Chapter II: Foreword: xi

I A FEW HINTS FOR THE NOVICE WHO WOULD PLAN HER COSTUMES 1

Rules having economic value while aiming at
decorativeness.--Lines and colouring emphasised
or modified by costuming.--Temperaments affect
carriage of the body.--Line of body affects
costume.--Technique of controlling the physique.--The
highly sensitised woman.--Costuming an
art.--Studying types.--Starring one's own good
points.--Beauty not so fleeting as is supposed
if costume is adapted to its changing aspects.--Masters
in art of costuming often discover and
star previously unrecognised beauty.--Establishing
the habit of those lines and colours in
gowns, hats, gloves, parasols, sticks, fans and
jewels which are your own.--The intelligent
purchaser.--The best dressed women.--Value of
understanding one's background.--Learning the
art of understanding one's background.--Learning
the art of costuming from masters of the
art.--How to proceed with this study.--Successful
costuming not dependent upon amount of
money spent upon it.--An example

II THE LAWS UNDERLYING ALL COSTUMING OF WOMAN 23

Appropriateness keynote of costuming to-day.--Five
salient points to be borne in mind when
planning a costume.--Where English, French,
and American women excel in art of costuming.--Feeling
for line.--To make our points clear
constant reference to the stage is necessary.--Bakst
and Poiret.--Turning to the Orient for
line and colour.--Keeping costume in same key
as its settings.--How to know your period; its
line, colours and characteristic details.--Studying
costumes in Gothic illuminations

III HOW TO DRESS YOUR TYPE 46

A FEW POINTS APPLYING TO ALL COSTUMES.--Background.--Line
and colour of costumes to
bring out the individuality of wearer.--The chic
woman defined.--Intelligent expressing of self
in _mise-en-scène_.--Selecting one's colour scheme

IV THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES 54

Effect of clothes upon manners.--The natural
instinct for costuming, "clothes sense."--Costuming
affecting psychology of wearer.--Clothes
may liberate or shackle the spirit of women, be
a tyrant or magician's wand.--Follow colour
instinct in clothes as well as housefurnishings

V ESTABLISH HABITS OF CARRIAGE WHICH CREATE GOOD LINE 66

Woman's line result of habits of a mind controlled
by observations, conventions, experiences
and attitudes which make her personality.--Training
lines of physique from childhood; an
example.--A knowledge of how to dress appropriately
leads to efficiency

VI COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME 74

Colour hall-mark of to-day.--Bakst, Rheinhardt
and Granville Barker, teachers of the new
colour vocabulary.--PORTABLE BACKGROUNDS

VII FOOTWEAR 85

Importance of carefully considering extremities.--What
constitutes a costume.--Importance
of learning how to buy, put on and wear each
detail of costume if one would be a decorative
picture.--Spats.--Stockings.--Slippers.--Buckles

VIII JEWELRY AS DECORATION 94

Considered as colour and line not with regard
to intrinsic worth.--To complete a costume or
furnish keynote upon which to build a costume.--Distinguished
jewels with historic associations
worn artistically; examples.--Know what
jewels are your affair as to colour, size, and
shape.--To know what one can and cannot
wear in all departments of costuming prepares
one to grasp and make use of expert suggestions.
How fashions come into being.--One of the rules
as to how jewels should be worn.--Gems and
paste

IX WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER BOUDOIR 111

Negligée or tea-gown belongs to this intimate
setting.--Fortuny the artist designer of tea-gowns.--Sibyl
Sanderson.--The decorative value
of a long string of beads.--Beauty which is the
result of conscious effort.--_Bien soiné_ a hall-mark
of our period

X WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER SUN-ROOM 116

Since a winter sun-room is planned to give
the illusion of summer, one's costuming for it
should carry out the same idea.--The sun-room
provides a means for using up last summer's
costumes.--The hat, if worn, should suggest
repose, not action.--The age and habits of those
occupying a sun-room dictate the exact type
of costume to be worn.--Colour scheme

XI I. WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER GARDEN 124

In the garden the costume should have a
decorative outline but simple colour scheme
which harmonises with background of flowers.--White,
grey, or one note of colour preferable.--The
flowers furnish variety and colour.--Lady
de Bathe (Mrs. Langtry) in her garden
at Newmarket, England

II. WOMAN DECORATIVE ON THE LAWN

One may be a flower or a bunch of flowers
for colour against the unbroken sweep of green
underfoot and background of shrubs and trees.--Chic
outline and interesting detail, as well as
colour, of distinct value in a costume for lawn.--How
to cultivate an unerring instinct for
what is a successful costume for any given occasion

III. WOMAN DECORATIVE ON THE BEACH

If one would be a contribution to the picture,
figure as white or vivid colour on beach,
deck of steamer or yacht

XII WOMAN AS DECORATION WHEN SKATING 134

Line of the body all important.--The necessity
of mastering _form_ to gain efficiency in any
line; examples.--The traditional skating costume
has the lead

XIII WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER MOTOR CAR 145

The colour of one's car inside and out important
factor in effect produced by one's carefully
chosen costume

XIV HOW TO GO ABOUT PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME 154

Period.--Background.--Outline.--Materials.--Colour
scheme.--Detail with meaning.--Authorities.--Consulting
portraits by great masters.--Geraldine
Farrar.--Distinguished collection of
costume plates.--One result of planning period
costumes is the opening up of vistas in history.--Every
detail of a period costume has its fascinating
story worth the knowing.--Brief historic
outline to serve as key to the rich storehouse
of important volumes on costumes and
the distinguished textless books of costume
plates.--Period of fashions in costumes developing
without nationality.--Nationality declared
in artistry of workmanship and the modification
or exaggeration of an essential detail according
to national or individual temperament.--Evolution
of woman's costume.--Assyria.--Egypt.--Byzantium.--
Greece.--Rome.--Gothic Europe.--Europe of the
Renaissance,--seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth
century through Mid-Victorian period.--Cord tied about
waist origin of costumes for women and men

XV THE STORY OF PERIOD COSTUMES 172

A RÉSUMÉ.

Woman as seen in Egyptian sculpture-relief;
on Greek vase; in Gothic stained glass; carved
stone; tapestry; stucco; and painting of the
Renaissance; eighteenth and nineteenth century
portraits.--Art throughout the ages reflects
woman in every rôle; as companion, ruler,
slave, saint, plaything, teacher, and voluntary
worker.--Evolution of outline of woman's costume,
including change in neck; shoulder;
evolution of sleeve; girdle; hair; head-dress;
waist line; petticoat.--Gradual disappearance
of long, flowing lines characteristic of Greek
and Gothic periods.--Demoralisation of Nature's
shoulder and hip-line culminates in the Velasquez
edition of Spanish fashion and the Marie
Antoinette extravaganzas

XVI DEVELOPMENT OF GOTHIC COSTUME 192

Gothic outline first seen as early as fourth
century.--Costume of Roman-Christian women.--Ninth
century.--The Gothic cape of twelfth,
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made
familiar on the Virgin and saints in sacred
art.--The tunic.--Restraint in line, colour, and
detail gradually disappear with increased circulation
of wealth until in fifteenth century we
see humanity over-weighted with rich brocades,
laces, massive jewels, etc.

THE VIRGIN IN ART

Late Middle Ages.--Sovereignty of the Virgin
as explained in "The Cathedrals of Mont St.
Michel and Chartres," by Henry Adams.--Woman
as the Virgin dominates art of twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.--The girdle.--The
round neck.--The necklace, etc.

XVII THE RENAISSANCE 214

SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

Pointed and other head-dresses with floating
veils.--Neck low off shoulders.--Skirts part as
waist-line over petticoat.--Wealth of Roman
Empire through new trade channels had led to
importation of richly coloured Oriental stuffs.--Same
wealth led to establishing looms in
Europe.--Clothes of man like his over-ornate
furniture show debauched and vulgar taste.--The
good Gothic lines live on in costumes of
nuns and priests.--The Davanzati Palace collection,
Florence, Italy.--Long pointed shoes
of the Middle Ages give way to broad square
ones.--Gorgeous materials.--Hats.--Hair.--Sleeves.--
Skirts.--Crinolines.--Coats.--Overskirts
draped to develop into panniers of Marie
Antoinette's time.--Directoire reaction to simple
lines and materials

XVII EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 233

Political upheavals.--Scientific discoveries.--Mechanical
inventions.--Chemical achievements.--Chintz
or stamped linens of Jouy near Versailles.--Painted
wall-papers after the Chinese.--Simplicity
in costuming of woman and man

XIX WOMAN IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 241

First seventy years of nineteenth century.--"Historic
Dress in America" by Elizabeth McClellan.--Hoops,
wigs, absurdly furbished head-dresses,
paper-soled shoes, bonnets enormous,
laces of cobweb, shawls from India, rouge and
hair-grease, patches and powder, laced waists,
and "vapours."--Man still decorative

XX SEX IN COSTUMING 244

"European dress."--Progenitor of costume
worn by modern men.--The time when no distinction
was made between materials used for
man and woman.--Velvets, silks, satins, laces,
elaborate cuffs and collars, embroidery, jewels
and plumes as much his as hers

XXI LINE AND COLOUR OF COSTUMES IN HUNGARY 252

In a sense colour a sign of virility.--Examples.--Studying
line and colour in Magyar
Land.--In Krakau, Poland,--A highly decorative
Polish peasant and her setting

XXII STUDYING LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA 265

Kiev our headquarters.--Slav temperament
an integral part of Russian nature expressed
in costuming as well as folk songs and dances
of the people.--Russian woman of the fashionable
world.--The Russian pilgrims as we saw
them tramping over the frozen roads to the
shrines of Kiev, the Holy City and ancient
capital of Russia at the close of the Lenten
season.--Their costumes and their psychology

XXIII MARK TWAIN'S LOVE OF COLOUR IN ALL COSTUMING 276

Wrapped in a crimson silk dressing-gown
on a balcony of his Italian villa in Connecticut,
Mark Twain dilated on the value of brilliant
colour in man's costuming.--His creative,
picturing-making mind in action.--Other themes
followed

XXIV THE ARTIST AND HIS COSTUME 283

A God-given sense of the beautiful.--The
artist nature has always assumed poetic license
in the matter of dress.--Many so-called affectations
have _raison d'être_.--Responding to texture,
colour and line as some do to music and
scenery.--How Japanese actors train themselves
to act women's parts by wearing woman's
costumes off the stage.--This cultivates the required
_feeling_ for the costumes.--The woman
devotee to sports when costumed.--Richard
Wagner's responsiveness to colour and texture.--Clyde
Fitch's sensitiveness to the same.--The
wearing of jewels by men.--King Edward
VII.--A remarkable topaz worn by a Spaniard.--Its
undoing as a decorative object through
its resetting

XXV IDIOSYNCRASIES IN COSTUME 292

Fashions in dress all powerful because they
seize upon the public mind.--They become the
symbol of manners and affect human psychology.--Affectations
of the youth of Athens.--Les
Merveilleux, Les Encroyables, the Illuminati.--Schiller
during the Storm and Stress
Period.--Venetian belles of the sixteenth century.--The
_Cavalier Servente_ of the seventeenth
century.--Mme. Récamier scandalised London
in eighteenth century by appearing costumed
à la Greque.--Mme. Jerome Bonaparte, a Baltimore
belle, followed suit in Philadelphia.--Hour-glass
waist-line and attendant "vapours"
were thought to be in the rôle of a high-born
Victorian miss.--Appropriateness the contribution
of our day to the story of woman's costuming

XXVI NATIONALITY IN COSTUME 296

When seen with perspective the costumes of
various periods appear as distinct types though
to the man or woman of any particular period
the variations of the type are bewildering and
misleading.--Having followed the evolution of
the costume of woman of fashion which comes
under the general head of European dress, before
closing we turn to quite another field, that
of national costumes.--Progress levels national
differences, therefore the student must make the
most of opportunities to observe.--Experiences
in Hungary

XXVII MODELS 306

Historical interest attaches to fashions in
woman's costuming.--One of the missions of
art is to make subtle the obvious.--Examples as
seen in 1917

XXVIII WOMAN COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB 313

The Pageant of Life shows that woman has
played opposite man with consistency and success
throughout the ages.--Apropos of this, we
quote from Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, for
March 25, 1917, an impression of a woman of
to-day costumed appropriately to get efficiency
in her war work

IN CONCLUSION 324

A brief review of the chief points to be kept
in mind by those interested in the costuming
of woman so that she figures as a decorative
contribution to any setting

ILLUSTRATIONS

I MME. GERALDINE FARRAR IN GREEK COSTUME AS THAÏS (_FRONTISPIECE_) vi
Sketched by Thelma Cudlipp

II WOMAN IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE-RELIEF 9

III WOMAN IN GREEK ART 19

IV WOMAN ON GREEK VASE 29

V WOMAN IN GOTHIC ART 39
Portrait Showing Pointed Head-dress

VI WOMAN IN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE 49
Sculpture-relief in Terra-cotta: The Virgin

VII WOMAN IN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE 59
Sculpture-relief in Terra-cotta: Holy Women

VIII TUDOR ENGLAND 69
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth

IX SPAIN--VELASQUEZ PORTRAIT 79

X EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND 89
Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough

XI BOURBON FRANCE 99
Portrait of Marie Antoinette by Madame Vigée Le Brun

XII COSTUME OF EMPIRE PERIOD 109
An English Portrait

XIII EIGHTEENTH CENTURY COSTUME 119
Portrait by Gilbert Stuart

XIV VICTORIAN PERIOD (ABOUT 1840) 129
Mme. Adeline Genée in Costume

XV LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY (ABOUT 1890) 139
A Portrait by John S. Sargent

XVI A MODERN PORTRAIT 149
By John W. Alexander

XVII A PORTRAIT OF MRS. PHILIP M. LYDIG 159
By I. Zuloaga

XVIII MRS. LANGTRY (LADY DE BATHE) IN EVENING WRAP 169

XIX MRS. CONDÉ NAST IN STREET DRESS 179
Photograph by Baron de Meyer

XX MRS. CONDÉ NAST IN EVENING DRESS 189

XXI MRS. CONDÉ NAST IN GARDEN COSTUME 199

XXII MRS. CONDÉ NAST IN FORTUNY TEA GOWN 209

XXIII MRS. VERNON CASTLE IN BALL COSTUME 219

XXIV MRS. VERNON CASTLE IN AFTERNOON COSTUME--WINTER 229

XXV MRS. VERNON CASTLE IN AFTERNOON COSTUME--SUMMER 239

XXVI MRS. VERNON CASTLE COSTUMED À LA GUERRE FOR A WALK 249

XXVII MRS. VERNON CASTLE--A FANTASY 259

XXVIII MODERN SKATING COSTUME--1917 269
Winner of Amateur Championship of Fancy Skating

XXIX A MODERN SILHOUETTE--1917 279
TAILOR-MADE
Drawn from Life by Elisabeth Searcy

XXX TAPPÉ'S CREATIONS 289
Sketched for _Woman as Decoration_ by Thelma Cudlipp

XXXI MISS ELSIE DE WOLFE IN COSTUME OF RED CROSS NURSE 299

XXXII MME. GERALDINE FARRAR IN SPANISH COSTUME AS CARMEN 309
From Photograph by Courtesy of _Vanity Fair_

XXXIII MME. GERALDINE FARRAR IN JAPANESE COSTUME AS
MADAME BUTTERFLY 319
Sketched by Thelma Cudlipp

"The Communion of men upon earth abhors identity more than
nature does a vacuum. Nothing so shocks and repels the
living soul as a row of exactly similar things, whether it
consists of modern houses or of modern people, and nothing
so delights and edifies as distinction."

COVENTRY PATMORE.

"Whatever piece of dress conceals a woman's figure, is
bound, in justice, to do so in a picturesque way."

_From an Early Victorian Fashion Paper._

"When was that 'simple time of our fathers' when people were
too sensible to care for fashions? It certainly was before
the Pharaohs, and perhaps before the Glacial Epoch."

W. G. SUMNER, in _Folkways_.