The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1871-08-11
The Uses of Fashion.

chats in this fashion about the uses OF
Fashion:
Perhaps some husbands complaint
dare say very unjustly-Of the amount
of time women now give to dress, but
what if everything was left TO each ones
caprice? They must be glad that the
law of fashion, which settles many
questions for them, gives them leisure
for anything else.
Not that dress is anything less than
one of the great interests of n
woman's life. Aud justly so. 1t is the
language by which she expresses her
neatness, taste, judgment, and charac-
ter, not for the sake of exhibition, but
for the realization of her own ideal.
What grotesque appearance would
any assembly of men and women pres
ent, did no fashion prevail. Fancy a
church filed with wOrshippers dressed
i'm all imaginable colOrs and cut. Who
could keep countenance beftting that
sacred place. Who could so restrain
his wandering and wondering eyes as
10 give attention to the preacher, him
self might be the most laughable carica-
ture there2
1t was precisely to guard against this
that clerical officiating robes were at
first introduced. In reading the Old
Testament, perhaps we think that a
great deal of unnecessary pains were
taken to prescribe the pattern of the
priests dress. But we find like mi
mute care in the old pagan temples, and
i'm the ancient services of the Roman
Catholic Church. In times when the
wOrshipers were half dressed in skins of
wild beasts, and many not dressed at
all, the decency of public worship re-
quired all this attention to robes, but
any change of officiating garments is
less needednOw.
Fashion is a great saving Of time, and
in the main a great educator of taste.
But it is our most tyrannical master.
\ gentleman's stOve-funnel hat is hard
on his pate, and is jammed down over
his eyes perhaps half dozen times
day. All the hat-makers i'm the world
have long been trying to get up some
thing better. But not one of them can
command those associations of gentility
which gives pre-eminence TO the dress
of the head.
As to lady's skirt, a dozen things
might be said against it. 1t is un-
healthy, expensive, interferes with
walking, and sweeps the dust. But
what of all that ? We have associations
of womanly modesty and prOpriety with
the garments which will probably per-
petuate it forever.
To tell the truth, think the autoerat
fashion is here in the right. The skirt
just hints at the lower limbs, but con-
ceals them. BlOOmerism seems to me
to be a prosaie, bold and impudent tell
tale. / have sometimes thought that
the long trains now in vogue came in as
a protest against il. While i see the
Inconvenience of the train, / like the
protest.
The traveller returning from Europe
sees that sameness of dress is an Ameri-
can defect. With us, all men dress alike
and all women dress alike. The barber
wears a neek-tie and frock coat like
that of the Bishop, and Bridget apes all
the ribbons and flowers other mistress
y Frenchman and Englishman, accus-
toned to see style appropriate TO each
station, when he comes here takes every
barber ford gentleman, and every Bridg-
ct for lady, and then goes home and
tells how vulgarly gentlemen and ladies
behave in America.
1t is a clear case Of optical delUsiOn.
In the habit of forming his opinion of
persons by their outside appearance, lie
does nOt note those other indications
which tell us at once of ones grade of
culture and good breeding. When
Charles Dickens was first in America
he was surprised that the man who
came to measure him for pair of shoes
wore kid gloves. If he had not known
this mans business, l suppose that
Dickens would not have doubted that
the kid gloves marked one of our most
cultivated gentlemen.
How it would add to picturesqueness
if each class had its appropriate dress :
L think il was step in the right direc-
tiOn to put policemen in uniform. Why
should not each railway company uni
form all its officials? / was sorry when
clergymen gave up their distinctive
dress. | went this summer to an Old
School Presbyterian Church, and i'll the
pulpit were two young ministers who
wore turned-dOwn collars and fancy
neck ties and white vests. An unaf-
fected prayer from the one and an earn
est sermon from the other made me
almost forget the incOngruity; and vet
the service seemed shOrn of some effect
through their want of Difference to pro-
| fessiOnal propriety.
On the whole, / think we need not
rail at fashion. We owe much to it.
| Probably its sway has always been as
| imperial as it is now. 1t is curious,
however, that we are quite ignorant oi
many details of the dress of the ancients
| Such a vast number of nude statues have
come down to us, that we know more
about the bodies of men aud women ol
old times than about the garments that
covered them.