Woman as Decoration Part 14

CHAPTER XXVI

NATIONALITY IN COSTUME

When seen in perspective, the costumes of various periods, as well as the architecture, interior decoration and furnis.h.i.+ngs 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 cast of feature, English, French, American, Russian, etc. But if we remain in the country for any length of time, the differences between individuals impress us and we lose track of those features and characteristics the nation possesses in common. To-day, if asked what outline, materials and colour schemes characterise our fas.h.i.+ons, some would say that almost anything in the way of line, materials and colour were worn. There is, however, always an epoch 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 recognised as a distinct phase; as distinct as the Gothic, Elizabethan, Empire or Victorian period.

PLATE x.x.xI

Costume of a Red Cross Nurse, worn while working in a French war hospital, by Miss Elsie de Wolfe, of New York. An example of woman costumed so as to be most efficient for the work in hand.

Miss de Wolfe's name has become synonymous with interior decoration, throughout the length and breadth of our land, but she established a reputation as one of the best-dressed women in America, long before she left the stage to professionally decorate homes. She has done an immeasurable amount toward moulding the good taste of America in several fields. At present her energies are in part devoted to disseminating information concerning a cure for burns, one of the many discoveries resulting from the exigencies of the present devastating war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Miss Elsie de Wolfe in Costume of Red Cross Nurse_]

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 cla.s.sifying 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 in close intercommunication 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng lines and colours 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 Buda Pest, directed to mayors of Magyar villages. One of these planned a visit to a local celebrity, a Magyar farmer, very old, very prosperous, rich in herds of horses, sheep and 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 under cover, his duty being to guard his flocks and herds by night as well as day, though he had ama.s.sed what was for his 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 cloth coat and trousers of the modern farmer the world over. He had donned the ugly things in our honour, taking an hour to make his toilet, as we were secretly informed by one of the household.

We tell this 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 peasant tableware was banished by the women in the house, to make room, again in our honour, for plain white ironstone china.

The feeling for line accredited to the French woman is equally the birthright of the Magyar--woman and man. One sees it in the dash of the court beauty who can carry off a ma.s.s of jewels, barbaric in splendour, 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 hussars does; the astrachan-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 so 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 dancer. The Gipsy woman has it too,--she brought it with her from Asia, as the Magyar's forebears did.

Speaking of the Magyar, nothing so perfectly expresses the national temperament as the czardas--that peasant dance which begins with calm, stately repression, and ends in a mad ecstasy of expression, the 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 colour 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 leads one to the conclusion that woman decorative is so, either as an artist (that is, in the mastery of the science of line and colour, more or less under the control of pa.s.sing fas.h.i.+on), 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 youth or in the primitive state.

CHAPTER XXVII

MODELS

An historical interest attaches to fas.h.i.+ons in women's costuming, which the practised eye is quick to distinguish, but not always that of the novice. Of course the most casual and indifferent of mortals recognises the fact when woman's hat follows the lines of the French officer's cap, or her coat reproduces the Cossack's, with even a feint at his cartridge belt; but such echoes of the war are too obvious to call for comment.

PLATE x.x.xII

Madame Geraldine Farrar as _Carmen_.

In each of the three presentations of Madame Farrar we have given her in character, as suggestions for stage costumes or costume b.a.l.l.s. (By courtesy of _Vanity Fair_.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Courtesy of Vanity Fair_ _Mme. Geraldine Farrar in Spanish Costume as Carmine_]

It is one of the missions of art to make subtle the obvious, and a distinguished example of this, which will ill.u.s.trate our theme,--history mirrored by dress,--was seen recently. One of the most famous among the great couturieres of Paris, who has opened a New York branch within two years, having just arrived with her Spring and Summer models, was showing them to an appreciative woman, a patron of many years. It is not an exaggeration to say that in all that procession of costumes for cool days or hot, ball-room, salon, boudoir or lawn, not one was ba.n.a.l, not one false in line or its colour-scheme. Whether the style was Cla.s.sic Greek, Mediaeval or Empire (these prevail), one felt the result, first of an artist's instinct, then a deep knowledge of the pictorial records of periods in dress, and to crown all, that conviction of the real artist, which gives both courage and discretion in moulding textiles,--the output of modern genius, to the purest cla.s.sic lines. For example, one reads in every current fas.h.i.+on sheet that beads are in vogue as garniture for dresses. So they are, but note how your French woman treats them. Whether they are of jet, steel, pearl or crystal, she presses them into service as so much _colour_, ma.s.sing them so that one is conscious only of a s.h.i.+mmering, clinging, wrapped-toga effect, a la Grecque, beneath the skirt and bodice of which every line and curve of the woman's form is seen. Evidently some, at least, are to be gleaming Tanagras. Even a dark-blue serge, for the motor, shopping or train, had from hips to the bust parallel lines of very small tube-like jet beads, sewn so close together that the effect was that of a s.h.i.+rt of mail.

The use of notes of vivid colour caught the eye. In one case, on a black satin afternoon gown, a tiny nosegay of forget-me-not blue, rose-pink and jessamine-white, was made to decorate the one large patch-pocket on the skirt and a lapel of the sleeveless satin coat. Again on a dinner-dress of black Chantilly lace, over white chiffon (Empire lines), a very small, deep pinkish-red rose had a white rose-bud bound close to it with a bit of blue ribbon. This was placed under the bertha of cobweb lace, and demurely in the middle of the short-waisted bodice. Again a robe d'interior of white satin charmeuse, had a sleeveless coat of blue, reaching to knees, and a das.h.i.+ng bias sash of pinkish-red, twice round the waist, with its long ends reaching to skirt hem and heavily weighted.

Not at once, but only gradually, did it dawn upon us that most of the gowns bore, in some shade or form, the tricolour of France!

CHAPTER XXVIII

WOMAN COSTUMED FOR HER WAR JOB

Every now and then a s.e.x war is predicted, and sometimes started, usually by woman, though some predicted that when the present European war is over and the men come home to their civilian tasks, now being carried on by women, man is going to take the initiative, in the s.e.x conflict. We doubt it. Without deliberate design to prove this point,--that a complete collaboration of the s.e.xes has always made the wheels of the universe revolve, many of the ill.u.s.trations studied showed woman with man as decoration, in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and during later periods.

The Legend of Life tells us that man can not live alone, hence woman; and the Pageant of Life shows that she has played opposite with consistency and success throughout the ages.

The Sunday issue of the Philadelphia _Public Ledger_ for March 25, 1917, has a headline, "Trousers vs. Skirts," and, continues Margaret Davies, the author of the article:

"This war will change all things for European women.

Military service, of a sort, has come for them in both France and England, where they are replacing men employed in clerical and other non-combatant departments, including motor driving. The moment this was decided upon in England, it was found that 30,000 men would be released for actual fighting, with prospects of the release of more than 200,000 more. What the French demand will be is not known as I write, but it will equal that of England.

"How will these women dress? Will they be given military uniforms short of skirt or even skirtless? Of course they won't; but the world on this side of the ocean would not gasp should this be done. War industry already has worked a revolution.

"Study the pictures which accompany this article. They are a new kind of women's 'fas.h.i.+on pictures'; they are photographs of women dressed as European circ.u.mstances now compel them to dress. Note the trousers, like a Turkish woman's, of the French girl munitions workers. Thousands of girls here in France are working in such trousers. Note the smart liveries of the girls who have taken the places of male carriage starters, mechanics and elevator operators, at a great London shop. They are very natty, aren't they? Almost like costumes from a comic opera. Well, they are not operatic costumes. They are every-day working liveries. Girls wear them in the most mixed London crowds--wear them because the man-shortage makes it necessary for these girls to do work which skirts do not fit. All French trams and buses have 'conductresses.'

"The coming of women cabmen in London is inevitable--indeed, it already has begun. In Paris they have been established spa.r.s.ely for some time and have done well, but they have not been used on taxis, only on the horse cabs.

"I have spent most of my time in Paris for some months now, and have ridden behind women drivers frequently. They drive carefully and well and are much kinder to their horses than the old, red-faced, brutal French cochers are. I like them.

They have a wonderful command of language, not always entirely or even partially polite, but they are accommodating and less greedy for tips than male drivers.

"At Selfridge's great store--the largest and most progressive in London, operated on Chicago lines--skirtless maidens are not rare enough to attract undue attention. The first to be seen there, indeed, is not in the store at all, but on the sidewalk, outside of it, engaged in the gentle art of directing customers to and from their cars and cabs and incidentally keeping the chauffeurs in order.

"An extremely pretty girl she is, too, with her frock-coat coming to her knees, her top-boots coming to the coat, and now and then, when the wind blows, a glimpse of loose knickers. She tells me that she's never had a man stare at her since she appeared in the new livery, although women have been curious about it and even critical of it. Women have done all the staring to which she has been subjected.

"Within the store, many girls engaged in various special employments, are dressed conveniently for their work, in perfectly frank trousers. Among these are the girls who operate the elevators. There is no compromise about it.

These girls wear absolutely trousers every working hour of every working day in a great public store, in a great crowded city, rubbing elbows (even touching trousered knees, inevitably) with hundreds of men daily.

PLATE x.x.xIII

Madame Geraldine Farrar. The value of line was admirably ill.u.s.trated in the opera "Madame b.u.t.terfly" as seen this winter at the Metropolitan Opera House. Have you chanced to ask yourself why the outline of the individual members of the chorus was so lacking in charm, and Madame Farrar's so delightful? The great point is that in putting on her kimono, Madame Farrar kept in mind the characteristic silhouette of the j.a.panese woman as shown in j.a.panese art; then she made a picture of herself, and one in harmony with her j.a.panese setting. Which brings us back to the keynote of our book--_Woman as Decoration_--beautiful _Line_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sketched for "Woman as Decoration" by Thelma Cudlipp_ _Mme. Geraldine Farrar in j.a.panese Costume as Madame b.u.t.terfly_]