The Portland daily press., 1870-03-18
DAILY PRESS.
PORTsLAND
Friday Morning, March Is. 1870.
American Extravaganza in Dress.

American Exsrnvagance in Dress
Nature has endowed the American ladies
with profusion of rich gifts far beyond their
less favored sisters abroad. If really great
beauties are comparatively rare-and even on
this point the diversity Of taste may lead to
difference of opin.on-the majority of women
are more than merely fair. They are, almost
without exception, delicately made, and in this
respect very different from the robust type of
the English girl of the period, with her ruddy
color, her full form, and her deep, masculine
voice, and still more different from the heavy,
angular German girl, who combines so mystic
riOusy an immense amount of sentimentality
with unlimited appetite. The neck and the
extremities are uniformly so small that Euro
pean establishments have TO make collars,
gloves, and shoes, especially for the American
market, certain sizes of these three articles
being utterly unsaleable in Europe. Hence,
when the American girl reaches her national
heaven, Paris, and has been for a few weeks
in the hands of French artists, she is simply
perfection. She outshnes the Partisan, on
her own privileged ground. Elderly men will
remember fair New York beauty, who visit
ed Paris when the Emperor was still Presi-
dent, and the furore her exquisite toilettes
created, whenever she appeared at the opera,
at the Elysee, or at the Bois. Younger men
need not be reminded of the recent rivalry be-
tween one oftheir beautiful ulcountrywomen and
the brilliant Metternich, and the desperate
but futile efforts made by the great arbiter Of
fashion to wrest the crown of victory from her
hands. Combining great natural advantages
in beauty and grace with admirable taste and
an almost instructive perception of the be-
oh unr In
outstrip all competitors in the art of dress
ing
All the more is it to be regretted that their
taste at home has been vitiated by fierce CON-
petition, so as to make them prefer richness
of texture, brightness of color, and often sim
pie costliness, to what is handsome in itself or
becoming in individual cases. From the days
of Mile. Victorine, Partisan naOdistes have had
their show-rooms for their country women,
another for English ladies', and still another
for transatlantic visitors: in the first are seen
things pretty and elegant, but cheap; in the
second, marvellous structures, especially de-
signed to please the peculiar taste Of my Mila-
di; and in the third, the most expensive ar
ticles, the most gorgeous costumes. But worse
still is behind. When the great New York
milliner performs her semi-annual pilgrimage
to the Mecca of fashion, she knows full well
how happily the interests Of her purse agree
with the taste of her customers. and she Sc
lects only the most striking and most expen-
sive of novelties. These, and these only of
ten worn by none but the demi-monde, but
endorsed by the prestige of her rname-become
the fashion, and the American ladies, to their
great injury, forego the immense variety of
less snowy and less costly articles Of dress,
which enable the Frenchwoman, in her judi
cious selection of what is really pretty and be-
coming to her size, color and character, to
appear always to great advantage at very lit
tie expense. And if this is the penalty paid
by the fashionable lady OF New York and New
Orleans-where alone fashions are directly
imported---sad is the fate of the American lady
in the remoter inland towns. Never was there
known in history such abject slavery to fash
ion; not even in the saddest days of Germany,
when she was Frenchified from the courts OF
her forty odd princes down to the bumblest
home OF the little green grocer. If Flora Nc
Flimsey wears crimson gloves, the epidemic
spreads like wildfre, and in few weeks every
lady from Maine to Texas and from the At
lantic to the Pacific, has bloody hands. If Nine.
La Mode proclaims the crinoline defunct, the
resses collapse instantly all over the Union,
and present marvellous shapes in the insane
desire to obey the edict before the newly
devised substitute can be procured. As every
woman is a lady---as Biddy, the Irish maid,
and even Dinah, the scullion, now has enter
ed the lists---the trade in fashions is brisk be-
yond conception. The example Of New York
is followed by the great milliners in the large
cities of each State; from these centres the
smaller towns are supplied, and thanks to thu
| matchless facility OF travelling, and conveying
goods to vast distances by means of E xpres
| agencies, the last novelty reaches the most re-
mote regions in an incredibly short tine. Th'
| traveller can hardly Overtake them, and j
pretty sure to find the farmers wife in tn
| Far West in a costume he has seen in Broad
way, and to meet the last style of a bonnie
| that came over in the same vessel with hin
in every shop window throughout the land
At least he will recognize faint resemblance
for the eXaggeration increases with the dis
tance from New York, the great metropolis o.
the Union; and the short dress, which nearly
touched the mud-defiled pavement of the city
has shrunk up above the boot-tops by the time
it has reached the South, while the little rose
bud in the coquettish hat has bloomed forth
into colossal boquet, glowing in all the colors
of the rainbow.
But the sad effects of this universal and
almost slavish submission to fashion are not
limited to the injury done to taste and pro-
priety; they go much farther and do more
fatal damage. As economy is am almost un
known virtue in this land of plenty, so thai
| even five years war could not teach 1t, thu
| good people of the South and their womeI
dress as richly and brilliantly now as ever
| No one thinks of wearing last years finery
or turning half worn dress to make it serv'
second year. To be suspected of being to-
poor to buy new articles of dress for ever,
one of the four seasons of the year would b.
misfortune; bat to have to wear old-fash
ioned things-that horror could not possibl.
be borne! And yet there are hard-heartet
fathers and brutal husbands who will not
perhaps cannot-afiord the enormous outlay
and the result is that the pouting damse
stays away from church, or marries the first
man who offers, merely that she may have
the means of dressing well; while the dis
contented wife finds pretext to visit another
State, whose generous laws and whole-soul.
ed judge grant her divorce, SO that she may
marry richer husband. What matters il
that blood is shed in consequence, that mur-
der is committed, and disgrace covers her and
her children? She finds renowned divines
willing to sanction the fearful act, she is sup
ported and praised by her sisters Gin solemn
council assembled" and famous authors use
her name to fill religious papers with raptur
GUS eulogies on Free Love!-Putnam 10,
| Ays;I