Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-04-26
FASHIONS DECREE.
Trousers.
From the London Saturday Review.

From the London Saturday Review
The Standard reports an agitation among
Paris tailors for the redemption of (male)
evening dress If it succeeds, we are to
wear knee-breeches and colored coats in
the evening. We are to be rescued from
"the discreet habiliments of the British
waiter" who is, apparently, to retain them
himself as a badge of humility. As the
Standard editorially and sensibly remarks,
this agitation, like many Others is doomed
to certain failure, which all friends of men,
as distinguished from friends of Man, must
regret. In the first place, it has made a
false start Not Paris, but London, is the
place which the civilized world male
dresses up to. The Partisan gilt youth is
a poor thing compared to our own, and
knows it, Fashions in male dress often
work upwards-e. e., they sometimes take
their first rise in public schOols-but they
do not come here from France. The tailors
of Paris may build green or purple dress
cOats, and might even induce them to wear
them but the reform will not spread.
Black coats and trousers will continne to
prevail, and little reflection will show
how solid are the foundations of their sue
cess.
In Lord Ly ttons biography of his father
the great novelist is credited with the ire
sistible determination to blackness of even
ing dress, which has since become uni
versal. Lady Francis Pelham recon-
mended her son to wear black coat, say
ing that he looked best in it, (which is a
great compliment, for people must be very
distinguished in appearance to do so" The
consequence is alleged to have been that
every man who thought himself very dis
tineuished in appearance Immediately got
black coat, with the general result which
we are still privileged to contemplate.
Whatever may be the true history of black
evening coats, there can be no question as
to the grounds of their persistency. They
are, in the long Iun, cheap. natty, and
suited to democratic age. To an undis-
eliminating eye-a female eye, for instance
they all look very much the same.
Hardly anyone knows at party in the
evening whether any given coat on any
one else's back is fresh from the tailor's or
approaching the completion of its second
year. 1t produces an outward approxima-
tion to the radical fatty that one man is
as good as another. For these seasons its
suppression is not within the range of
practical politics.
The same remarks apply with even
greater force to trousers, except that the
case is, perhaps, not quite so hopeless. 1t
is altogether beyond .he bounds of sober
imagination that there should be a Tory
reaction Tin the EVENING" around the
neither extremities of man. Knee breeches
would wear quite as we'll as trousers, prob
ably better, in fact, as they would not be
equally given to the loathsome vice of
bagginy at the knees Silk stockings,
though expensive, could not fairly be called
ruinous. The practical objection is their
philosophical recommendation. The shape
of the ankle and the arch of the foot bear
cogent testimony to breeding. A seemly
development of the calf is a personal at
traction which few of those who have it
can afford to despise. But which of US
have good legs and feet At present no.
regard to some men, that their legs are
extremely bad. The contrary asser-
ton can be hazarded of the we'll
made only upon the strength of
superiori observation. AS all cats are
gray in the dark, so all legs are middling
in the trouser. The base born baronet con-
ceals his coarsely formed shauks as effect
ually as the highly-bred poet in humble
circumstances hides, perhaps, the principal
advantage with which nature has endowed
him. Could not few aristocratic youths,
with pretentions to be amateur pugilists,
boldly array themselves in breeches, stock
ings and buckles. and win from the fair
that need of praise which is surely to be
had for the asking? In the day time we
make no attempt at ornament, but in the
night we do at least put on clean shirts,
brush our hair, and tie our white ties with
more or less skill, according to whether we
had or had not the advantage of being ed.
ucated at Eaton. All these are attempts
to beautify ourselves in comparison with
our less wealthy or less neat-handed fell
lows 1t would be no more than a legiti-
mate development of the same process for
those who, like Sir Willoughby Patterne,
the so-called Egotist, "bave leg" to take
advantage of it.