WOMAN IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

SEX IN COSTUMING >>

CHAPTER XIX

WOMAN IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

HE first seventy years of the nineteenth century seem to us of 1917

absolutely incredible in regard to dress. How our great-great-

grandmothers ever got about on foot, in a carriage or stage-coach, 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 chic 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 & Co., of Philadelphia. The book is fascinating and it

not only amuses and informs, but increases one's self-respect, if a woman, for

modern woman dressed in accordance with her rôle.

We can see extravagant wives point out with glee to tyrant mates how, in the span

of years between 1800 and 1870 our maternal forebears made money fly, even in

the Quaker City. Fancy paying in Philadelphia at that time, $1500 for a lace scarf,

$400 for a shawl, $100 for the average gown of silk, and $50 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.

Mamma had not yet unpacked them and if she would come at once, she might have

her pick of the treasures, and Mamma not know until too late to interfere. And this

was only back in the 50's, we should say.

Then think of the hoops, and wigs and absurdly furbished head-dresses; paper-soled

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 cramped feet; low necks and short sleeves for children in

school-rooms.

Man was then still decorative here and in western Europe. To-day he is not

decorative, unless in sports clothes or military uniform; woman's garments furnish

all the colour. Whistler circumvented this fact when painting Theodore Duret

(Metropolitan Museum) in sombre black broadcloth,--modern evening attire, by

flinging over the arm of Duret, the delicate pink taffeta and chiffon cloak of a

woman, and in M. Duret's hand he places a closed fan of pomegranate red.

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