The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-11-08
WE DRESS ALIKE.
Decay of Distinctive Costumes All over
the World.

the world.
London Telegraph.
The plain truth is that picturesque costume
is rapidly dying out the whole world over.
Take the "Verlander madchenn- decayiug
race, by the way-who sells bouquets under
the porticoes of the theatre at Ham burg
take the Roman ''contadina," with her kirtle
of cunningly contrasted hues, and the snowy
"fazzoletto" of white linen which she wears as
a head-d dress: take the Venetian ''1oruian and
the "portatrice d'aqua" or water carrier,
and contrast any one of these types with the
London flower girl
1t may not be generally known that the
astonishing picture" which that hoarse-
voiced and sometimes intemperately- y-tongued,
young female wears is rather an expensive
article than otherwise, for which she pays by
installments, and sometimes even ballots for
it in the manner adopted by members of
building societies. She patrouizes, Moreover
particular jacket particular length of skirt.
and kind of boot, and she would scorn to alter
the wondrous ''fringe" of half-cut over her
forehead.
The pity of 1t is that all these continental
costumes are drifting into extinction. In
Rome the ''fazzoetto" and the many hued
kirtle are rarely worn save by professional
models for artists; and tie Venetian flower
girls, who pester the tourists at Florian's or
the Specchi to buy their posies and often
thrust them uninvted into the travellers but
tonholes, are rapidly relinqushing their dis
tinctive garb and dressing themselves after
the fashions prescribed in the plates of the
cheap fashion periodicals. AS for the Condo
liers, they have abandoned the wearing of
striking costume as completely as they have
discontinued their citations from Tasso
There are still Swiss cantons in which the
strongly marked and extremely picturesque
Helvetic costume is adhered to- and in Ger
tain parts of Norway, such as the HardaDger
and Teemarken districts, the peasantry still
wear their Characteristic native dresses, but in
both countries the ''wde awake hat' and the
suit of ''dttoes'' for men, and the cheap and
Unlocking parOdies of the Paris fashions for
women are steadily making their ignoble and
depressing way. ''Store clothes'' have even
invaded the Tyrol and the provinces of Aus
tria, while in European Turkey the upper
classes have wholly divorced themselves from
the turban and caftan, and have adopted a
monotonous dress in which the principal ele-
ments are the scarlet fez cap and the single
breasted frock coat
The Osmanli, at Stamboul at least, has even
given up the trad ditional "chibouck' and the
time honored 'narghile" and smokes nothing
but cigarettes 1t is slightly consoling to the
lovers of the picturesque to know that there
are still some 100000 600 of Russian ''mouiiks"
who are unaterably conservative in their
patronage of sheepskin 'touloupes'' and
cotton shirts worn over their baggy mex
pressibles, with boots reaching to their knees;
but a Russian gentleman, when he is not in
uniform, puts on precisely such morning and
evening dress as are worn in London and
Paris, in Milan and San Francisco; while
among the Polish nobility where should we
hope to find counterpart of the costume
Worn by the heroic John Sobeski?
Even the conventional ''Uncle SAM" whom
the Americans themselves laughingly ac-
cepted as type-the gaunt, high checked
boned individual in suit of nankeen and an
ample panama hat-has vanished, and but for
an occasional cartoon would be forgotten. 1t
is the same with our John Bull. His spirit
lives; his idiosyncracies are, happily yet
vigorous; but his hat, his broad-skirted coat his
feathers, and his tops are to be found only in
the columns of our facetious contemporaries.
Most varieties of the costume of the past are
dead and the rest are dying. What order of
apparel is to succeed them? Surely spot"
hats, ''stovepipe' hats and suits of ''dittoes"
are not to be the universal wear for mankind
in the twentieth century.