Woman as Decoration | Page 9

picture had for the artist
in the field of paint and canvas. This same young woman has worked
constantly since the European war began, both in London and New
York, on the shapeless surgical shirts used by the wounded soldiers. In
this, does she outrank her less accomplished sisters? Yes, for the
technique she has achieved by making her own costumes makes her
swift and economical, both in the cutting of her material and in the
actual sewing and she is invaluable as a buyer of materials.
CHAPTER II
THE LAWS UNDERLYING ALL COSTUMING OF WOMAN
That every costume is either right or wrong is not a matter of general
knowledge. "It will do," or "It is near enough" are verdicts responsible
for beauty hidden and interest destroyed. Who has not witnessed the
mad mental confusion of women and men put to it to decide upon
costumes for some fancy-dress ball, and the appalling ignorance
displayed when, at the costumer's, they vaguely grope among
battered-looking garments, accepting those proffered, not really
knowing how the costume they ask for should look?
Absurd mistakes in period costumes are to be taken more or less
seriously according to temperament. But where is the fair woman who
will say that a failure to emerge from a dressmaker's hands in a
successful costume is not a tragedy? Yet we know that the average
woman, more often than not, stands stupefied before the infinite variety

of materials and colours of our twentieth century, and unless guided by
an expert, rarely presents the figure, chez-elle, or when on view in
public places, which she would or could, if in possession of the few
rules underlying all successful dressing, whatever the century or
circumstances.
Six salient points are to be borne in mind when planning a costume,
whether for a fancy-dress ball or to be worn as one goes about one's
daily life:
* * * * *
First, appropriateness to occasion, station and age;
Second, character of background you are to appear against (your
setting);
Third, what outline you wish to present to observers (the period of
costume);
Fourth, what materials of those in use during period selected you will
choose;
Fifth, what colours of those characteristic of period you will use;
Sixth, the distinction between those details which are obvious
contributions to the costume, and those which are superfluous, because
meaningless or line-destroying.
* * * * *
Let us remind our reader that the woman who dresses in perfect taste
often spends far less money than she who has contracted the habit of
indefiniteness as to what she wants, what she should want, and how to
wear what she gets.
Where one woman has used her mind and learned beyond all wavering
what she can and what she cannot wear, thousands fill the streets by
day and places of amusement by night, who blithely carry upon their

persons costumes which hide their good points and accentuate their bad
ones.
The rara avis among women is she who always presents a fashionable
outline, but so subtly adapted to her own type that the impression made
is one of distinct individuality.
One knows very well how little the average costume counts in a theatre,
opera house or ball-room. It is a question of background again. Also
you will observe that the costume which counts most individually, is
the one in a key higher or lower than the average, as with a voice in a
crowded room.
The chief contribution of our day to the art of making woman
decorative is the quality of appropriateness. I refer of course to the
woman who lives her life in the meshes of civilisation. We have
defined the smart woman as she who wears the costume best suited to
each occasion when that occasion presents itself. Accepting this
definition, we must all agree that beyond question the smartest women,
as a nation, are English women, who are so fundamentally convinced as
to the invincible law of appropriateness that from the cradle to the
grave, with them evening means an evening gown; country clothes are
suited to country uses and a tea-gown is not a bedroom negligée. Not
even in Rome can they be prevailed upon "to do as the Romans do."
Apropos of this we recall an experience in Scotland. A house party had
gathered for the shooting,--English men and women. Among the guests
were two Americans; done to a turn by Redfern. It really turned out to
be a tragedy, as they saw it, for though their cloth skirts were short,
they were silk-lined; outing shirts were of crêpe--not flannel; tan boots,
but thinly soled; hats most chic, but the sort that drooped in a mist.
Well, those two American girls had to choose between long days alone,
while the rest tramped