French dressing

“ I know not why it is that the three ugliest pieces of costume ever invented, the dress-coat, the trousers, and the bonnet, all of which we owe to the French, have been accepted all over Europe, to the exclusion of every national costume. ”

“ I never dreamed of such clothes even in my dreams of heaven. But the French are an extravagant race. There was hardly a gown worn last season which was not of the most delicate texture, garnished with chiffon and illusion and tulle—the most crushable, airy, inflammable, unserviceable material one can think of. Now, I am a utilitarian. When I see a white gown I always wonder if it will wash. ”

“ But there are no costumes among the men, no Spanish hats, or Spanish cloaks, or bright jackets, or waistcoats, or open, slashed trousers, that are so picturesque in other Spanish countries. The men wear black dress coats, long pantaloons, black cravats, and many of them even submit, in this hot sun, to black French hats. The tyranny of systematic, scientific, capable, unpicturesque, unimaginative France, evidently rules over the realm of man's dress. ”

“ At gentlemen's furnishing stores, you could buy shirts cut and made in the latest style, the neckbands of which always seemed to fit, or else the men discreetly refrained from grumbling when they had spent so much money. And women began to find it eased their burdens.
No one wanted home-knit stockings, the English and French and Germans sent us such perfect ones. White was still all the style, unless you wore black, or blossom-coloured silk. Of course there were common people who put slate-colour on their children, because white made so much washing. ”

“ They are dressed for their work in clothing which is plain and coarse, but which is perfectly suited for the purpose. The French peasants' working clothes are usually of strong homespun cloth, fashioned in the simplest way, to give the wearers entire ease in motion. They are in the dull blues, browns, and reds which delight the artist's eye. Such colors grow softer and more beautiful as they fade, so that garments of this kind are none the less attractive for being old. Ragged clothing is seldom seen among peasants. They are too thrifty and self-respecting to make an untidy appearance. ”

“ The dress of these people is generally half civilised, half savage. They wear a capote or surcoat, made of a blanket, a striped cotton shirt, cloth trowsers or leathern leggings, moccasins of deer-skin, and a belt of variegated worsted, from which are suspended the knife, tobacco-pouch, and other articles. Their language is of the same piebald character, being a French patois embroidered with English and Italian words and phrases. ”

“ Dark woollen cloth is the standard material of dress, formed into a wide frock, trousers, and leggings, the last replaced in the wealthy by boots of Russia, or other costly leather. Over all is worn a capacious mantle of cloth, sometimes lined with fur. ”

“ Several articles of dress were derived from the tanner, who worked up his leather into shoes, ankle leathers, and leathern hose. The art of tanning skins with the wool or hair on, was also practised, and dyeing was in great request, for in a rude age a love of gaudy colours is a natural characteristic of the people. The most skilful artificers were found in the religious houses, but under each landowner serfs were trained in the mechanical arts. Silk was worn by the wealthy, but the common materials for wearing apparel in this country were cotton, linen, and woollen. ”

“ Take the French, even among the working classes, a French lady will invest $5.00 for her corset, stockings, shoes and spend a smaller sum for her dress, because she realizes that the corset is the one thing that gives her an attractive appearance. She realizes that it takes a carefully constructed garment, especially for her awn figure, to give the effect which she de­sires. It is this which distinguishes the French women from those of every other nation. With them the corset is the primary feature and the dress or outside garment is the secondary feature of their elite make-up. ”

“ The patterns already issued are always kept in stock, as “The Lady Dressmaker” only issues patterns likely to be of constant use in home-dressmaking and altering; and she is particularly careful to give all the new patterns of hygienic underclothing, both for children and old and young ladies, so that no reader of the G.O.P. may be ignorant of the best methods of dressing.
The following is a list of the patterns already issued, price 1s. each:—
April, braided loose fronted jacket; May, velvet bodice; June, Swiss belt and full bodice, with plain sleeves ”

“ A stout lining prevents the dress giving or setting to the figure, and is no stronger than one of moderate quality. French dressmakers exclaim at the bad shapes so commonly seen in this country, and charge them to this cause in a great measure. For a white dress, lawn, cambric, chintz, or silk—bleached muslin, at twelve and a half cents a yard, is good enough. ”

“ It is due to French skill, to their workmen of taste and ability, and when people elsewhere want fabrics of the greatest elegance they send to France for them. A lady in fashionable society in Washington, or in leading eastern cities generally, does not consider herself dressed in the leading style, unless her dresses, as well as the materials of which they are made, are manufactured in France. ”

“ There are still cheap ready-made garments on the market, but demand for good materials and fine workmanship is steadily growing and, through the efforts of manufacturers to meet this demand, ideas of better dressing have been spread broadcast.
Fortunes have been made quickly by men who have kept step with this improvement in taste and supplied good models of Parisian design and excellent workmanship for the American ready-made trade. ”

“ Clothing gets a rinse in the sea at intervals by way of cleansing.
At the present time the everyday dress is of red cotton, but for the first half and more of the last century the fashion ran all in blue. On ordinary occasions men wear a long strip of cotton, generally red, passing round the thighs and between the legs, [178] and women drape a fathom or two of cotton about the waist by twisting the ends together; but for other times there are cotton draperies, sarongs, Chinese coats and trousers, and also European garments, which, from top-hats to shirts, are in great demand. ”

“ In the next reign the French use of the semis or powder, a single small stamp, of a fleur-de-lys, a thistle, a crown, or the like, impressed in rows all over the cover, was increasingly imitated in England, very unsuccessfully, and, save for a few traces of the style of Day, the leather bindings of the first third of the century deserve the worst epithets which can be given them.
Until, however, French fashions came into vogue after the Restoration, English binders had never been content to regard leather as the sole material in which they could work. ”

“ The great French dressmakers to a certain extent control the fashions, but they work with the manufacturers. [Pg 231] One will see the head of a great silk factory sitting at a table with Beer or Paquin or Doeuillet in the Café de Paris, and talking earnestly, seriously. Materials for the future season are being weighed in the balance. The artist dressmaker is the manufacturer's critic, his guide, philosopher, and friend, and in this close connection lies one of the secrets of artistic French dressmaking. In Paris one can always obtain the wherewithal to carry out an idea. ”

“ Shirts and blouses of thin flannel, washing silk and muslin can be brought in any number that space allows—the more the better, but the local laundry cannot goffer frills and almost always tears lace! Cambric and muslin blouses of the ‘shirt’ order are the most useful kind, as silk rots almost at once. For this reason let your smarter blouses be of crêpe de chine rather than silk. Evening gowns you will scarcely want; one, or at most two simple dinner frocks, and a tea-gown to wear for dinner at home, will be ample. ”

“ The eighteen-shilling chintz great-coats, so ostentatiously put forward by nefarious tradesmen as dressing-gowns, and which resemble pattern-cards of the vegetable kingdom, are unworthy the notice of all gentlemen—of course excepting those who are so by act of Parliament. Although it is generally imagined that the coat is the principal article of dress, we attach far greater importance to the trousers, the cut of which should, in the first place, be regulated by nature’s cut of the leg. ”

“ But the old fashions are passing from Europe: the sewing machine and the railway sweep before them the pleasant provincialisms of dress. A shirt with the bosom heavily embroidered, a skirt with a year’s stitching in the hem are not to be imitated by the dealer in ready-made clothing, who offers, instead, cheapness and the brisk variety of the town. ”

“ Underclothing.—Of the underclothing worn next the skin something may be said apart from the general history of costume. Linen shirts were worn by both men and women in the age before the Conquest, and even in the 10th century it was a penance to wear a woollen one. After that time we soon hear of embroidery and ornament applied to them, presumably at the collar which would be visible above gown or tunic. Men added short drawers, or breeches, a word which does not secure its modern value until the end of the 16th century. ”

“ Women in plenty in New York will buy these little strips of silk in order to have them stitched into their own dresses, to give their friends the impression that their garments were made in the French capital.
Laws intended for the good of trade have brought in fashions, as in the case of the statute cap. The very objections made by religious sects such as the Puritans and Quakers, who have departed from extravagance and superfluity, have given rise to new fashions of plainness. ”

“ The dress of the women is like their habits of life, plain and simple. It consists invariably of a gown of blue printed cotton, the bodice of which ends just below the bosom, an apron of the same material, and a white collar with a flat hem ”

“ There is no doubt but that the French like gayer dresses than the Italians, and we have seen that even in 1630 the clothes of Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Scaramouch in Italy were, like those of Punch, plain and simple; but in order to be popular in France the Pulicinella had to dress in a new style, and it is known that already in 1649 the puppet-show of which he is the hero had set up on the left bank of the Seine, opposite the Louvre. ”

“ In the summer seasons, when comparatively idle, the clothing traded from the whites is preferred on account of its superior texture and color, but in their usual occupations, in winter, at war, in the chase, or any public ceremonies among themselves, very few articles of dress thus obtained are seen, if we except some blankets, undercoats, scarlet cloth, and ornaments. 585 Their own dresses of skins fancifully arranged, adorned with feathers, beads, shells, and porcupine quills, are much more highly prized by them than any article of dress of European manufacture introduced by the traders. ”

“ On the one hand, there has been the revolution in the popular habits of dress, caused chiefly by the uprising of the cotton manufacture; and, on the other hand, there has been an apparent over-supply of needlewomen, instead of the scarcity which might have been expected. In old times, when the working-classes wore woollen garments, as stoutly put together as our shoes are now, and seldom or never washed; and when the gentry wore costly stout linens within, and woollen or stiff silk fabrics as upper dresses, the sewing was very elaborate and precise, but it was to last for years or for life. ”

“ Upon the whole there has been no increase of woollen manufacture within twenty years. Is clearly of opinion that many fabrics might be worked up here much cheaper than in France, of cloths that the French have beat the English out of ”

“ The Englishman, dressed in black trousers, broad sash-belts of black or red silk, which seems to make more pronounced the smooth shirt bosom, with a spotless white pea-jacket, forms a refreshing costume. Ladies almost invariably are in low-neck black dresses, with a broad piece of white lace which droops gracefully as a bertha, with bright flowers in their hair, while a band of stringed instruments makes the scene enlivening. ”

“ More than thirty years ago, when the craze for everything foreign was at its height, when the whole fabric of social life in the upper world was in process of radical change, European dress became fashionable not only for men but for women. When great ladies had worn it for a time their humbler sisters took it up, and one might have thought that the national costume, which is so charming, was destined entirely to disappear. ”

“ Shooting coats that had seen better days, a dozen shabby overcoats-worn proudly through the hottest noons-raggety breeches and trousers made by some London tailor, queer baggy homemades of the same persuasion, or quite simply the square of cotton cloth arranged somewhat like a short tight skirt, or nothing at all as the man's taste ran. ”

“ I hear that in Paris the popular gown for the early spring for ordinary wear will be black serge; this is made as a coat or Directoire coat bodice, braided or not as is preferred, in fact made in any way that seems suitable to everyday use. The best gown as I have said is of some light-hued cloth, and for best summer wear the thin grenadines over silk are most fashionable as well as the most useful of dresses. ”