New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-04
THE MALE COSTUME OF THE Pc.
RIOD.

We went to see play the other evening,
one OfthOse old-fashioned English comedies
that are in five acts and seem to be in
fifteen. There were several unhappy vir-
tuous people, and a number of very merry
wicked ones; there was a lost father and
forged will, and when all was said and
done. the heroine fell into the arms of her
lover, amid the soft murmurs of the par
quette, and the frustrated villain of the
piece was led away by the ear to the noisy
satisfaction of the gallery. But it was in
none of these circumstances that we condo
scended to take interest. The thing that
held us a pleased spectator was nothing
more nor less than the graceful costume of
a certain player who looked like q fine old
PORTABILITY Vandyke, perhaps-that had
somehow GOT alive and kicked off its frame
We do not know at what epoch of the
worlds history the scene of the play was
laid; possibly the author knew, but it was
evident that the actors did not, for their cos
| tunes represented quite antagOnistic peri
DDS; but this anachronism in no degree de-
tracted from the special pleasure we took in
the young person called Delorme. He was
not in himself interesting; he was like that
Major Waters in "Pepys' Diary most
amorous melancholy gentleman who is I'M
der despair in love, which makes him bad
company" it was entirely Delorme's dress
We never saw mortal man in a dress more
sensible and becoming. The material was
according to Polonius' dictum. rich but not
gaudy, of some dark cherry -colored stuff
with trimmings of deeper shade
Our idea of doublet is so misty
that we shall not venture to say the
gentleman wore doublet. 1t was a
loose coat of some kind hanging very grace
fully from the shoulders and looped at the
throat, showing tasteful arrangement of
lancework below. Full trousers reaching
to the tops of buckskin boots and a low
crowned felt hat-not brigand's hat, but
picturesque, shapeless head-gear, one side
fastened up with a jewel-cOmpleted the
essential portions of our friends attire. 1t
was a costume to walk in, to ride in, to sit
in. The wearer of it could not be awk-
ward if he tried, and we will do Delorme
the justice to say that he put his dress to
some severe tests. But he was graceful all
the while, and made us wish that our coun-
trymen would throw off their present hide
Gus habiliments and hasten to the measur-
ing-room of Delorme's tailor.
In turning over the plates of an old book
OF fashions, we smile at the menstrous rig in
which our worthy great grandsires saw fit
to deck themselves. The knee-breeches.
the pigtail, and the triangular chapeou de
bras were queer enough, heaven knows:
but if a Broadway or a Beacon street swell,
with his monkey jacket, scant trousers, and
horrible stOvepipe hat, could catch a single
glimpse of himself with the ewes of his an
cestOrs, he would beseech his friends to
place him in lunatic asylum. Whatever
strides we may have made in arts and
sciences, we have fallen behindhand in the
matter of costume. That Americans do not
tattoo themselves, and do go fully clad
we are speaking exclusively of the brutal
sex-is about all that can be said in favor
of our present fashions. We wish we had
the vocabulary of Herr Teufelsdrockh with
which to inveigh against the dress-coat of
our evening parties-that angular, swallow
tailed coat which makes man look like
bird, and bad bird at that. LAS long
as man wears the modern coat" saws
Leigh Hunt, The has no right to despise |
any dress. What ships at the collar and
lapels What mechanical. and ridic-
ulous cut about the flaps What buttons
IN front that are never meant to button.
and yet are no. ornament! And what an |
exquisitely absurd pair of buttons at the |
back gravely regarded, nevertheless. and |
thought as indispensably necessary to every |
well-conditioned coat as other bits of metal |
or bone are to the bodies of savages whom |
we laugh at. There is absolutely not one |
1ota OF sense, grace, or even economy in the |
modern coat" Still more offensive is the |
hat OF the period. We wish we could ostra- |
else all the stove-pipe hats at present blast |
ing the landscape of the United States, and |
sit down, metaphorically, on the hat box of |
every Englishman landing on our shores
That Christian can go about unabasbed
with a round tower on his head. shows
what civilization has done for us in the way
of taste in personal decoration. When an
Indian s3quaw comes into Western settle.
ment the first thing. she purchases is a
beaver hat. Her instinct as Tn tba a+on,,o1
fitness OF things teaches her that its oniv
proper place is on the skull of a bar.
barian. ~
1t was while revolving these pleasing re-
hectlons IN our mind that our friend De.
lorme walked across the stage in the fourtb
act, and though there was nothing in the
situation nor in the text of the play to war.
rant IL, we broke into tremendous applause
from which wedesisted only at the sugges.