Woman as Decoration | Page 4

efficiency in any line; examples.--The traditional skating costume
has the lead
XIII WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER MOTOR CAR 145
The colour of one's car inside and out important factor in effect
produced by one's carefully chosen costume
XIV HOW TO GO ABOUT PLANNING A PERIOD COSTUME 154
Period.--Background.--Outline.--Materials.--Colour scheme.--Detail
with meaning.--Authorities.--Consulting portraits by great
masters.--Geraldine Farrar.--Distinguished collection of costume
plates.--One result of planning period costumes is the opening up of
vistas in history.--Every detail of a period costume has its fascinating
story worth the knowing.--Brief historic outline to serve as key to the
rich storehouse of important volumes on costumes and the
distinguished textless books of costume plates.--Period of fashions in
costumes developing without nationality.--Nationality declared in
artistry of workmanship and the modification or exaggeration of an
essential detail according to national or individual
temperament.--Evolution of woman's
costume.--Assyria.--Egypt.--Byzantium.-- Greece.--Rome.--Gothic
Europe.--Europe of the Renaissance,--seventeenth, eighteenth and
nineteenth century through Mid-Victorian period.--Cord tied about
waist origin of costumes for women and men
XV THE STORY OF PERIOD COSTUMES 172

A RÉSUMÉ.
Woman as seen in Egyptian sculpture-relief; on Greek vase; in Gothic
stained glass; carved stone; tapestry; stucco; and painting of the
Renaissance; eighteenth and nineteenth century portraits.--Art
throughout the ages reflects woman in every rôle; as companion, ruler,
slave, saint, plaything, teacher, and voluntary worker.--Evolution of
outline of woman's costume, including change in neck; shoulder;
evolution of sleeve; girdle; hair; head-dress; waist line;
petticoat.--Gradual disappearance of long, flowing lines characteristic
of Greek and Gothic periods.--Demoralisation of Nature's shoulder and
hip-line culminates in the Velasquez edition of Spanish fashion and the
Marie Antoinette extravaganzas
XVI DEVELOPMENT OF GOTHIC COSTUME 192
Gothic outline first seen as early as fourth century.--Costume of
Roman-Christian women.--Ninth century.--The Gothic cape of twelfth,
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made familiar on the Virgin and
saints in sacred art.--The tunic.--Restraint in line, colour, and detail
gradually disappear with increased circulation of wealth until in
fifteenth century we see humanity over-weighted with rich brocades,
laces, massive jewels, etc.
THE VIRGIN IN ART
Late Middle Ages.--Sovereignty of the Virgin as explained in "The
Cathedrals of Mont St. Michel and Chartres," by Henry
Adams.--Woman as the Virgin dominates art of twelfth, thirteenth, and
fourteenth centuries.--The girdle.--The round neck.--The necklace, etc.
XVII THE RENAISSANCE 214
SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
Pointed and other head-dresses with floating veils.--Neck low off
shoulders.--Skirts part as waist-line over petticoat.--Wealth of Roman
Empire through new trade channels had led to importation of richly

coloured Oriental stuffs.--Same wealth led to establishing looms in
Europe.--Clothes of man like his over-ornate furniture show debauched
and vulgar taste.--The good Gothic lines live on in costumes of nuns
and priests.--The Davanzati Palace collection, Florence, Italy.--Long
pointed shoes of the Middle Ages give way to broad square
ones.--Gorgeous materials.--Hats.--Hair.--Sleeves.--
Skirts.--Crinolines.--Coats.--Overskirts draped to develop into panniers
of Marie Antoinette's time.--Directoire reaction to simple lines and
materials
XVII EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 233
Political upheavals.--Scientific discoveries.--Mechanical
inventions.--Chemical achievements.--Chintz or stamped linens of Jouy
near Versailles.--Painted wall-papers after the Chinese.--Simplicity in
costuming of woman and man
XIX WOMAN IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 241
First seventy years of nineteenth century.--"Historic Dress in America"
by Elizabeth McClellan.--Hoops, wigs, absurdly furbished head-dresses,
paper-soled shoes, bonnets enormous, laces of cobweb, shawls from
India, rouge and hair-grease, patches and powder, laced waists, and
"vapours."--Man still decorative
XX SEX IN COSTUMING 244
"European dress."--Progenitor of costume worn by modern men.--The
time when no distinction was made between materials used for man
and woman.--Velvets, silks, satins, laces, elaborate cuffs and collars,
embroidery, jewels and plumes as much his as hers
XXI LINE AND COLOUR OF COSTUMES IN HUNGARY 252
In a sense colour a sign of virility.--Examples.--Studying line and
colour in Magyar Land.--In Krakau, Poland,--A highly decorative
Polish peasant and her setting

XXII STUDYING LINE AND COLOUR IN RUSSIA 265
Kiev our headquarters.--Slav temperament an integral part of Russian
nature expressed in costuming as well as folk songs and dances of the
people.--Russian woman of the fashionable world.--The Russian
pilgrims as we saw them tramping over the frozen roads to the shrines
of Kiev, the Holy City and ancient capital of Russia at the close of the
Lenten season.--Their costumes and their psychology
XXIII MARK TWAIN'S LOVE OF COLOUR IN ALL COSTUMING
276
Wrapped in a crimson silk dressing-gown on a balcony of his Italian
villa in Connecticut, Mark Twain dilated on the value of brilliant colour
in man's costuming.--His creative, picturing-making mind in
action.--Other themes followed
XXIV THE ARTIST AND HIS COSTUME 283
A God-given sense of the beautiful.--The artist nature has always
assumed poetic license in the matter of dress.--Many so-called
affectations have raison d'être.--Responding to texture, colour and line
as some do to music and scenery.--How Japanese actors train
themselves to act women's parts by wearing woman's costumes off the
stage.--This cultivates the required feeling for the costumes.--The
woman devotee to sports when costumed.--Richard Wagner's
responsiveness to colour