Paris fashion

“ They are business men or women, their French fellow craftsmen are artists. There is in Paris the same type of dressmaker we have here, but there is, too, the artist dressmaker who is something higher in the scale, and it is through him that Paris is the fountain-head of fashion. There is little original work in dress here. Good workmanship we have. Our plain tailor work, for example, is the best in the world; but our makers are content to copy French ideas and French models and they have no such high standards as have the sponsors of those models. ”

“ But all our dresses being flowing, and in folds, are not suited for doing work; in doing work, they are spoiled and done for. There is such a thing as fashion in the West. Their fashion is in dress, ours in ornaments, though nowadays it is entering a little into clothes also. Paris is the centre of fashion for ladies' dress and London for men's. The actresses of Paris often set the fashions. What new fashion of dress a distinguished actress of the time would wear, the fashionable world would greedily imitate. The big firms of dressmakers set the fashions nowadays. ”

“ In Paris, the fashions have their dawnings, their routine, and declensions, and depend as much upon the caprice of the day as in other countries; but there every lady assumes a right to deviate from the general ton as far as will be of advantage to her own appearance. In America, the cry is, What is the fashion? ”

“ I was quoted, copied, extolled, admired, and that by the best company in Paris, that is to say, Europe, the world. The women partook of the general infatuation; the most charming disputed for the pleasure of coming to some very select fetes which I gave; and everywhere, and always, nothing was heard but of the incomparable elegance and exquisite taste of these fetes, which the millionaires could neither equal nor eclipse; in fine, I was the Glass of Fashion. This word will tell you all, my father, if you understand it. ”

“ Although Paris may be accounted the soil in which almost every fashion takes its rise, its influence [Pg 174] is never so general there as with us. They study there the happy method of uniting grace and fashion, and never excuse a woman for being awkwardly dressed, by saying her clothes are in the mode. A Frenchwoman is a perfect architect in dress; she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a squabby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty. ”

“ We have often been told, and by those whose business it is to know such things, that the models created by great Paris dressmakers are not always flashes of genius which come in the night, nor the wilful perversion of an existing fashion, to force the world of women into discarding, and buying everything new. ”

“ When you come to Paris, you may take care to be extremely well dressed; that is, as the fashionable people are; this does by no means consist in the finery, but in the taste, fitness, and manner of wearing your clothes; a fine suit ill-made, and slatternly or stiffly worn, far from adorning, only exposes the awkwardness of the wearer. Get the best French tailor to make your clothes, whatever they are, in the fashion, and to fit you: and then wear them, button them, or unbutton them, as the genteelest people you see do. ”

“ It is true that the standard of good manners is below that of Paris, but one soon gets accustomed to it. The wealth of Lyons arises from good taste and low prices, and Fashion is the goddess to whom that city owes its prosperity. Fashion alters every year, and the stuff, to which the fashion of the day gives a value equal, say to thirty, is the next year reduced to fifteen or twenty, and then it is sent to foreign countries where it is bought up as a novelty.
The manufacturers of Lyons give high salaries to designers of talent; in that lies the secret of their success. ”

“ Many of those same American exponents of feminine types draw badly [Pg 32] enough to shock the clever young Frenchman, but they would marvel at his pride in his fashion work,—for he is proud. He recognizes the importance of his metier.
It is this popular attitude toward things sartorial that has made Paris the centre of the dressmaking world. The great dressmaker may be born anywhere, but even a sartorial genius, born to dressmaking as the sparks fly upward, will not come into his artistic heritage outside of Paris. ”

“ Now we need not go to Paris to ask them whether a coat looks just right with a half-inch or a five-inch collar; we are the judges, and can decide that just as well as anybody else on the face of the earth. I would not swap my eyes with any living person for beauty and comeliness. I would rather trust to my eyes for beauty, excellency and comeliness in dress, than any other person's eyes I know of. We should be our own judges. This, I say, to my sisters. Pause, reflect, look at the facts in the case as regards the folly and expense of fashion. ”

“ The streets are adorned with many fine shops, where every European luxury is obtainable for money. Tailors and milliners are very fond of parading flourishing sign-boards in French, and even in that remote corner of the world, Paris is looked to as the seat of fashion. ”

“ Thus it goes in France; and in England, virtuous and domestic princesses and peeresses must take obediently what has been decreed by their rulers in the demi-monde of France; and we in America have leaders of fashion, who make it their pride and glory to turn New York into Paris, and to keep even step with everything that is going on there. So the whole world of womankind is marching under the command of these leaders. The love of dress and glitter and fashion is getting to be a morbid, unhealthy epidemic, which really eats away the nobleness and purity of women. ”

“ The famous fashion stores of Paris and the silk manufacturers of Lyons are the primary factors in the creation of styles, and yet, after all, the origin of style is to be found in the spirit of the times. Our restless age craves constant change. A century ago in France, when life moved more slowly, the silk dress was an important part of the bride's trousseau, and after being worn on special occasions through her life, was handed down to the next generation. But to-day the styles change with the seasons.
And as they change in Paris so they change in the United States. ”

“ To pass from the houses to their inhabitants, the population of Paris is as remarkable for variety as that of London for uniformity of costume. For in Paris almost every class has its own distinctive dress. In England, and especially in London, the employer and his workmen, the millionaire and the crossing-sweeper, wear coats of the same pattern. In London, again, every work-girl, every market-woman, wears a bonnet imitated more or less perfectly from those worn by ladies of fashion. ”

“ Fashion is more tyrannical at Paris than in any other place in the world; it governs even more absolutely than their king, which is saying a great deal. The least revolt against it is punished by proscription. You must observe, and conform to all the ‘minutiae’ of it, if you will be in fashion there yourself; and if you are not in fashion, you are nobody. Get, therefore, at all events, into the company of those men and women ‘qui donnent le ton’ ”

“ Probably it is more deplorable in proportion as it takes on attractiveness; but we are not moralizing, merely stating facts, and the fascination of the great Parisian demi-mondaine is a well-established fact.
To begin with, she is the best dressed woman in the world. Any of the famous dressmakers of Paris, who are the world's arbiters of fashion, will tell you that. She has the money and the taste, and with her, even more than with the Parisienne of the beau monde, being charming is a metier. She supplements natural attractions with every resource of art. ”

“ But to-day, a change of taste and the dictates of fashion which outweighs even the advantages and conveniences of life, have caused them to be almost forgotten and relegated them to the ante-rooms of a few county houses where some of the earliest are to be found, nearly as beautiful as when they were first made in Paris. ”

“ No dressmaker is now considered orthodox who cannot show a prefix of Madame, and the rage for foreign materials and workmanship of every kind is as ludicrous as in England.
Although the deception practised is very blameable, there is some comfort in knowing that large numbers of the caps, bonnets, mantles, and other articles of dress, which are marked ostentatiously with the name of some Rue in Paris, have never incurred the risks of an Atlantic voyage. But however unworthy a devotion to fashion may be, it is very certain that the ladies of New York dress beautifully, and in very good taste. ”

“ Paris, as the center of fashion, is greatly indebted to him, who gained in his line world-wide fame, and for nearly half a century he has been universally recognized by his competitors and the fair sex as master of his art. ”

“ Often a group of little dressmakers will form a syndicate to buy one model and will go together to the great establishment. There, being really buyers, they are politely received, and they all take mental notes of every fashion hint that comes their way during the visit. They study Paris fashions, too, wherever they are to be seen, on the streets, in the theatres, at the restaurants; and during their summer visit they perhaps run up to Trouville to see the fashion show there. ”

“ III.—FASHION IN DRESS It is very difficult to say what constitutes Fashion. We allow our French neighbours to prescribe what we shall wear, and at certain seasons of the year, English milliners of any pretension flock to Paris to learn their lesson, and on their return to London, announce to the public and to their customers that they are prepared to exhibit the greatest novelties in style, form, and colour, which they have been able to procure. ”

“ Duties upon the importations are of course tremendous, and during certain months the New York Custom House is so choked with French chiffons that there are maddening delays in getting the boxes through.
Paris would miss les Americaines if they should suddenly lose their interest in French clothes, but there's no danger of that event. Paris is the fashion centre and will continue to be the fashion centre. As for our women—each year they grow more ardent in their worship of the Vanities. ”

“ The male beggar of fashion is not so well known among us as in Paris, where street-doors are open; six or eight families live in a house; and the gentleman who earns his livelihood by this profession can make half a dozen visits without the trouble of knocking from house to house, and the pain of being observed by the whole street, while the footman is examining him from the area. ”

“ I have paid particular attention to foreigners, their customs, their education, their tastes, and I have been convinced that today the Parisian woman has had to yield to the American in respect to clothes and fashion. Paris designs are intended for the United States, not for France or England. The Frenchwoman may be trim and neat and jaunty, but it takes a woman of wealth in France to be in the fashion, while in New York, every shopgirl wears cheap editions of the latest styles. ”

“ In other respects, what is necessary for the wardrobe of a French woman of fashion, is necessary also for that of an English one; only jewels and trinkets of all kinds are more frequently worn with us than with them. The dress that a young Englishwoman would wear at a dinner party, is very nearly the same as a Frenchwoman would wear at any ball but a fancy one; whereas the most elegant dinner costume in Paris is exactly the same as would be worn at the French Opera. ”

“ The fashions of England and France are not merely matter of fancy: Fancy may dictate new and odd figures in dress; but the general design of frequent and continual changes of fashion, is wise systematic policy, at the courts of London and Paris. ”

“ If professors would stop and consider the character of women who invent popular fashions of the age they might well blush with shame at their eager attempts to follow the modern styles of dress invented by the wicked leaders of fashion in London and Paris, whence the latest styles of this country generally emanate. ”

“ For a long period the world has acknowledged the French to be leaders of fashion. We look to Madame Virot, and other leading modistes of Paris, from season to season, for what might be termed first ideas, but still in all we are obliged to soften down and modify them to suit the more simple taste of American ladies.
Ancient Mourning Costumes, the outward signs of woe and sorrow, have always been demonstrated by some peculiarity in color in all nations. ”

“ Instead of the fashion-plates with which Paris has since supplied the world, but which under Louis XVI. were only just coming into use, dolls were dressed in the latest style by the milliners and sent to London, Berlin, and Vienna. [Footnote: Franklin, Les soins de toilette. Mercier, viii. 295, ii. l97, l98, 213]
The dress of the common people was more brilliant and varied than it is in our time, but probably less neat. Cleanliness of person has never been a leading virtue among the French poor. ”

“ Everything is made so smooth, so agreeable, and if the bills are large, what is that to the wife or daughter of an American multi-millionaire? There are New York women whose dressmaking bills in Paris run up to fifty and sixty thousand dollars in one year, but who could afford to spend five hundred thousand a year on clothes if they chose to do it.
Occasionally nowadays a fashion originates in America and crosses to Paris. ”