who made their clothes for them in the way that was first suggested. It was this contretemps which caused the Recorder to write to a higher legal authority.

Nowadays clothes and the law have little to do with one another, though occasionally ladies' dresses about which there is a dispute are seriously tried on in court, the legal luminaries meanwhile making a studied pretence of ignorance with regard to the garments. Though there are no statutes to curb modern fashions, yet we are reminded of the rules that have had to be made in certain theatres on account of the overwhelming size of the matinée hat.

Although the law does not seem to have been able to change the fashions to a very great extent, they have sometimes been killed suddenly. In the days of public executions, criminals sometimes elected to wear fashionable garments, and in consequence the demand for them ceased. Sometimes, again, those who were interested in the suppression of the fashion persuaded the doomed man or woman to wear a particular dress, and a judge has been known to compass the same end by ordering the hangman who officiated to deck himself in the objectionable garment.

The wearing of nightgowns in the street by ladies was stopped owing to a woman being executed in her bedgown. The use of yellow starch had its death-blow when the hangman appeared in orange collar and cuffs. Black satin dresses went out of fashion because Mrs. Manning was hung when wearing one. Now, however, as there are no public executions, there is not this opportunity of getting rid of obnoxious styles, and society ought to look about for another means to repress them.