The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-20
By Pierre Creget,

Director of the High School of
 Commerce, Lyon, France TvASHION is a social custom, trans 1 mitted by imitation or by tradi-
 tion. It is a form of luxury, lux ury in ornamentation.
 Many writers have sounded the ca- price of fashion, it's frequent coming, its suddenness. It is changeable, unre- liable frivolous; most careful calculations are often brushed aside for the most trifing causes. "One fashion has hardly brushed aside another when it is abol. ished by new one. And this in turn gives way to one which follows, but this one will not be the last" wrote La Bruyere back in the sixteenth century. "The new style of dressing / makes the older fashion out of date, so forcefuly and with such general agreement that it might be called kind of mania which turns the senses round,' writes Montaigne in the eighteenth century
 An English archeologist. Mir Evans found in the Mycenaean palace of Knos- sos in Crete some frescoes painted 1 400 years before our era, showing ladies of the court clothed in resplendent gar
 
 sleeves held to the neck by narrow ribbon; their flounced skirts, ornamented with embroidered bands, are expanded behind by enormous bustles.
 Writings and monuments tell us that under the Empire changes of fashion and peculiarity in costumes were GUS tomary at Rome During the Middle Ages, an author of the twelfth century wrote: France. whose humor varies 
 ments which would proclaim her insta- bilty." In the fifteenth century Robert Gaguin reproached Parisians flor al ways being eager for novelties and un- able to retain the same style of clothing for ten successive years"
 Fashion sleeps only for perpetual re- awakening, making evolutions in irregu- lar cycles at the will of it's creators Jrn- der Henry III. we find the pointed waist, held in place by a stiff corset, the puffed sleeves; the dress already had the hoop petticoat which fashion revived again in 1S30
 The reign of Henry ". brought us the great bell skirt. built on springs, which we find later with the crinoline. This tendency toward fitness in the skirt kept increasing until 1905, bringing some dresses to enormous proportions, with ruffles adding to their size Then, to- ward the end of the seventeenth century the fitness diminished, giving way to padded dresses concealed under nan tie wraps and in 1880 they reappfared again.
 Reduction in the size of the skirt con- tinued until about 175O, when fitness again came into fashion, And by 17S5 the skirts were ridicuously full, expand ed with great hoops. There was another reaction, and the hoop-skirt gave way first to the hustle; then in 1793 came the one-piece dress, with a running string and without experimentation. Greek robes were seen at fe&s and on the stage. The Directoire dress, very close-itting, ex- aggerated the plaited style and resem- bled the trousers skirt of recent date. The Empire costume, with the waist high under ths bosom, was only another transformation cf tie Directoire dress, showing at that time tendency to full ness in the form.
 After 1895 the cycles began to shorten, the wheel turned faster, and without stopping, until we find a general style used by all classes of society. Skirts were worn very full again toward 1S1O and, passing through all sorts of grada- tions, with a partial return to fitness in the back, ended in 1860 and 1865 in the eliminating point of the crinolne. This marks the departure from Orientalism and brings us toward the epoch when very simple and straight robes were worn until we reach the other extreme. the clinging gown, not forgetting the harem skirt, an exaggerated revised edi- tion of the eccentricites of the period from 1895 to 1915. We must pause to resume slowly but surely the march to. ward the puffed or padded styles.
 The fashion created, there is haste n ms ya r 4< In, st the monarchical regimes and under the First and Second Empires, the court full filled that duty and gave fashion some distinction. To-day the style is made public by mannequins at the race course, on the street, at the theatre, by actors on the stage, and by such social func. hons as wedding or a ball.