THE ART OF BEAUTY IN DRESS

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.
O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.

   It has been sooo looong since I've posted on my blog.  My computer has given me fits. I've been so involved with duties at home and running my daughter to doctors' appointments. Plus, I have been in a blue funk and unable to decide whether to vent my frustrations with and warnings about our country's problems, to continue with my postings on saints, Catholic beliefs in general - and on and on.

   I began to look for some information that might be of use to a granddaughter who has a writing assignment. Just for fun, I decided to look for a very old cookbook of my grandmother's, given to her by her mother before the turn of the 20th century. It is full of what today would possibly be called alternative medicine, albeit, most of which would horrify us today. The book also contains instructions and essays of varying lengths on manners, dress and mores of the day.  I decided to post some of them day to day. A glimpse into the 1800s will no doubt cause a smile or two, some incredulous eyebrow raising, and even some incensed feelings at the very sexist remarks.  However, it was a different time. Some of the ideas and ideals might be good things to have carried over a century or two.

  The first essay is fairly long .  THE ART OF BEAUTY IN DRESS

     It is far easier to find fault with existing customs than to devise and  put in practice other and better ones. Ladies do not like to appear singular, and make themselves conspicuous by wearing such articles of dress as are laughed at, possibly, certainly not worn by any other persons in the city or county in which she may belong. And so the matter goes on. Manufacturers, dry good dealers, and milliners, and dressmakers, carry the day with  high hand. yet there is always some choice, and as, thanks to our civilized habits, a full-length mirror is obtainable by most ladies, given the resolution to make the most and best of themselves, the greater number of women can so study the art of dressing well as to produce some excellent results.

   It will hardly do to copy the old masters of painting in the arrangement of drapery, at least anyways closely, for no matter how well the voluminous folds may look painted, they certainly would be very much in the way in real life, and impede any free action of the muscles somewhat, while the length of sweeping gowns certainly looks more in place on painted canvas than it can do on an ordinary walking dress. ladies have realized this fact, however, and the short walking-skirt, at once pretty and convenient, has been the result.
   Note here: the walking-skirt would be about ankle length, at one time considered immodest)

   In some places the common-sense shoe can be found, and this permits the muscles of the foot, if not the freest, yet fair play. One great mistake in the dressing of the feet is getting the covering too short. It will throw back the toe joints, and a bunion is only too frequently the result. If the soles of the shoes are too thin, the feet become chilled, and disease ensues. Yet in repeated instances they have been known to draw the feet and made them exceedingly tender and sore. A light cork sole sowed (sic) to a knitted worsted slipper will give a foot covering, equally light and far less injurious in its results.

   There are ladies who wholly ignore woolen hosiery, preferring lisle thread, cotton or silk. Yet in winter time, particularly for children, woolen stockings are almost a necessity, particularly if woolen is worn over the rest of the body. There are some people who can not abide the feeling of woolen garments next the skin, and they are obliged to get their warmth of clothing in other than their undergarments. Heavy outside garments are not quite so graceful as those of softer and lighter material. But if they must be worn they will bear a plainer cut than such clothes as are naturally clinging, and adapt themselves to the figure.

   Solid and plain colors have a greater richness than mixed shades. If combined tints are used, they should only be such as harmonize well and in the full-length figure give a good personal effect. Probably more ladies err in getting good general effects than in any other one particular. They have various garments, pretty enough, possibly, in themselves, yet which do not harmonized well together, either in material, color or cut, or possibly with their particular style of figure and shade of hair and complexion. For example, the skirt will have one style of trimming, the waist  (note: blouse) another, the bonnet may look exceedingly well with one suit, and be quite out of keeping with another. A short dumpy person will wear flounces, a tall slim one stripes, while some red-haired woman will fancy an exquisite shade of pink, while green or blue would have been much more becoming.

   Black generally makes people look smaller, and white larger. A very pale person can bear a certain amount of bright red. Any delicate complexion looks well with soft ruchings or laces at neck and wrist. Lace is so expensive that it cannot be so generally worn as it might be, with excellent effect. probably no prettier head covering has ever been designed than the veils worn by the Spanish women. Certainly they are infinitely more graceful than a modern poke bonnet.

   Nothing is gained in grace by making any outside garment skin-tight, while much is lost in comfort by so doing. A sleeve, for instance, to be serviceable and look well, should be loose and adapt itself somewhat to the curve of the arm. Likewise a dress waist looks far better a little loose, as well as being more healthful and wearing better.

   Large, stout persons can add to their appearance much by wearing all outside skirts buttoned on to fitted undergarments below the hips several inches, for gathers about the waist only add to their stoutness of look, and are uncomfortable to carry about. A yoked petticoat answers the purpose very well in lieu of the buttoned skirts.

   A wrapper for a tall slim person can have a Spanish flounce, while a slashed skirt with kilt inserts is more becoming to a short figure. Large folds are always more graceful than small pleats and puckers. One very great fault of our dressmaking lies in not allowing the goods to fall in large and natural folds, but on bunching and pleating it in folding, and pressing the goods down into fantastic and inartistic shapes Added to this, paniers, and padding, bustles, and hoops, until an ordinary woman is forced to appear like a stuffed figure instead of a living human being.

   Every woman can modify, and arrange, and simplify, and that without becoming either ultra or conspicuous. It will take time That cannot be helped, yet possibly the saving in comfort and expense may fully compensate for the few hours spent in studying her own dress with the mirror before her and with the determination to make the very best and most of herself.


11/16/13