or Breton coasts, these habitual summer excursions brought about some welcome changes in fashion.
In 1864, short dresses had a brief triumph, which originated at the fashionable sea-bathing places. No more trailing skirts, or long gowns Avith broad Hounces were worn. The crinoline Avas retained, but moderated in its width, and skirts were draj)ed, caught up, and adorned with a great variety of ornamental trimmings, all large and effective.
Fancy, which had been suppressed since 1830, was once more allowed some play. The very smart short skirts displayed very smart and much-adorned boots; thin little boots were these, coming well up above the ankle, and with high clinking heels. For a short time some fine ladies adopted the tall Louis Treize cane at the seaside.
To this period wide handsome mantles with large sleeves, and also the outdoor garment called 'jump-in' (Saute-en-barque) belong. Hats, quite different from the formal tied bonnet, and saucily perched a little on one side, like bull-fighters' liats,^ with big tufts, or feathers, were worn. The hnir was dressed low.
Large Empire mantle.
waved on the forehead, and placed in a long net at the back of the head.
Short skirts, which suited the crinolines so 1 Known in England .1.^ tlie ' pork-pie.'
well, with broad belts and buckles, and all the braid and gimp with which fashionable costume was covered, were, however, speedily displaced by a return to the objectionable long dresses, and fashion immediately lost its smartness.
The crinoline itself was eclipsed for a while, in 1867, when flat, trained gowns, and ' peplum ' bodices (denoting a revival of the taste for tragedy—fragments from the great French tragedies were recited at this time at the Café-Concert), little ' i^late ' bonnets stuck on in front of the big ball-like chignons, with streamers down the back, called by the expressive name of " Follow me, young man ! " became popular. And so the fight between wide skirts and narrow skirts went on ; crinoline, having held out for a few years, was finally beaten and dead. The big-hooped crinoline now belongs to the domain of archaeology ; it is an antique, like the panier and the farthingale.
As width was still desired, the defeated petticoat was succeeded by the 'pouf,' a big bunch of the gown-material tucked up at the
back over the skirt. Fashion was now on the path of anti-crinoline reaction, and the width of skirts was reduced and re(Uiced, until at last gowns were actually moulded on the body, a mode which lasted two or three years, about 1880.^ The fashions of that time were very pretty, very œsthetic; but after a while the least little increase of width was admitted, and soon after came the ' tournure,' or petticoat-bustle.
From the period of ' clinging ' gowns, we still retain the jersey bodices, which mould the bust and the hips very becomingly. The jersey is admirably adapted to Avalking and country costume. For several summers, from one end of Europe to the other, on every beach in England, France, and elsewhere, the jersey was worn as a kind of obligatory uniform ; women, young girls, children, boys or girls, all were dressed in dark blue jerseys, ornamented with gold anchors—every costume was a sailor's. Children still Avear this becominsf 1 'Tied-l)ack' time in Encjland, and convenient garment, and now it is being adopted by tourists and cyclists.
The day of sumptuary edicts, and legislation by governments with the object of restraining luxury, is over. From the time of Philip the Fair to that of Richelieu a long series of edicts were issued ; these were always rigorously applied just at first, before they fell into oblivion, even by kings who exhausted their Treasuries by the extravagance of their Courts. An instance of this is afforded by the bedizened fop, Henry III., who, in one of his fits of repression of other people's lavishness, threw thirty women into the prison of Fort l'Evêque in one day—and they not the least among Parisian ladies—for having defied his prohibition of brocade and silk.
The time of sumptuary prohibitions, of royal rescripts is over. In the general interests of industry and commerce, all that can develop luxury on a large scale must now be fostered. Luxiiry on a small scale ought, on the contrary, to be repiessed as much as possible, or
MODES ]JH PI.AGIi 1S64.
rather, it ought to have been repressed ; the evil was wrought in past times, and it is now past remedy.
Cliugiug gowQ before l'"80.
Ah ! if fashion, which is mightier than kings and ministers, than decrees, laws, and edicts, had but ordained the preservation of the old feminine costumes of our provinces, the local modes which were in many instances so graceful and becoming, those rural refinements which Paris has so often borrowed, in the various forms of o^owns, mantles, and head-dresses, the Bressan coifs, the lace caps of Caux, the large Breton coifs, the caps of the women of Aries, &c., &c., Avhat a salvage there would have been !
But fashion did nothing of the kind, and those pretty things have vanished before the influx of sham and shabby finery, the tasteless caricature of Parisian elegance, in the shapeless 'confections' turned out by hundreds, and convo3^ed into the r(motest parts of the country !
Local fashions, and the peculiar individual grace of dress that belongs to special regions, have finally ceded their place to new fashions which are mostly pretentious and ridiculous. The ' costume of the country ' has vanished from all our provinces ; it is lost, and now it is for ' the fashion of the towns ' to indemnify us for the loss by some real grace and elegance.
Fasliion is in a period of transition and experiment ; for lack of new novelties, it is trying imitations of the novelties of the past—those which have grown old enough, as the Empress Josephine's dressmaker said.
Fashion goes from the Louis-Seize or Empire 'cut' to the attire of the Valois, to Louis-Treize bodices, to mediseval sleeves, or else to the leg-of-mutton sleeves of 1830. We shall see what will come of these experiments, and whether, in the case of the art of dress as in that of every other art, the study of the ancient shall bring forth tlie new.
Let us hope that an original fashion, 'fin de siècle,' to use the current phrase, may at last arise. If this be so, the granddaughters of the fair ladies of the present day will be able to form mental pictures of their grandmothers in attire that was really their own, a personal possession, and not in costumes borrowed from all the a^es.
APPENDIX.
BALLADE DES MODES DU TEMPS JADIS.
Du tout premier Vertiigadin, Celui qu'inventa Madame Eve A celui qu'admirons soudain, Que d'autres passant comme rêve ! Combien leur existence est brève ! Tu resplendis toujours pourtant, O beauté changeante sans trêve, Mais où sont les modes d'antan.
Où donc es-tu, riche bliaut Armorié sur chaque maille, Et le peliçon d'Isabeau ? EscofRon de haute taille Pour qui l'on vit mainte chamaille, Hennin qui charma Buridan ? Hélas, ce n'est plus qu'antiquaille— Mais où sont les modes d'antan 1
Oil est la fraise de Margot, Et le surcot doublé d'hermine, Oil sont les manches à gigot ? Habit cavalier d'héroïne Que portait Reine ou baladine. Large panier pompadourant, Et toi-même aussi, crinoline — Mais où sont les modes d'antan !
Envoi.
Dame, il ne fut point de semaine Depuis le temps d'Eve pourtant Qui n'eût caprices par trentaine. Mais où sont les modes d'antan !
NOTES.
Head-gear, etc. See p. 168.
The following lines bear witness, among other matters, to the height of the head-gear in England at this time.
"The buckle then its modest limits knew, Now, like the ocean, dreadful to the view, Hath broke its bounds, and swallowed up the shoe : The wearer's foot, like his once fine estate, Is almost lost, the encumbrance is so great. Ladies may smile—are they not in the plot 1 The bounds of nature have not they forgot ? Were thej'- design'd to be, when jîut together. Made up, like shuttlecocks, of cork and feather ? Their pale-faced grandmammas appeared with grace When dawning blushes rose upon the face ; No blushes now their once-loved station seek ; The foe is in possession of the cheek ! No heads of old, too high in feather'd state, Hinder'd the fair to pass the lowest gate ; A church to enter now, they must be bent, If ever they should try the experiment."