Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-12-14
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLOTHES.
10y DOROTHY DIX,
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman
p Writer.)

@NE of the interesting and valuable
lessons that the war is teaching
~ us is the effect that clothes have
on US.
AS regards clothes, people have
mainly been divided into two classes
those who held that the purpose OF
clothes was merely to cover their
nakedness and keep them warm in
winter and cool in summer, and it was
a matter OF small Importance how
they looked; and those who believe
that the purpose Of clothes was to
minister to ones vanity and that
neither comfore nor use mattered SO
long as they were beautiful
The result Of this controversy has
been that part of our fellow creatures
have paid too little attention to their
clothes and have gone about slouchy
and sloppy and looking like, human
rag bags, while others have paid too
much attention to their clothes and
have spent too much time and thought
and money turning themselves into
living fashion plates.
Both the underdressed and the over
dressed have thought of clothes mere
Isl in terms of their bodies. They have
not considered the way they dresset
az 1t reacted on their characters, and
yet the moral effect of coat on
man or a frock on woman is far
more important than whether the gar
ment becomes his or her complexion
II has been said. "as man thinks, 80
he is" II may be said with equal
truthfulness that as q man dresses,
20 will he be. .-
We could have no more vivid illus
ration OF this than has been afford
&C by our volunteer army, who by the
mere putting on OF a uniform appear
@ have acquired automatically
strength, stamina and backbone-all
Df those intangible qualities that we
lumped into the word manliness. r.
So great has been the transforms.
lion wrought by suit OF khaki that
we have actually failed to recognize
1t first sight boys with whom we
have been acquainted all OF their
lives.
There was Jimmie Johnson. round
shouldered and nat-chested, and
whose knees always appeared to wab:
BE as he walked. Jimmie's clothes al.
Ways looked as II he slept In them,
and he had general air OF going to
seed and Of being too lazy and shift
less to care II he did. But Jimmie IN
his new uniform is butterfly emery
ed from the chrysalis. Trim. trig and
.faut. buttoned up TO the chin, with
polished puttees and every buckle
shining, he has squared his shoulders,
stuck out his chest and held up his
head. for the first time in his life, be.
cause he's trying to live up TO that
soldiers coat he's got on.
And there's Percy Perkins, who has
always been a sissy sort of a chap
Who ran to silk pajamas and four dol
lar neckties and embroidered things
generally, and hadn't spunk enough
10 say scat" to cat Somehow
Percy's foolish little artificialities and
sentimentalities dropped from him
Ike an outgrown garment when he
mt on his soldiers uniform.
There's Just something of sweat
and blood. strain and struggle, hero
ssm and high endeavor and danger
and death that is so interviewer into
the very fabric Of that dull brown
cloth that It puts courage and grit In
10 the weakest spine and the poorest
spirit Of the man who puts II on.
or the wen known and Irresistible
effects OF brass buttons and uniforms
on the female sex it is unnecessary to
steak here. Women have never been
able to resist them and the record
breaking crop OF war brides is merely
another illustration of the psychology
Of clothes. Girls who have said mo-
q thousand times to suitors in bush
ness suits, goifing togs, snort clothes