The Portland daily press., 1878-10-05
SATURDAY MORNING, OCTOBER s.
Providence Journal
The RsnhapIS of Dress.

We seem at last to bs approaching the point
when really artistic skill is to be en-
ployed in fath.oning women's dress We
were familiar with the efforts of Mr..
CASTOR Ptebus 10 that direction as
recorded in the pages of the latest novel
of the Right bon, Earl of Bsaconsdeld, X. G.
but they were as extraordinary as that extraor-
binary being himself, and it was almost impos-
sible to Judge whether the cynical author was
cot grinnipg a. his own inebtiated verbosity or
was really revealing in an apotheosis of clothes
which the Jew and the genius onfoupded
each other to produce a strictly Aryan product.
At any rate, it would be impossible to conceive
of any young woman wearing Mr.. CASTOR
Pt9ous's dresses without being in danger of
arrest as a lunatc. Stories have also been told
as actual facts of how the cotere of artists
known as the Pre-Raphaeltes have decorated
their wives and daughters in costumes and COL
ors as strange and startling as those of their
pictures; of how Mr.. Morris, for instance built
dado around the basement of Mrs. Morris's
dress and painted a desert scene on the front
skirt
Lit by large, low MOON"
and such other doings by the Rossettis and
agination on their part. aud a discipleship on
the part of their wives and female friends as
surprising and more complete than any yet
recorded of feminine nature. Women have
risked their lives and done violence to some of
their strongest instincts under the influence of
religious or personal devotion; but it is nowhere
recorded of them that for love or anything else
they went into society or "received" in dr. esses
oatre to the prevailing fashion, or suffered
themselves to be made guys to crafty the ar
tistic vagaries of toeir husbands before this
eff ,rescsnce of the pre-Raphaelites. Bat they
are but clique and a coterie, and their very
extravaganza OF taste would prevent their being
copied, except so far as, being persons of genius
they would set the example OF worthy artistic
regard for dress, which might be copied 10
calmer style and more general effect.
As another example, Madame Modjask has
Just returned to this country with a cargo of
stage dresses designed by eminent artistic tai
designed the garments which she is to wear as
Cleopatra. Rape, the Belgian artist, drew the
sketches from which the dresses for Peg Wof-
dneton and Camille we're constructed, and the
sculptor GOdebeki made the designs for the
heroine of a classical drama called 1.-THE Lesbi-
an Sparrow" Again we are told that the Hon.
Charles Wingfeld, his title signifying that he
is scion of nobility, evolved from history and
artistic taste the dresses with which Miss Gen.
evieve Ward adorns the part of j ne Shore. 1t
is true that that these ladies are actresses. and
that these dresses are doubtless designed with
greater boldness of color and effect than would
be dared or desired for the society parlor; but
the leaders of fashion have great facility 10
seizing and modifying the features of stage
dress, and anything new. original or beautl-
full is very sure 10 be reproduced in the Co.'S
tunes of the day. The work of such genuine
artists as have decorated Madame Mod ieska
cannot but be of fine effect and to afford mod
els that nothing but inherent bad taste can
spoil 10 reproducing. Fashion has been &C.
cused of deriving its models from the extrav.
agencies Of the evil celebrities of Paris, and it
is therefore very much batter that it should
hsye examples OF the work of cultivated taste
and genius. Such artists are certain not to in
vent the gross or unnatural ampllfications of
the human form, or the nude eccentricities that
have at times disfgured modern dress, and their
influences will be for purer taste aud more
elegant harmony than that of the men MILL
ners. Therefore, let Us have more artists to de.
sign the garments of earthly beauties, as they
do OF those OF imagination, and welcome this
new field of art