New-York tribune., 1905-02-16
ORIGIN OF DRESS.
Women Who Wear Birds 44re Lake
SaUdgeS, Says HISS SteUehS.


ornament The civilized wears q hat
which. in its way. is just grotesque. The in
spring motive is the same in both cases"
Miss Rannett Stevens in her lecture on Dress
and the Dwelling House the Brooklyn Insti-
tute yesterday. drew several such poignant
semblances
Our most primitive mother said she. 'got
along perfectly well without. any clothes at all.
Why did she begin TO wear them? The weather
Is the most natural reply. This certainly serves
In the cold regions. but it affords reason in the
tropics. In Patagonia there is tribe which wears
only square of skin about the size of a pocket
handkerchief This is always worn on the side
the wind blows, and with this slight windbreak
they seem perfectly comfortable though tribes all
around them decently clad in skins
Mooesty is the next that for
tne wearing or clothes. But modesty. when traced
back to primitive and pursued under
strange skies, is a queer and variable quantity.
The Hottentot woman has certain lock of hair
on the back of her head which must be covered.
and she is dressed with entire ulodesty If that
lock be covered. although the of her person
De nude. The Turkish woman on the contrary,
must have even her face covered on the street to
RUM the canons OF modesty while the Chinese
sentieWoman considers it irnmodest TO have feet
OF natural size Two tribes live side by side in
the heart OF Africa. The women of one wear very
ample and complicated robes, while those of the
other content themselves with the traditional f1-
lear Yet the women of the one tribe are con-
sidered as modest as those of the other
"A civilized woman said Miss Stevens, gently.
will appear in the midst of miscellaneous assem-
bly, with her neck, arms and shoulders bare. Yet
should she find that she had forgotten her belt she
would retire in confusion. Nothing is more sure
than that the standards of modesty vary with
time. place and custom, and that in the beginning
clothes had nothing to do with them.
ITO what, then, does dress owe its origin? To
the desire for ornament. the most distinctly hu-
man characteristic. distinguishing man from the
beast more than any other trait Tribes low
that they eat clay and earthworms will devote
quantities OF time to the making of jewelry. AL
ways ornament comes before clothing Tattooing
is the savages embroidery. Having no clothes to
embroder, he embroidered his skin. OF what use
would tattoong be If It were covered I'D with
clothes? 1t came before clothing with the savage
representing his love adornment afterward still
further expressed in garments. In the Gilbert
Islands poor man with his body tattooed is social
ly superior to the rich man who lacks the admired
distinction The Arab woman. who is far above
saVagery. occasionally touches up her face wrist
or an ankle, with q bit OF tattoo and sailors the
world over have loved and maintained the practice
Among the lower races the love OF ornament
follows the same direction among the brutes. It
Is the male who adorns himself In civilized races.
the contrary. the male will make personal sacri-
nces that the female may be adorned In this
der OF civilization the male adorns himself only
when dressing for military operations
noeuvres. The higher the grade OF civilization the
more ornament is subjected to utility. You will
note the evolution in these pictures of japanese
women and OF Greek and italian peasant women.
They carefully preserve ornamentation of a certain
bizarre and formal kind, yet very different from
that of the savage and quite compatible with the
utility OF their garb
The lower one goes in the scale Of civilization.
the absolute he finds the sway of fashion. The
Solomon Islanders cut their hair short be-
fore the advent of traders, when they had only
stone knives TO do it with. 1t must have been a
rather delicate and painful job to barber a head
Iry,sFa l.TtA
study of the grotesqus in their headdress One
would have his head shaved smooth except for a
thick patch of hair each temple. Another
would have his head in strips, one strip bare the
next composed OF tufts OF hair. The enormous and
grotesque headdresses Of the gentlewomen of the
Middle Ages, continuing in modified form almost to
the present day. are essentially of the char
acter.
Different kinds OF deformity have always been
considered adornments. Upper teeth knocked out,
teeth filed in fantastic shape slit under lips fiat
tened heads, pierced noses. pierced lips, pierced
ears, compressed feet and compressed waists have
all been considered beauties at different times and
places.
race and age. No tribe has been discovered low
that it did wear feathers and no civilization has
ever risen a high enough M t. dispense M NTH them The
one Species in order that it's one yellow feather
our own motive when We wear breasts and wings
that demand the death OF birds OF beautiful
The most primitive tribes found on the face of
the earth now generally garment The
amount OF clothing to be in inverse ratio to
the depth of their coloring The simple savage
garment is the origin of all later garments. The
oin cloth is the ancestor of the skirt the shoulder
covexng of the mantle Any who Will study
the saVage's blanket will how every garment
develops out OF it, Lift the arms, and you will
note how naturally sleeves viii be formed by PIN
ming under the arms. Out of the corner drawn over
the head developed the hood. There Is very little
variety in garments the world To-day
wear during season at least hats woven of
vegetable hbre. as humanity has done since the
earliest ages. We wear bright colored stones and
ways done. All shoes sandals. which
the Chinese and Japanese still wear.
Sometimes fashions persist long after their rea-
is past and even forgotten All coats were
long, straight and round. In time 1t came
about that of the upper classes travelled only
OF horseback So the front of the coat cut
off to accommodate his knees. and the sides were
buttoned back with two buttons. still sometimes
SEEN This the origin of the dress coat.
Little buttons are seen on the outer edge OF the
sleeves and trousers of boys suits. They Serve no
purpose, and do not even attract the eye. They
are reminders of the time when sleeves and trouser
legs once really buttoned close around the limb.
"Dress to the savage was one of the arts of en-
joyment and one Of the very earliest of those
It expressed what there in him TO express
He wore what he liked. Modern dress has many
features closely allied to savage dress. Like all
later arts. it developed directly out of the germ
primitive life. But often do not
wear what like. what particularly expresses
US but what the fashion of the moment, originat-
ing In some unknown force, seems to dictate"