388 ONCE A
every department of the human frame; — the
brain and nervous system, the lungs, the stomach,
and other organs of the trunk; the eyes, the skin,
the muscles, the glandular system, the nutritive
system, and even the bony frame, the skeleton on
which all hangs. If dress can meddle mischiev-
ously with the action, or affect the condition of
all these, it can be no marvel that it is responsible
for a good many of the hundred thousand needless
deaths which are happening around us this year.
Putting aside the ordinary associations, as far as we can, and trying for the moment to consider what is to be desired in the clothing of the human body, — what is requisite to make dress good and beautiful, — let us see what is essential.
Dress should be a covering to all the parts of the body which need warmth or coolness, as the case may be. It should be a shelter from the evils of the atmosphere, whether these be cold, or heat, or wet, or damp, or glare. This is the first requisite; for such shelter is the main purpose of clothing. In our own country the dress should easily admit of the necessary changes in degrees of warmth de- manded by our changeable climate.
Dress should bear a close relatipn to the human form. No other principle can be permanent; no other can be durably sanctioned by sense and taste, because no other has reality in it. We may fancy that we admire the old Greek and Roman robes which look dignified in Julius Caesar on the stage, and in statues, and in our own imaginations of classical times; but we could not get through our daily business in such a costume; nor should we admire the appearance of our acquaintance in it. In fact, the wearers themselves were always tucking up or putting away their troublesome wrappers when they had anything to do, and the busy people of society appeared in their workshops and fields in garments which left their limbs free, and their whole body fit for action. On the whole, in a general way, with particular variations according to taste, the dress should follow the outline of the body. Any great deviation from this principle involves inconvenience on the one hand and deformity on the other.
Where it follows the outline of the frame it should fit accurately enough to fulfil its intention, but so easily as not to embarrass action. It should neither compress the internal structure nor impede the external movement. An easy fit, in short, is the requisite. It is a part of this easy fit that the weight of the clothes should be properly hung and distributed.
After the peace of 1815 it was said that we gained two things from the French — gloves that would fit, and the shoulder-piece. It would make the difference of some lives out of the great num- ber thrown away, if we made due use of the shoulder-piece, now. By the shoulder-piece, the weight of the garment is spread on the part best fitted to bear it, instead of being hung from the neck, as it was before we knew better, or from the hips or the waist (in the case of women’s dress) as now, when we ought to know better.
Next; dress ought to be agreeable to wear: and this includes something more than warmth and a good fit. It should be light, and subject to as few dangers and inconveniences as possible.
WEEK, [November 6, 1850.
These conditions being observed, it follows of
course that the costume will be modest, and
that it will be graceful Grace and beauty
are flowers from the root of utility. The worst
taste in dress is where things are put on for
no purpose or use, as in the earrings, nose-rings,
bangles and necklaces of savage (or civilised)
wearers, the feathers on the head, and flaunting
strips of gay colour, whether of wampum or ribbon,
and the fringes and furbelows that one sees — now
in Nubia, and now by Lake Huron, and now in
New York or London. The best taste is where
the genuine uses of dress are not lost sight of, and
the gratification of the eye grows out of them;
where the garments fit accurately and easily, and
the colours are agreeable, and the texture good and
handsome, and the ornaments justified by some
actual benefit, such as marking outlines, as the
Greek borders did, or beautifying the fastenings,
or affording a relief to the limits and edges.
These seem to be the main conditions agreed upon as essential to a good mode of dress. It would appear to be a greater sin and absurdity in us than in our ancestors to dress injuriously and offensively, because the observance of these condi- tions is so much easier to us than to them. It is astonishing to us to discover, by thinking about it, how costly dress was to the gentry of the king- dom in the reigns of our Edwards and Henrys, and even under the last of the Charleses and Jameses. The proportion of middle and upper class incomes spent in dress must have been something far beyond what prudent people in our day would dream of. We must suppose that garments were made to last very long. With the labouring-classes we know it was so, before the days of cotton, and when linen was only for the great. In the rural cottages and artisans* dwellings throughout the land, men, women and children wore woollen gar- ments, the history of which would not be agreeable to our readers, accustomed as we are in these days to think of clothes as meant to be changed every day and night, and often washed or otherwise cleaned.
The variety, the cheapness, the manageableness of clothes in our day, compared with any former time, ought to render us obedient in an unequalled degree to the main conditions of good dress. In- stead of this, we see trains of funerals every year carrying to the grave the victims of folly and ignorance in dress.
How is it with regard to protection from heat, cold, damp, and glare?
The Englishman’s dress seems to be, on the whole, as little exceptionable as any that can be pointed out. We are not thinking of our soldiers, dressed in tight woollen garments, stocks, and heavy head-gear in all climates and seasons alike. The mortality from that tremendous cruelty and folly is a separate item to be urged against the military authorities. Non-military Englishmen wear a costume which may be rendered warmer or cooler without losing its characteristics; which indicates the form, may fit it easily, at the wearer’s pleasure; leaves the limbs free, and need press injuriously nowhere. Some years ago, we must have denounced the cravat, or stock, as
dangerous; but the throat, with its great blood-