The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-07-02 00:00:00

GOSSIP ON DRESS.

HER Majesty's subjects feminine have (rays a write,
In the Daily _News, reviewing the dress of the last 50
years) been all sorts of shapes and sizes since her
beneficent reign began. Nature, though she dif-
ferentiates her specimens, has always retained the
same mould for the female form, but the owners of it
have played such fantastic tricks with it before high
heaven as must occasionally have made the angels
smile. At one time heads were small and hair as
sleek as the plumage of a well-conducted and self-re.
specting robin. At another, the frightful chignon
jutted out behind in a precipitous slant. Arms have
suffered much vicissitude in the shape of sleeves, now
so tight as almost to pinion their contents, and anon
swollen to the dimensions of the most liberal leg of
Christmas cattle show mutton.

WAISTS, too, halKy tad their ups and downs, though
her Majesty's reign has never seen them within a
couple of inches of the armpits, as in the time of the
Empress Josephine. As to feet, they have varied
considerably at different periods, though they have
almost always been unanimous in endeavouring to
hide the fact that they possesEed the full complement
of toes. It has been reserved for late years, however,
to pretend to have only one large one in the middle.
They remained faithful for long, long years to the
white stockings now voted so hideous, and after a few
years of depths of blackness they are now beginning
to indulge in light colours again.

WHEN Queen Victoria came to the throne
the hair was worn in bands that came low
down on the cheeks, being there plaited
and drawn round the ear, the plait hiding itself
in the back hair. This style is familiar to us in
the Books of Beauty of the period, and it must be
owned that it had its advantages in softening the
outline of the face, framing it in, in the most be.
coming manner that could be devised. As regards
the figure, the waist was in its own natural place in
1836; the skirts fell in plain and graceful folds from
waist* to foot, and the pretty and becoming
trimming known as the " bertha " was the popular
finish for the low bodices of evening dresses. All this
grace and harmony, however, disappeared when out-
door dress was donned.

DIE bonnet was a hideous thing, a real, honest
hardworking bonnet, made of straw or highly.
coloured silk, encircling the whole face. A cap of
cuilled tulle was always worn inside it, and great was
the outcry of disappr3bation when some daring spirits
ventured to dispense with this cap at the sides, only
wearing a small tuft at the top. The dreadful con-
trix stice known as a "curtain," and made of silk or
ribbon lined with stiff net, grew and flourished, develop-
ing itself later into something so horribly ugly that it
may be said to have killed itself. Taste revolted
against the atrocity. Paris stepped in and shot•it
dead with the " brazen-looking " small bonnets that
actually dared to show a little pretty hair at the
back. Prudes were horrified, especially those whose
own hair was either grey or absent; but in spite of
them the bonnet grew smaller and smaller, till, in
1865, it had dwindled to the size and shape of a
cheese plate hung round with pear-shaped pendants
of crystal, jet, or steel.

ABorT five years before, bats had reappeared,
everyone having worn bonnets until then. Old-
fashioned people thought the hats looked fast. We
should think them dowdy things now. Some of the
worst of them had what was called a " fall " of lace
or beads sown round the edge of the brim and pendant
therefrom. In front this fringe or fall gave a
slightly burglarious expression to the eyes of beauty,
recalling the mask worn by those whose avocations
necessitate concealment of the countenance.

RINGLETS flourished in 1846. In those days accom
plished girls twanged the light guitar," and accom-
panied themselves to the most sentimental of songs.
They liked sitting dreaming in the moonlight, alone
or en tete-a-tete. They read unlimited novels, and
had no sense of humour. They never awoke to the
realities of life until they married and wore their
hair in bands. If you put a girl in ringlets, what can
you expect? Certainly nothing practical or energetic.
It is well known that the slightest exertion takes the
ringlets out of curl. Let us hope that fate will never
be so cruel as again to make them fashionable.

THE bonnet worn over them was rather like a sun-
bonnet. It bulged liberally over the ringlets, and was
not tied on in any visible manner, for strings would
have sadly interfered with the slightly corkscrewy
effect of the curls. Old ladies wore similar bonnets
without the ringlets, and with very long veils which
usually hung at the back. These were the days of
pelisses, cumbrous garments of silk or velvet which
just indicated the position of the waist and left the
whole of the rest of the figura in doubt.

FLOUNCES came in about this time, and the bodices
of dresses became unduly elongated into an extended
point in front. Flounces having a tendency to press
the dress inward, stiff petticoats, the foreshadowings
of crinoline, came into vogue. Dresses wbre worn
short enough to display the ankles, and, in conse-
quence probably of this, oboes were of the most
fragile description. Hardly any sides could be seen,
only the toe and heel being visible. This was a great
mistake, for it gate the white stockings a boiling. over
effect which must have been prejudicial to all but the,
most perfisct feet.
* .

SANDALS came in, first in single spies then in batta-
lions. They eventually reached several inches up the
leg, and there was much art in gating into them. In
1849 Punch chronicles " an air-tube dress extender,"
which shows that crinoline was quickly coming. Ten
years later it had reached its maximum dimensions.
To walk round a fashionable lady in those days was
quite an excursion. A year or two after the crinolines
began to diminish in amplitude just below the waist,
but their circumference remained enormous round
the hem of the dress. Trimmings were extensive
naturally, but of the most inartistic description. Flat
folds were laid on where nothing accounted for them,
and fringes sewn where they could not possibly de-
pend from anything.
SLEEVES widely open at the wrist were worn over
inner sleeves of worked muslin, and at this period it
was fashionable to carry the pockethandkerchief in
the hand. It hung daintily from three fingers of a
lemon-coloured kid glove or a lavender. Deep collars
crossed in front, and were fastened with a brooch.
Sometimes they were of lace, sometimes of worked
muslin. The materials for dresses were in the crudest
possible colours, magenta, then newly invented, being
a prime favourite. Shawls were very fashionable.
They were frequently made of the same fabric as the
dress and trimmed to match it.

A FASHION plate, published In 1862, shows a buff
gauze dress with a startlingly bright green woven into
the border. The long shawl, worn corner-wise, has
a similar band of green all round it, and the bonnet,
with deep curtain and very wide strings, is composed
of green drawn silk, with a quilling at the edge of the
curtain and a green bow at the top, resting upon the
hair. The same volume records the popularity of the
Garibaldi, though we may take exception to the state-
ment that "in warm weather nothing more is required
besides the Garibaldi shirt for outdoor wear." Even
children wore little crinolines, and in other respects
their attire aped their mothers'.

As an instance of the exaggeration in trimmings,
here is the description of a dress of the time. It
must be borne in mind that this was before the time
of sewing machines coming into general use. "Thu
ornament of the crêpe skirt is very elegant, being
composed of two pyramids of frills drawn very full,
placed in the shape of a V from the bow of the scarf.
These frills are about two inches wide, laid one on the
other, and alternately white and mauve. A mauve
ruche, abouc two inches, with a white ruche about
two-thirds of that width in the middle of it, goes all
round the skirt. Flounces drawn very full, like
those of the two pyramids, are placed slanting on the
front. On the rest of the skirt all the flounces are in
a slanting direction, and meet behind in the
form of an "A " The sleeves and bodice are
trimmed to match, with equal elaboration. An
accompanying illustration quite sufficiently proves
that all the thousands of stiches necessary for this
very full-bodied sort of trimming were simply sc
much waste, the whole effect being incongruous and
" mixed "in the extreme. Another dress of the
period is trimmed with a deep flounce round the
edge, and this flounce was again trimmed with three
others, each edged with blonde. This mode of orna-
menting a trimming has now happily disappeared.

Anotrr the year 1865 the crinolines suddenly
vanished, leaving every one decreased to a very sur-
prising extent. Skirts hung limp and straight, for
the reaction was complete. The - comic papers de:
rided the change as they had derided the prevalence!
of crinoline itself. Since then we have seen the
most attenuated of fashions, flat at the back, straight
in the skirt, and tight in the sleeve ; and, following
upon this, the hideous "improver," which is one of
the blots upon the picturesqueness of modern cos-
tume. The development of the latter makes the
fashion-plates of only three or four years ago look
antiquated in the extreme, with their flat, tight
backs, and the straight fall of folds from waist to
ankle.
• •

WITH crinoline disappeared the chignon, each a
good riddance, and though some of its elaboration
still survives, having been stimulated by the" Greek'
goddess" coiffure and its amusing burle.:ques seen or
middle-class heads, yet there is little to complain of
in the coiffure of to-day. The dress itself, with the
short skirt. unexaggerated trimming and plain bodice,
would be almost unassailable from an artistic point
oriview, were it not for the still surviving remnants of
the dress improver. Even it, however, is rapidly
diminishing, and there is even a tendency apparent
to:make boots wide enough to comfortably accommo-
date all five toes. These defects removed, dress
would be almost as pretty and graceful as it was 50
years ago, when our Queen was a girl of 18, and
"What she wore" on various occasions a delightful
topic at tea-tables and in the boudoir.

Timm is danger in being too neat. An old lady in
Holland scrubbed her sitting-room floor until she fell
through it into 0-.. cellar.