What Is, and What Is Not
Lady-Like Dress
(from Peterson's Magazine, September 1861)
"Fashion is seldom seen to exceed the bounds of nature and of grace; at least among those who possess a good taste, and are, therefore, the truest standards of style and elegance. It is an excessive ambition for novelty, and a too great eagerness for display, among the affluence, that leads to eccentricity and produces extremes. A lady is always distinguished by the unaffected simplicity of her dress, the chasteness of her ornaments, and the grace and ease of all her movements; and an elegant simplicity is an equal proof of taste and delicacy; and the most perfect elegance of dress appears always the most easy and the least studied.
Although Paris is the soil in which every fashion takes its rise, its
influence is not so general there as with us. They study there the happy
method of uniting grace with fashion and never excuse a woman for being
awkwardly dressed by saying her clothes are made in the mode. They conform
to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private
beauty. Our ladies, on the contrary, seem to have no other standard for
grace but the run of the town. If fashion gives the word, every distinction
of beauty, complexion, and station ceases. Bonnets all of a side, long
cloaks and trailing dresses, make them as much alike as if their dress had
been all fashioned by the same modiste, or ordered by the drill-sergeant of
some marching regiment. The most admirable costume is not that which is most
expensive, nor in the extr4eme of the fashion; but it is that style which is
best adapted to the wearer, conveying to the mind of the observer the
combined ideas of grace and comfort.
Nature for each has a different style, and each should choose what best
becomes her, whether in her character of maid or matron. She should
cultivate her taste by experiment and observation. She should educate the
eye to the chase and beautiful, and thus she would become more competent to
judge what is most judicious and tasteful for herself, without copying, as
we are too prone to do, the dress of others, whose different style, manners,
and appearance, render them wrong arbiters of the dress we wear.
Art has of late made rapid progress amongst us. We require handsome patterns
in our prints, room papers, table-clothes, etc., and the splashy patterns
which eternally repeated the same ill-executed designs upon our walls, our
curtains, and our carpets, have given place to light and graceful tracery.
We used to tred on gigantic roses growing without leaves or branches from
scarlet or blue baskets, while flowers of unknown species curled in
distorted wreaths around. In all this we now follow nature and simplicity;
and so it should be in our dress, for a multiplicity of colors distracts the
eye, and though it may dazzle for awhile, it fails to convey the idea of
gentility or refinement.
All nature is intensely beautiful; it appeals to us in every form and in
every color; yet, whether we behold her in the gorgeous drapery of summer,
or in the still richer glories of the early autumn time, with its golden
grain and mellow fruit, there is nothing vulgar in the rich robe she wears,
for she stands before us, glorious and beautiful, in simply majesty, and
Solomon in all his glory on her verdant mantle. Chesterfield judiciously
observes that we should study good taste in our dress as well as in our
manners, seeing we are invariably judged by our appearance by those who have
no means of judging us otherwise.
It is often, indeed, the only thing observed during a casual interview or
first meeting. 'Appearance is something to every one, and everything to some
people,' and they who present a genteel exterior are mostly treated with
deference and respect--always so, indeed, if to good dress they unite good
manners and a courteous demeanor.
Young ladies, when they get married, should not relax their habits of
personal neatness and graceful deportment, always so charming and becoming
in their girlish days, and which were thought indispensable then in aiding
them to create an agreeable impression, and setting off, in the most
engaging light, their natural advantages. No fear of a young lady presenting
herself before her lover, in the days of courtship, when each is solicitous
to please, in a slovenly or tawdry condition. Yet too often does she drop
into careless, slipshod ways in the home to which that same young man has
taken her to share with him; and he is indeed an object of the greatest
commiseration, whose domestic feelings cannot be gratified by the neat and
lady-like appearance of her whom he has selected from the rest of her sex to
make his home a bright and pleasant one.
Some will tell you their husbands raise such a 'fuss' about the expense of
dress. 'They had rather want than ask;' but few men now-a-days refuse their
wives the means of dressing genteelly, if not expensively; and if they can
afford to do no more, surely it is the interest and the duty of the wife to
consider so, and to turn to best advantage what she has.
To be agreeably and prettily dressed it is not necessary to be expensively
so; it is all a matter of taste and judgment. An over-dressed woman is never
a well-dressed woman. How many richly-dressed people do we see who, from the
ill-adjustment of colors and material, we pronounce positively vulgar-gaudy
paroquettes in their high-colored plumage-literally female Josephs, in their
coats of many colors. A becomingly-dressed woman, no matter how cheaply so,
beside such, presents by far the most lady-like appearance of the two.
Excellence of dress does not mean richness of clothing nor conspicuous
attire. Perfect harmony-refined simplicity-these are the charms which always
fascinate.
It is too often the case that when ladies get married they cease to practice the niceties of dress, and that care and neatness in their persons which always bespeaks a refined and well cultivated mind; they 'give it up,' as they do their drawing and their music, and for the same reason too, implied, if not expressed, that now they have succeeded in obtaining a husband, they are settled in life, and need no longer worry themselves about such things; besides, they have no time now. Nil questio, the little elegancies and accomplishments, and romance of youth, have to be laid aside, and duties of plain and sober cast claim almost incessant attention, and yet never more truly than in this instance might the old adage be quoted, 'Where there' a will there's a way.' Ah! If genuine taste were there, and nothing but genuine taste will wear, marriage would not spoil the harmony of music, nor the simple elegance of dress.
Then, again, a great many women excuse their own carelessness by saying,
'Oh! It don't matter whether we make ourselves fine or not, our husbands
never perceive the difference. They don't care a fig.' But the woman who
acts on this shallow principle treats neither herself nor her husband with
respect; she underrates her own importance. It turns out that hitherto she
has been living but for appearance, and dressing but as an art to please,
and now that her point is gained, she throws it aside, as a graceful
appendage no longer necessary; and however oblivious her husband may appear
to be on the score of her personal negligence, he I not so much as she
imagines; though he may say little about it, yet he likely thinks a great
deal; he naturally draws comparisons between her and those more orderly, and
in consequence more economical, than she. His observations are not likely to
result in her favor, and she must not be surprised if his disappointment
eventually recoil upon herself in indifference. Men are naturally anxious
that their wives present a becoming elegance of dress and deportment. They
are justly proud of them when they do so; but the slovenly woman is not
calculated to excite either affection or respect.
But whilst lady-like manners, neatness, elegance, and order, cannot be too
highly inculcated, nothing should be more guarded against than a vain and
frivolous taste for finery and personal decorations. It is a dissipation of
money and of mind. It leads away from home and home duties into scenes of
gayety and expense, in the dissipating tendency of which, in the fashionable
uproar, and constant whirl, dress and fashion become a passion, and she who
gives herself up wholly to the cares of the toilet and its accompanying
amusements, becomes little else than a well-dressed bundle of
accomplishments."
(c) 1999
04/22/2006