Morning journal and courier., 1882-04-24
Old Fashioned lE.thetIes.

rom AAg Al sll4C-l
 Let us not hatter ourselves that the matter of high asthetic dress is something which is understood only by us Americans and En- glish of the latest days. Listen to descrip- ton of the clothes worn by the Duchess of Queensbury at royal entertainment in the year TAO: "A white satin petticost. en- broidered at the bottom with 6TO1cEs hilts eov- cred with all sorts of weeds, and every breadth had an old stump of tree that run
 scl up almost to the top of the petticoat, broken and ragged and worked with brown chenille, round which twinsd pastersians Tsicl ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, con- yolvuluses and all sorts of twining flowers which spread and covered the petticoat, vines with the leaves variegated as you have seen them by the sun, all rather smaller than ns- ture, which made them look very light; the robings and facipgs were bttte green baE&s with all sorts of weeds, and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose twinipg branches of the same sort as those on the petticoat; many of the leaves were finished with gold, and part of the stumps of the trees looked like the gid ing of the sun.- I never saw piece of work so prettily fancied, and am quite angry with myself for not having the same thought" How is that for a costume! It seems to equal those of Bunthorne's twenty adorers- And the Duchess of Queensbury was not the only lady of fashion who could boast of such wonderful garment. On another occasion the Duchess of Bedford, court dame of the same period, wore .'petticoat g green paduasoy the pattern was festooDs of shells, coral corn corn flowers and seaweed; every thing in different works of gold and silver, except the flowers and coral, thebody of the gown white satin, with a mosaic pattern of gold facings, robings and train the same as the petticoat" One wonders who devised these costumes,-the ladies them selves or some matchless nantus maker of their day. often question if the time will ever arrive when women's taste shall become so educated that fashions despotlc rule shsll cease If only a minority should in this way become educated, the majority might per haps be led, by them and then, although the larger number were still mere imitators, it would be good taste that they were imita- ting and so taste, not fashion. would be su- preme So long as fashion is omnipotent true good taste is impossible To adopt style of dress simply and solely because oth- CTS do it shows unintelligence, but to follow the suggestion of a person of good taste be- cause we can that it is good taste, though we may not have had originality enough to invent for ourselves, is sensible The essen- tial bad taste of fashion followers is in the
 fact that they quite indifferent to sssthet- ic considerations, their aim being to dress h the latest mode, whatever it may be, and their highest satisfaction to go a little before or beyond OtneIs- 1ue lSAucIs -OE AcSLlOA are not those who wear the most beautiful or even the most costly dresses. but the newest invented ones. It is the fashion at present, at least in some circles to dress ''Rsthetlcai- ly" and the hideous results that follow some of the attempts to be sssthetic prove that the
 desire of being fashionable. and not an edu- cated taste, has been the guide
 Mrs .Delany, whose description of the Duchess of Queensbury's gov we have quot ed thought it very prettily fsncied but was 1t so for dress? The effect lady should produce is hardly that of walking land scape The description reads good deal like that of one of MT. Tifany's designs for the curtain at the Madison Square Theater, New York Many women seem to have no perception of the artistic necessity of | fitness as an element of beauty If a color appears which they hear labeled
 ''assthetic," and which they see used in
 wall papers and hangings, they think it
 does equally well to dress themselves in.
 Tones which serve good purpose in house
 decoration may be simply ugly on a voman's | person for the reason that the color Is not in | itself beautiful, but can be made of use | when put in combination with other shadings
 of the same color or with its proper contrast.
 All this seems too obvious to need saying.
 Mrs. Delany herself can see the folly of some
 of the ;esthetic dresses her acquaintance in- | dulged in for she says of a certain ''petticoat
 of black velvet embroidered in chenille, the pattern a large stone odse filled with ramping | flowers, and between each vase gold | shells and foliage with two or three of the vases on the tail, that it was ''labored piece of finery much properer for stueco ! staircase than the apparel of lady" Anoth- | CT dame's costume of white satin, with leaves
 and rosebuds and convolyuli embroidered up-
 on it, she justly approves of, remarking that
 the lady was in herself so far beyond this
 masterpiece of art" in dress that one could
 hardly look at her clothes Let us have em-
 broidered dresses, by all means, and put sum- l flowers on them if anyone likes them, though lilies seem certainly preferable only let us
 exercise ourselves somewhat in the acquisi-
 ton of few artistic ideas before we set up
 to dress in purely sssthetie manner.