Fashionable

“ The fashionable world—those people whom the earnest thinker and the practical utilitarian look upon almost as useless idlers in the community—still have their superiority in one direction, over the thinker or business man, which must be fairly acknowledged. They are artists in the matter of dress and personal ornamentation. They possess that taste and keen sense of the beautiful which forms everything around them into elegance, grace, and charm. ”

“ So true is this, that it has become a common saying, that "one may as well be out of the world as out of the Fashion!" Yet what is Fashion, what does it amount to? Is one [Pg 63] really more respected, more beloved, more received into the arms of the good, more caressed by the worthy, for being fashionable? ”

“ As showing how invariably and consistently Fashion is the handmaid of ugliness, it is curious to note that the several styles of dress worn by men are fashionable in proportion to their ugliness. For the greatest occasions the swallow-tail or evening-dress is prescribed. ”

“ There is an ideal of beauty behind the fashion, a selected type of superiority, which must be assumed as the purpose of the fashion.
190. Fashion in other things than dress. As will appear below, fashion controls many things besides dress. It governs the forms of utensils, weapons, canoes and boats, tools, etc., amongst savages. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a fashionable attitude or pose in standing for women, in which the abdomen was thrown forward. ”

“ I don't believe a word of it. I don't have my clothes cut in the height of the fashion. They are made plain and comfortable. There is nothing about them that is put on merely because it is fashionable. ”

“ Do you see, for this reason should woman always swear by fashion — then were there some force in her oath; for after all, fashion is the thing she is always thinking of, the only thing she can think together with, and into, everything. For instance, the glad message has gone forth from my shop to all fashionable ladies that fashion decrees the use of a particular kind of head-dress to be worn in church, and that this head-dress, again, must be somewhat different for High Mass and for the afternoon service. ”

“ The reason for this is that so many women, and men too, accept the dictates of Fashion without stopping to determine whether or not these new creations are suitable to their own particular type. They do not realize that to be fashionable does not mean to follow conscientiously every new fad, but to adjust the prevailing style to conform with the lines of their individual faces and forms. ”

“ And, as I have mentioned before, as it is the women who stamp a young man's credit in the fashionable world, if you do not make yourself agreeable to the women, you will assuredly lose ground among the men.
21. Dress, as trifling as it may appear to a man of understanding, prepossesses on the first appearance, which is frequently decisive; and indeed we may form some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress. Any exceeding of the fashion, or any affectation in dress whatever, argues a weakness of understanding, and nine times out of ten it will be found so. ”

“ The great hotel was swarming with life, ablaze with light, resonant with the tread of feet, the hum of voices, the musical din of the band, and full of the sights and sounds which fill such human hives at a fashionable watering place in the height of the season. ”

“ There are some persons who will follow, in defiance of taste and judgment, the fashion to its most extreme point; this is a sure mark of vulgarity. Every new style of dress will admit of adaptation to individual cases, thus producing a pleasing, as well as fashionable effect. Not only good taste, but health is often sacrificed to the silly error of dressing in the extreme of fashion. Be careful to have your dress comfortable and becoming, and let the prevailing mode come into secondary consideration; avoiding, always, the other extreme of oddity or eccentricity in costume. ”

“ You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. ”

“ No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. ”

“ Do not confine your attention to dress to your public appearances. Accustom yourselves to an habitual neatness, so that in the most careless undress, in your most unguarded hours, you may have no reason to be ashamed of your appearance.—You will not easily believe how much we consider your dress as expressive of your characters. Vanity, levity, slovenliness, folly, appear through it. An elegant simplicity is an equal proof of taste and delicacy. ”

“ Yet it is not vanity of riches or rank that attracts me; it is a well-preserved complexion, fine hands, elegance of ornaments, an air of delicacy and neatness throughout the whole person; more in taste, in the manner of expressing themselves, a finer or better made gown, a well-turned ankle, small foot, ribbons, lace, and well-dressed hair; I even prefer those who have less natural beauty, provided they are elegantly decorated. I freely confess this preference is very ridiculous; yet my heart gives in to it spite of my understanding. ”

“ Beauty and comfort—that surely is the raison d'être of apparel—apart from modesty, which, however, a few fig leaves can satisfy. Fashion opens the gate, as it were, and we pass through it, one by one, like foolish sheep—without a sheep's general utility. ”

“ How are they dress’d from the Stores of his own luxurious Imagination; without being the Apes of Mode, or borrowing from any foreign Wardrobe! Each of Them are the Standards of Fashion for themselves: like Gentlemen that are above the Direction of their Tailors, and can adorn themselves without the Aid of Imitation. ”

“ While all the other illustrations of the human ingenuity in making the human race appear fantastic or ridiculous amuse us or offend our taste, —except the tailor fashion-plates of the week that is now,—these few exceptions, classic or modern, give us permanent delight, and are recognized as following the eternal law of beauty and utility. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without dress a handsome person is a gem, but a gem that is not set.’ Dress, however, must be subject to certain rules; be consistent with the graces, and with nature. By attention to these particulars, is produced that agreeable exterior which pleases, we know not why,—which charms, even without that first and powerful attraction, beauty.
“Fashion, in her various flights, frequently soars beyond the reach of propriety. Good sense, taste, and delicacy, then make their appeal in vain. ”

“ I should be hideous, but I should be It, for the essence of true fashion is extremism. I said fashion, not elegance; that is quite another story, but then, to be elegant you must be born as the greyhound, and if you strive to elegance you are more likely to resemble the mouse. Fashion is much easier. ”

“ As I was beginning, at that time, from one circumstance or another, to imagine that I was in no degree uglier than my fellow mortals, to find out that good looks were prized even in a page, and that a handsome person was not shown to less advantage by appearing in becoming apparel, I took care that the finest of my wardrobe should be displayed on the present occasion, where I was sure of seeing, and in some sort mingling with, all that was bright, and noble, and beautiful, in the French capital. ”

“ Is fashion to trample on the best and finest feelings of our nature? Is fashion to be permitted to invade us in our green lanes, and our high roads, under our vines and our fig-trees, without hindrance, and without pockets? ”

“ Modish garments must be worn whiles the prevailing fashion holds—to-day they are the mode, to-morrow, the devil! Fashion, sir, is coquettish as woman or weathercock, 'tis for ever a-veering, already there is a new button-hole. ”

“ Fashions must change—and their fashions have changed, not merely in dress perhaps, but in some things which appear to go deeper into character, or at least into manners; but the essentials are all the same. ”

“ A certain proportion of people, on the other hand, think of style in dress as a sort of self-advertisement, a matter of force and emphasis, a question of flamboyance and the dernier cri. And there are still others who, with a finer conservatism, understand style to be that rare art in dress which effects a perfect compromise between the prevailing fashion and the personality, and which unerringly chooses, in color and in form, the garment best designed to suit, most completely and at the same time most unobtrusively the individual need. ”

“ That is not the fashion which every body wears, but which those wear who are of a high rank, or character. The graceful, the easy, and commanding manners of the great, joined to the usual richness and magnificence of their dress, give a grace to the very form which they happen to bestow upon it. ”

“ You believe, perhaps, that it is only great ladies who worship fashion, but far from it! Look at my sempstresses for whose dress I spare no expense, so that the dogmas of fashion may be proclaimed most emphatically from my shop. They form a chorus of half-witted creatures, and I myself lead them on as high-priest, as a shining example, squandering all, solely in order to make all womankind ridiculous. ”

“ Love of Dress.—To love dress is not to be a slave of fashion; to love dress only is the test of such homage. To transact the business of charity in a silken dress, and to go in a carriage to the work, injures neither the work nor the worker. The slave of fashion is one who assumes the livery of a princess, and then omits the errand of the good human soul; dresses in elegance, and goes upon no good errand, and thinks and does nothing of value to mankind.
3. Beauty in Dress.—Beauty in dress is a good thing, rail at it who may. ”

“ When once involved in the whirl of fashion, extrication is difficult and painful—the descent is wonderfully easy—sed revocare gradum! The maniac hugs not his fetters, more forcibly, than the devotee of fashion clings, with the assistance, occasionally, of his better half, to his position in society. ”

“ Wise words, no doubt; but how few are they, in all ranks of life, who have the courage to be in what Falstaff calls "the rereward of the fashion," however fantastic the fashion may be, and out of harmony with their face and figure? ”

“ Fashion is the expositor of our habits and our social relations, from the standpoint of costume. It is a much more serious subject than it may seem at first; far from serving only as a source of frivolous talk, even when it is specially concerned with our dress and ornamentation, the subject of fashion, it has been wisely said, has its value as a moral sign-post, and supplies the historian, the philosopher, and the novelist with a guide to the prevailing ideas of the time. ”

“ If a new idea in dress has any merit in it, it is taken up with great promptness, for our people are extremely interested in enhancing personal beauty by costume, and the absence of any arbitrary standards of style such as fashion set for you leaves us on the alert for attractions and novelties in shape and color. ”

“ Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment universal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert the absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for him. ”

“ She had the rare gift of knowing how to embellish nature, how to bring forth all the capacities of a face and form, and how to modify the fashion of the day to the requirements of the wearer, instead of slavishly following an arbitrary mode, and thereby sacrificing all individuality of beauty. Dress became high art in her hands. ”

“ Observe that we have been laying down some of the maxims deduced from the principles of art and taste, in their application to dress, and not promulgating the edicts of Fashion. If there is a lack of harmony on some points, between the two, it is not our fault. We have endeavored to give you some useful hints in reference to the beautiful and the fitting in costume, based on a higher law than the enactments of the fashion-makers. You must judge for yourself how far you can make the latter bend to the former. We have been talking of dress as an individual matter. ”

“ There is also a manner of dressing and of wearing, a certain elegance that distinguishes people of taste from the vulgar, which gives each portion of the dress its due importance, and imparts a harmony to the whole, as in the composition of a picture, which weaves every detail into one design and impresses the beholder as a masterpiece. ”

“ And this is no light thing. People talk about style as if it were a mere accessory, the unneeded but pleasing ornament, the mere put-on dress of the substantial being, who without it is much the same as with it. ”

“ But the particular enemy which I think is one of the most formidable of all to the true comprehension and true pursuit of beauty is that thing which is known under the name of fashion. That may seem strange to the young gentlemen who want to be smart in their dress. ”

“ You may, indeed, to a certain extent, use their labour for your delight: remember, I am making no general assertions against splendour of dress, or pomp of accessories of life; on the contrary, there are many reasons for thinking that we do not at present attach enough importance to beautiful dress, as one of the means of influencing general taste and character. ”

“ In choosing an article of dress you must remember the vital matter of its suitability; suitability generally, suitability for the occasions you mean to wear it on, its suitability to yourself and your type. If you cultivate these points and use your eyes and observation to see what is the prettiest note in passing fashion, you can counteract the rather commonplace, though pretty, appearance Nature has endowed you with, and turn it into a quaint, picturesque little individuality.
Never buy things that you do not actually want just because they are cheap. ”