COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME

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The Eton boy masters his stick and topper in the same way, when young, and so

more easily passes through the formless stage conspicuous in the American youth.

Call it technique, or call it efficiency, the object of our modern life is to excel, to be

the best of our kind, and appropriate dress is a means to that end, for it helps to

liberate the spirit. We of to-day make no claim to consistency or logic. Some of us

wear too high heels, even with strictly tailored suits, which demand in the name of

consistency a sensible shoe. Also our sensible skirt may be far too narrow for

comfort. But on the whole, women have made great strides in the matter of

costuming with a view to appropriateness and efficiency.

CHAPTER VI

COLOUR IN WOMAN'S COSTUME

OLOUR is the hall-mark of our day, and woman decoratively

costumed, and as decorator, will be largely responsible for recording this

age as one of distinct importance--a transition period in decoration.

Colour is the most marked expression of the spirit of the times; colour in woman's

clothes; colour in house furnishing; colour on the stage and in its setting; colour in

prose and verse.

Speaking of colour in verse, Rudyard Kipling says (we quote from an editorial in

the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Jan. 7, 1917):

"Several songs written by Tommy and the Poilu at the front, celebrate the glories of

camp life in such vivid colors they could not be reproduced in cold, black, leaden

type."

It is no mere chance, this use of vivid colour. Man's psychology to-day craves it. A

revolution is on. Did not the strong red, green, and blue of Napoleon's time follow

the delicate sky-blues, rose and sunset-yellows of the Louis?

Colour pulses on every side, strong, clean, clear rainbow colour, as if our magicians

of brush and dye-pot held a prism to the sun-beam; violet, orange and green,

magentas and strong blue against backgrounds of black and cold grey.

We had come to think of colour as vice and had grown so conservative in its use,

that it had all but disappeared from our persons, our homes, our gardens, our music

and our literature. More than this, from our point of view! The reaction was bound

to come by reason of eternal precedent.

Half-tones, antique effects, and general monotony,--the material expression of

complacent minds, has been cast aside, and the blasé man of ten years ago is as

keen as any child with his first linen picture book,--and for the same reason.

Colour, as we see it to-day, came out of the East via Persia. Bakst in Russia

translated it into terms of art, and made the Ballet Russe an amazing, enthralling

vision! Then Poiret, wizard among French couturières, assisted by Bakst, adapted

this Oriental colour and line to woman's uses in private life. This supplemented the

good work of le Gazette du Bon Ton of Paris, that effete fashion sheet, devoted to

the decoration of woman, whose staff included many of the most gifted French

artists, masters of brush and pen. Always irregular, no issue of the Bon Ton has

appeared of late. It is held up by the war. The men who made it so fascinating a

guide to woman "who would be decorative," are at the front, painting scenery for

the battlefield--literally that: making mock trees and rocks, grass and hedges and

earth, to mislead the fire of the enemy, and doubtless the kindred Munich art has

been diverted into similar channels.

This Oriental colour has made its way across Europe like some gorgeous bird of the

tropics, and since the war has checked the output of Europe's factories, another

channel has supplied the same wonderful colours in silks and gauze. They come to

us by way of the Pacific, from China and from Japan. There is no escaping the

colour spell. Writers from the front tell us that it is as if the gods made sport with

fate's anvil, for even the blackened dome of the war zone is lurid by night, with

sparks of purple, red, green, yellow and blue; the flare of the world-destroying

projectiles.

PLATE IX

A Velasquez portrait of the Renaissance,

when the human form counted only as a rack

on which was heaped crinoline and stiff

brocades and chains and gems and wigs and

every manner of elaborate adornment,

making mountains of poor tottering human

forms, all but lost beneath.

Vienna Hofmuseum

Spain-Velasquez Portrait

The present costuming of woman, when she treats herself as decoration, owes much

to the prophets of the "new" theatre and their colour scale. These men have

demonstrated, in an unforgettable manner, the value of colour; the dependence of

every decorative object upon background; shown how fraught with meaning can be

an uncompromising outline, and the suggestiveness of really significant detail.

Bakst, Rheinhardt and Granville Barker have taught us the new colour vocabulary.

Gordon Craig was perhaps the first to show us the stage made suggestive by

insisting on the importance of clever lighting to produce atmosphere and

elimination of unessential objects, the argument of his school being that the too

detailed reproducing of Nature (on the stage) acts as a check to the imagination,

whereas by the judicious selection of harmonics, the imagination is stimulated to its

utmost creative capacity. One detects this creed to-day in certain styles of home

decoration (woman's background), as well as in woman's costumes.

Portable Backgrounds

The staging of a recent play showed more plainly than any words, the importance

of background. In one of the scenes, beautiful, artistic gowns in delicate shades

were set off by a room with wonderful green walls and woodwork (mignonette).

Now, so long as the characters moved about the room, they were thrown into relief

most charmingly, but the moment the women seated themselves on a very light

coloured and characterless chintz sofa, they lost their decorative value. It was

lacking in harmony and contrast. The two black sofa cushions intended possibly to

serve as background, being small, instantly disappeared behind the seated women.

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