THE ARTIST AND HIS COSTUME

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Mark Twain concluded an analysis of modern religion with "--why the God I

believe in is too busy spinning spheres to have time to listen to human prayers."

How often his words have been in our mind since war has shaken our planet.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ARTIST AND HIS COSTUME

HE world has the habit of deriding that which it does not understand. It

is the most primitive way of bolstering one's limitations. How often the

woman or man with a God-given sense of the beautiful, the fitting,

harmony between costume and setting, is described as poseur or poseuse

by those who lack the same instinct. In a sense, of course, everything man does,

beyond obeying the rudimentary instincts of the savage, is an affectation, and it is

not possible to claim that even our contemporary costuming of man or woman

always has raison d'être.

We accept as the natural, unaffected raiment for woman and man that which

custom has taught us to recognise as appropriate, with or without reason for being.

For example, the tall, shiny, inflexible silk hat of man, and the tortuous high French

heels of woman are in themselves neither beautiful, fitting, nor made to meet the

special demands of any setting or circumstance. Both hat and heels are fashions,

unbeautiful and uncomfortable, but to the eye of man to-day serve as insignia of

formal dress, decreed by society.

The artist nature has always assumed poetic license in the matter of dress, and as a

rule defied custom, to follow an inborn feeling for beauty. That much-maligned

short velvet coat and soft loose tie of the painter or writer, happen to have a most

decided raison d'être; they represent comfort, convenience, and in the case of the

velvet coat, satisfy a sensitiveness to texture, incomprehensible to other natures. As

for the long hair of some artists, it can be a pose, but it has in many cases been

absorption in work, or poverty--the actual lack of money for the conventional

haircut. In cities we consider long hair on a man as effeminate, an indication of

physical weakness, but the Russian peasant, most sturdy of individuals, wears his

hair long, and so do many others among extremely primitive masculine types, who

live their lives beyond the reach of Fashion and barbers.

The short hair of the sincere woman artist is to save time at the toilette.

There is always a limited number of men and women who, in ordinary acts of life,

respond to texture, colour or line, as others do to music or scenery, and to be at

their best in life, must dress their parts as they feel them. Japanese actors who play

the parts of women, dress like women off the stage, and live the lives of women as

nearly as possible, in order to acquire the feeling for women's garments; they train

their bodies to the proper feminine carriage, counting upon this to perfect their

interpretations.

The woman who rides, hunts, shoots, fishes, sails her own boat, paddles, golfs and

plays tennis, is very apt to look more at home in habit, tweeds and flannels, than

she does in strictly feminine attire; the muscles she has acquired in legs and arms,

from violent exercise, give an actual, not an assumed, stride and a swing to the

upper body. In sports clothes, or severely tailored costume, this woman is at her

best. Most trying for her will be demi-toilette (house gowns). She is beautiful at

night because a certain balance, dignity and grace are lent her by the décolletage

and train of a dinner or ball gown. English women who are devotees of sport,

demonstrate the above fact over and over again.

While on the subject of responsiveness to texture and colour we would remind the

reader that Richard Wagner hung the room in which he worked at his operas with

bright silks, for the art stimulus he got from colour, and it is a well-known fact that

he derived great pleasure from wearing dressing gowns and other garments made

from rich materials.

Clyde Fitch, our American playwright, when in his home, often wore velvet or

brocaded silks. They were more sympathetic to his artist nature, more in accord

with his fondness for wearing jewelled studs, buttons, scarf-pins. In his town and

country houses the main scheme, leading features and every smallest detail were

the result of Clyde Fitch's personal taste and effort, and he, more than most men

and women, appreciated what a blot an inartistic human being can be on a room

which of itself is a work of art.

PLATE XXX

Souvenirs of an artist designer's unique

establishment, in spirit and accomplishment

vrai Parisienne. Notice the long cape in the

style of 1825.

Tappé himself will tell you that all periods

have had their beautiful lines and colours;

their interesting details; that to find beauty

one must first have the feeling for it; that if

one is not born with this subtle instinct, there

are manifold opportunities for cultivating it.

His claim is the same as that made in our Art

of Interior Decoration; the connoisseur is one

who has passed through the schooling to be

acquired only by contact with masterpieces,

--those treasures sifted by time and

preserved for our education, in great art

collections.

Tappé emphasises the necessity of knowing

the background for a costume before planning

it; the value of line in the physique beneath

the materials; the interest to be woven into a

woman's costume when her type is

recognised, and the modern insistence on

appropriateness--that is, the simple gown

and close hat for the car, vivid colours for

field sports or beach; a large fan for the

woman who is mistress of sweeping lines,

etc., etc.

Tappé is absolutely French in his insistence

upon the possible eloquence of line; a single

flower well poised and the chic which is

dependent upon how a hat or gown is put on.

We have heard him say: "No, I will not claim

the hat in that photograph, though I made it,

because it is mal posé."

Sketched for "Woman as

Decoration" by Thelma

Cudlipp

Tappé's Creations

In England, and far more so in America, men are put down as effeminate who wear

jewelry to any marked extent. But no less a person than King Edward VII always

wore a chain bangle on his arm, and one might cite countless men of the Continent

as thoroughly masculine--Spaniards in particular--who wear as many jewelled

rings as women. Apropos of this, a famous topaz, worn as a ring for years by a

distinguished Spaniard was recently inherited by a relation in America--a woman.

The stone was of such importance as a gem, that a record was kept of its passing

from France into America. As a man's ring it was impressive and the setting such as

to do it honour, but being a man's ring, it was too heavy for a woman's use. A

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