Shift (clothing)

“ To explain the difference in the position of the buttons is not by any means easy. In the correspondence which has arisen out of lectures which the writer has given on the evolution of dress, it has, in the first place, been suggested that the arrangement of his clothing permitted a man to thrust his right and fighting arm into his jacket in order to keep it warm. ”

“ Their clothing is a piece or two of quilted cloth, about six feet by four, or a mat. One piece wrapped round their loins, and another over their shoulders, make a complete dress. But the men, for the most part, are in a manner naked, wearing nothing but a slip of cloth betwixt their legs, each end of which is fastened to a cord or belt they wear round the waist. ”

“ Personal clothing can be carried in tin uniform cases, and it should be reduced as far as is compatible with the foregoing axiom. I have found that a touring wardrobe, consisting of a habit skirt, boots, etc., two coats, one short holland skirt, a plain tea-gown, two changes of underclothing, a few muslin stocks, one pair of thick boots, and, instead of slippers, long, loose, Hausa boots, can be easily packed into a fair-sized uniform case. ”

“ When the bundle of clean clothing returned, I added to it new pants, shirts, moccasins, a bright handkerchief, and a hat; then, in the kindest way possible, with loving words. I gave him the whole bundle. Poor boy! ”

“ Their under-clothing is longer than that worn by boys, while the upper garment, which is shorter, is turned up outside. Though they wear no girdles, the wind cannot disarrange their dress, because they keep the opening of the gown closed with the hand as they walk along. ”

“ A pretty travelling-dress, with an extra waist for any emergency or occasion of ceremony, is all you will require in the way of a gown, and a change of under-clothing will go with the waist in your hand-bag. ”

“ The crofters content themselves without dyestuffs. The industry [Pg 90] is maintained by nobility to help the islanders and the fabrics are fashionable and high priced.
Covert cloth is a twilled woven cloth of great beauty and durability. It is rather heavy, of hard finish and is used for jackets and winter suits. To this list of woolen goods may be added the crape cloth with crinkled, rough surface, nun's veiling, flannel which is woven in a variety of ways, broadcloth, wool canvas, and poplins. ”

“ A gored outside garment should be finished with a true bias or a fitted facing, carefully stitched on. It is possible to finish the bottom of a simple house dress or thin skirt with a hem if the fullness made by turning is disposed of in gathers or fine pleats. A bias facing, however, is always preferable. If of heavy or lined goods the finish should be velveteen or braid the same color as the skirt. ”

“ If the patterns are studied carefully, all skirt cutting becomes very easy.
The object of goring a garment is to take out unnecessary fullness at the top; reducing the weight, making the garment less clumsy, and giving a nicety of finish which could not be done in heavy material if all the goods were left to fit into a band. ”

“ The afternoon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby activity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague suggestions of drowned, mutilated and flattened humanity. Trunks without heads waved at you arms without hands; legs without feet kicked fantastically with collapsible flourishes; and there were long white garments that, taking the wind fairly through their neck openings edged with lace, became for a moment violently distended as by the passage of obese and invisible bodies. ”

“ Wherever the want of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor. ”

“ High above his birthplace the snowy Alps paint themselves against the sky, an aerial dream of beauty, softened by the tender hues of dawn and sunset, serenely fair through the rift of the tempest; even their white death takes a nameless grace from distance and atmosphere, clothing itself in beauty as a spirit in clay, and tempting wanderers to their graves: but no such beauty clothes the man whose daily vision beholds them; hard, clamorous, disputatious, with one hand he rends the rotten splendors of Rome from its tottering Image, and with the other plunges baby-souls to inevitable damnation ”

“ We must, therefore, do away with the ordinary cotton or linen shirt, which only covers the middle part of the body, and substitute for it a garment with long sleeves, fitting closely round the throat and reaching to the feet, or a little below them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ordinary dress of men of the middle classes comprises a short shirt cut low at the throat, drawers, socks of material made with a single seam up the back, a long embroidered coat, and a shorter jacket of some plain fabric, held by a broad waist-belt, embroidered in colours and fastened by a jade ornament. ”

“ It was not long after this, however, that man gave up fashion as a bad job, ultimately contenting himself for his adornment with the details of his waistcoat and the cut of his whiskers, begging the question at first by full-skirted coats with velvet collars, frilled shirts and stock ties, tasselled canes, and light beaver hats, then gradually drifting into the safe harbour of broadcloth and linen, where he permitted himself selection only in the colour of his necktie and the option of the hard or the soft hat. ”

“ How deliciously keen and new was this consciousness of clothes—the smart high-laced boots, the soft, sand-colored coat and skirt, the knickers which felt so easy and so trim, the cool, silk shirt with its wide collar, the dainty, intimate things beneath! She would have been less than woman, had the possession of these things failed to meet some need,—some instinct, deep within, which her old, bare life had daily mortified. ”

“ The every-day dress of both sexes was cotton cloth, a short kilt reaching from the shoulder to the knee, and over this, when not actively at work, a loose gown covering the person from neck to ankle, and confined at the waist with a girdle or sash of bright-colored cloth. ”

“ He himself is half dressed in an unfastened shirt and an immense dressing-gown, once gorgeous, now food-splashed and dirty, as it serves him for towel, handkerchief, duster, and every other use to which a textile fabric can be put by a slovenly man. ”

“ The best and least expensive way of solving the difficulty is to have an ordinary habit, with the waist and skirt separate, and to wear a lighter coat, with a habit shirt, or with a habit shirt and waistcoat, whenever something lighter is desirable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Afternoon dress consists of a double-breasted frock coat of soft cheviot, vicuña, or diagonal worsted with either waistcoat to match—single-breasted or double-breasted—of fancy cloth, Marseilles duck or piqué; trousers of different material, usually cashmere, quiet in tone, with a striped pattern on a dark gray, drab, or blue background; boots of patent leather, buttoned, not tied; a white or colored shirt with straight standing white collar; a four-in-hand, puffed Ascot, or small club tie; silk hat and undressed gray, tan, or brown kid gloves. ”

“ The plain black coat fitting to perfection, but light and perfectly easy, the snowy white waistcoat, the shirt, of extraordinary fineness, as pure as driven snow, the plain wristband turned back over the cuff, the beautifully-made gloves and boots, and withal that air of ease and grace which, if not a part of the dress, except metaphorically, gives value to the whole, at once distinguished that young man from all the rest, and pointed him out as one of the marked in the capital of nations. ”

“ He held his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there. ”

“ The dress of these people is generally half civilized, half savage. They wear a capot or surcoat, made of a blanket, a striped cotton shirt, cloth trowsers, or leathern leggins, moccasons of deerskin, and a belt of variegated worsted, from which are suspended the knife, tobacco-pouch, and other implements. ”

“ They wear the cloth falling as low as the feet in front, but not usually so low behind, especially on festive occasions, the end being passed between the legs and tucked into the fold of the cloth round the waist. ”

“ The peculiar garment, or rather, this garment peculiar to a certain time, runs through its various degrees of cut. It is, at first, a loose body garment with skirts; the skirts become arranged in precise folds, the folds on the skirt are shortened, the shorter they become the tighter becomes the coat; then we run through with this coat in its periods of puffings, slashings, this, that, and the other sleeve, all coats retaining the small piece of skirt or basque, and so to the straight, severe Cromwellian jerkin with the piece of skirt cut into tabs, until the volume ends, and hey presto! ”

“ The hat, the boots, the waistcoat are far less ephemeral than the body they protect, and indicate almost as much of the wearer's character as his hands and face. So I am not ashamed of my silk pajamas or of the geranium powder I throw in my bath. They are part of me.
But is this "me" limited to my body and my clothes? I drink a cup of coffee or a cocktail: after they are consumed they are part of me; are they not part of me as I hold the cup or the glass in my hand? Is my coat more characteristic of me than my house—my sleeve-links than my wife or my collie dog? ”

“ We are not, indeed, actually destitute of clothes, but, saving our best for future emergencies, we keep continually patching our worst garments, hence our peculiar appearance, as our hats, shirts, and trousers, are here and there, so quilted with bits of old cloth, canvas, calico, basil, greenhide, and old blanket, that the original garment is scarcely anywhere visible. In the matter of boots the traveller must be able to shoe himself as well as his horses in these wild regions of the west. ”

“ The white men would be seen standing up in each dinghy. They were lightly clad, with shirt sleeves and trousers rolled up, in all varieties and colours of costume, from the regulation shirt, trousers, and felt hat, with leather belt sustaining sheath-knife and pouch, to the more comfortable pyjama suit, or even the Malay sarong. ”

“ Year by year the modes are deliberately altered by a conclave of the great modistes whose desire is less to produce rich or beautiful garments than to make that radical alteration from loose sleeve to tight sleeve, from draped skirt to plain skirt, which will force every women to cast aside the last season’s garments and buy those of the newer device. But of modern dress it may at least be said that cheaper materials, the sewing machine and the popular fashion papers allow women of the humbler classes to dress more decently and tastefully. ”

“ Shirts and collars should be taken freely, as it is well to remember that the native washerman—the well-abused “Dobie”—has a marvellous skill in producing a saw-like rim to the starched collar and cuff of the newest shirt; while the elegant and delicate lace and embroidery, with which the fair are wont to embellish their underwear, take strange and unforeseen patterns at the hands of the skilled workmen. ”

“ One of the great steps in personal cleanliness and therefore in culture made by our forefathers, was the adoption of a linen tunic next the skin, the “short” garment, or shirt. Again, a piece of cloth wrapped round the body and held up by a girdle forms the skirt or kilt, and the way in which Eastern women fasten their skirts together between the feet for convenience of walking, shows how trousers were invented. ”

“ Most people, unless they were very poor, had also finer garments of cloth, which the women span and wove. But cloth was much scarcer than skins, besides being more easily worn out; and so the clothes for everyday wear were always of dressed hides. ”

“ The vest is a figured worsted piece of goods, of lilac colour, about half-worn. The coat is a black cloth frock, or surtout, but little worn, no velvet upon it, lined inside of the skirts with black silk or serge, the sleeve lining twilled linen. Inside of [Pg 186] the left sleeve is a mark of the merchant, which is one cipher—nothing more. From the looks, I should have taken the coat to have cost twenty dollars. The pantaloons are rather of a blue colour, striped casinet, and have never been worn much. ”

“ With that modern period of dress which may be said to begin with the Restoration, shirts increased in number. Women shifted their smocks when coming in from field sports, fine gentlemen became proud of the number of their shirts, as was that 18th-century lord who boasted to Casanova of his changing a shirt several times in the day, his chin being shaved on each occasion. ”

“ Hence the sort of mute protest the well-brushed coat and neatly pressed trousers seem to enter on these occasions against the everyday, working garments which for their part have a perfect horror of clothes-brush and all such superfluities. ”