Chapter XII

Hope and Comfort

IN LATER years, when the human mind is free and active, it will seem strange indeed that any appeal was needed to induce people to make such an easy change for the better as a change in dress.

Some steps in social progress are long, slow and difficult, such as the breaking down of race-hatreds and class prejudices; others are quite beyond the reach of this generation and only to be worked toward, without looking for immediate accomplishment, such as the complete rearrangement of the economic position of women. The comfort we may feel in facing this question of dress for women, is that, in one sense, their very weakness is their strength. They have no prejudice whatever against any kind of fabric, color, or shape. They are too thoroughly “broken" by long submission to enforced changes to have any opposing force against another change. So we have no definite antagonism to overcome, only the will-less waste of unused minds to enter and develop.

Moreover, there is another comfort, a large one. The adoption of wiser and more beautiful clothes hurts no one but the tradesmen who now profit by our foolishness; and only hurts them in two ways; in the matter of limiting their excessive production, which will, of course, be cut down when we apply intelligence to costume, and in the special work of designing an unnecessary flood of “novelties" to allure constant purchasing. We must allow fairly for this degree of opposition, and it is not inconsiderable. The whole “dry goods" trade would be curtailed, and the dressmakers, milliners, customers of all sorts, and makers of innumerable flimsy patterns—all these would strongly object to a reduction in their trade.

But just as each new mechanical advance limits, changes, or puts an end to, certain employments, so will such an advance as this. Men did not continue to wear those awful horsehair wigs because of any sympathy with the barbers and wig-makers thrown out of work when wigs went out of fashion. A certain number of workers will always be required to make the cloth and the garments we need, and a certain number of designers also to fill the world with beauty, real beauty, of new materials and new patterns in fabric, dress and ornament. But there is no justice nor economy in expecting us to wear foolish, ugly and superfluous things just because a lot of people want to be paid for making them.

We should remember, also, that as against the protest of these tradesmen and craftsmen at any interference with their bloated enterprises, we must set the present protest of great numbers of work people who are continually injured by the rapid fluctuations in fashion. There are the “seasonal" trades where great numbers are employed at certain times of year, and thrown out of work at others; and there are other great numbers always learning to make some new article in sudden demand and then discharged when it is as suddenly not wanted.

One of the many valuable results of a healthy market for dress materials and clothing manufacture would be the steady work for a regular number of people. Then a far higher degree of skill could be developed, a deeper understanding and love for the work. With this. supporting it and growing by it, would appear the strong good taste, the definite trained beauty sense which can never find a foothold in our perpetual cyclone of new fashions. Most of us are whirled along with it, deafened and stunncd by the speed of the current; some cower in storm-cellars, as it were, in the peaceful monotony of some prescribed costume or the dull submission of utter poverty. With real intelligence in active use we should find our equilibrium, to the advantage of the producer as well as the consumer. The producers ought not to object, but they will.

As against the protest of this group of workers, we shall have the supports of artists and sculptors, of physicians and hygienists, of all reasonable and far-seeing people, men or women. We shall have, too, the satisfaction of increased incomes, increased by not spending inordinate amounts for unnecessary things. We shall have clean consciences, artistic and economic; healthier and more beautiful bodies, stronger and cleaner minds—all this is our comfort and our hope.

Just what is it that we hope for? Many have asked me: "What do you want us to wear? What costume do you propose?"

Here is seen an instant proof, if more proof were needed, of the effect of long submission. We do not find an eager desire to be free, and to be able, at last, to follow one's own taste and preference. There is no demand at all from personal choice, only the meek turning from one master to another: “What do you say we should wear?”

One hears women, feebly remonstrating against “the tyranny of fashion," wish that someone would design “a perfect costume." There is no perfect costume for everyone to wear all the time. Even an individual, unless spending an entire life in doing one kind of work, would not find any costume permanently perfect. No, the hope of the world in this matter of clothing is not in some revelation of A Perfect Dress; it is in the development of a personal taste, an educated taste; and, with it, a strong effective will. Clothes must differ as people differ, else they fail of one great function, that of personal expression. They must differ, of course, with occupation, as, in many cases they do now, No one need fear a new regime in which one costume is imposed on all women. This would not be new at all; it is found now in the Orient.

One new regime offers to us a condition like this:

First. So high a standard of physical health, activity and beauty, that we shall not consent to wear anything injurious to the body, or in any way limiting its powers.

Second. So keen a sense of true economy, that we shall not be willing to buy poor garments, or to throw away good ones. We shall become so proud of our own skill in selection or construction that we shall boast: “I have worn this six years!" instead of our present silly pride in “the very latest."

Third. Such an educated taste in the field of textile art, and in the history of design and the evolution of dress, that we shall admire and appreciate a piece of goods or a garment as real connoisseurs, not, as now, measuring only by dates—"How new is it?”

Fourth. So true a feeling for personal expression that a woman's clothes will be part of herself, governed first by her physique and occupation, and then subtly modified by her moods.

Some women would like many changes of costume; they should have them. Some would be grateful beyond words for a single suitable and comfortable gown which could be put on and fastened with one button; they should have it. Some would show ingenuity in devising changes; others would gladly accept designs by those more clever.

The results would be these:

The elimination of all injurious articles of clothing, like high heels and corsets, and of all unnecessary and false articles of clothing, such as pads and bustles; also the reduction in volume of the trade in clothing to normal dimensions, thus assuring an immense saving of money, of time, of human labor.

A great increase in physical health and beauty, affecting not only the women but the whole race.

A beautiful development of the real textile art, and of the allied arts of design and construction of clothing.

A new world of loveliness and honor in dress, replacing the present one, in which the costumes of women are so often things to laugh at, to condemn, and to despise.

There is much confusion of idea on the subject of beauty and sex attraction, many fearing that if women's clothes were not constructed with a definite sex-appeal, they would not be beautiful.

This is an error. Human beauty is something far beyond sex beauty. Many a woman may fall far short of even our standards of true beauty, and yet be irresistible to the opposite sex. Others are nobly beautiful and yet fail to charm.

The beauty we need is human beauty; that grave, sweet, noble womanhood which is conscious of its high place and power; the beauty of dignity and freedom, not the hectic flutter of spangles designed to attract the eye of the necessary male.

It is clear that one of the strongest forces helping on such a change in the dress of women is that basic power of freedom. The penniless dependent woman may not dress as she likes, but must dress as she has to. Free women will demand freedom in choice of their own clothes.

Another helpful force is the increasing differentiation of women as they take up new occupations and specialize in them. While women all follow one trade, the unpaid labor in the home, it is far easier to dress them according to arbitrary fashions than it will be when they become more strongly individualized.

Political independence is also a great help. It adds to the sense of power, the feeling of personal dignity. The slave in the harem or the cook in the kitchen may be willing to dress like a doll or a tame monkey, but Queen Demos will hold a new attitude toward life.

Such change for the better in the clothing of women will greatly affect the feeling of men toward them, and, in itself, help to promote their progress. The little boy would not so soon look down on the little girl if she and he were dressed alike. He despises, and with reason, that silly, bobbing, enormous bow of bright ribbon on the head which answers no purpose whatever except to scream: “This is a girl." He despises, and with reason, the frail material and foolish shape of her frocks, which last either prevents free action, or accompanies it with unseemly exposure.

The girl child is by nature as big and strong, as enterprising and agile, as the boy. It is by artificial means that we divide them and restrict her, at the same time fostering in her, with elaborate care, the sex-consciousness and “clothes-consciousness" which hamper all her later life.

The young man would find it easier to maintain a hearty comradeship with young women, if the young women were not dressed to attract. There is no better safeguard for the excitable emotions of youth than free friendly association on equal terms, thus maintaining mutual acquaintance and respect on the ground of a common humanity, instead of adding an artificial mystery and distinction to the natural attraction of the sexes.

The heaviest charge of all the many that may be brought against the dress of women is its being so predominantly sexual. We should take a lesson from the “lower animals," remembering that their special sex-adornments are not only confined to the male, but often appear only in the mating season. We have not only put the tail of the peacock on the back of the pea-hen, but the poor thing must needs strut and spread it all the time; she must, too, if he feeds her for her beauty. He spreads that blue-green splendor for mating purposes, and sheer male pride; she would have to spread it whenever she was hungry.

The whole field of morbid sex-activitv, which so evilly distinguishes our race, would be most healthfully affected by a desexualizing of women's clothes.

The child's natural love of beauty should be carefully developed, gratified and trained, in boy and girl alike. The young people should be encouraged to study beauty, and provided with really beautiful garments—both boys and girls.

A return to normal in the dress of women would be accompanied by a similar normality in the dress of men. It is no advantage to the world to have men as sad-colored and monotonous as they are now.

To put it briefly, we should so change our costumes as to lower sex-distinction and heighten race-distinction.

The freeing of individual taste in women would be promptly reflected in men; and the higher beauty sense now shown by women would be inherited and trained in sons as well as daughters.

It may be well to offer to our anemic imaginations, pale and prostrate from long disuse, one or two concrete suggestions: things possible to buy and wear now.

Knit underwear in a wide variety, or its equivalent in muslin or silk, may be obtained in simple and comfortable shapes; one-piece affairs of skirt and bodice together, or drawers and bodice together. Knickerbockers also are available. Also certain forms of “brassiere” which answer the purpose of a bust supporter, when needed. Long stockings may be gartered with no injury to the body by a loose hipgirdle, coming below the abdominal curve and held securely by the heavier muscles at side and rear.

Shoes that are neither ugly nor injurious may be wrung from reluctant tradesmen; some few manufacturers make a specialty of such. A continued demand would of course increase the supply.

Hats, just at present, may be found in thoroughly good shapes and sizes.

In all this there is no great difficulty save in the matter of shoes; yet even there the French heel, and almost as high Cuban heel, may be kicked out of existence in a year's time by the simple process of not buying them. The steady demand of thousands of women for low heels would bring them as fast as the factories could turn them out.

As to dresses, it is also possible at the present time, December, 1915, to buy ready-made, or have constructed by temporarily complacent makers, an extremely comfortable and pretty kind of dress. There are also many kinds which are neither, but the pleasant thing is that any good ones are available.

The new fashion of high fur collars, now patiently being accepted by the same women who have been baring their bronchial region to all the winds that blew, need not be accepted; nor the unnecessarily voluminous skirt.

These things are merely mentioned to show that there is an “isle of safety" just now for thosc who wish to begin to be sensible.

The second step is to stick to it—to refuse to give up the sensible for the silly.

The third, and most important, is to strike out for oneself; to cultivate an original distinctive personal taste; to invent for oneself, or to choose a special personal style and hold to it.

The fourth is to initiate a new industry, a new kind of dressmaker's establishment.

Let us enter one, one that is all that it should be, a “palace of industry" indeed.

In the reception rooms are casts of noble statues, pictures of typical historic dresses, books on the evolution of costume and on textile and decorative art. Also most interesting cabinets, containing little figurines, with dresses of certain periods, races, or arranged to indicate the lines of growth and decadence in a given fashion; as for instance the increase in the number of starched petticoats which immediately preceded the crinoline—I knew a lady who wore nine, going to a party about 1850—and then the narrower bell-shaped ones in which the crinoline dwindles to extinction in the early seventies.

There should be great sample books of various fabrics, patterns of laces and the like; a full and reliable choosing ground.

Then comes the larger exhibition room, with samples of all standard fabrics, and where many types of costume are shown on dummies, on models seen in action, on the purchaser who wishes to try the effect. Huge mirrors should be here, and deep closets full of lovely sample robes.

The consulting expert would be a person of wide experience and thorough education, with a keen color sense, and a sensitive perception of personal distinction—a sort of diagnostician and prescriber—to point out one's special type and kind of garment indicated. Here one could express and defend one's preferences, call for certain colors and combinations, and be intelligently and sympathetically met. A rather blundering description of what cne had in mind would be helped out by quick reference to book, picture, or figurine, and a desired effect immediately illustrated on the living model.

"That's it!” cries the purchaser, delighted. “I knew it would be pretty. Make me one like that!"

If one had no choice, even among the offered samples, one might safely submit oneself to this expert. Shape, size, coloring, action, all carefully studied; such and such kinds of dress would be suggested; and people who do not like to bother about their clothes could “put themselves in the hands" of such a competent and disinterested guide as contentedly as they now commit themselves to the tender mercies of the fashion-makers

The designing room would be like an architect's office—widewindowed, clean, with great drawing tables and all the materials for line and color treatment; and the workroom, light, airy and beautiful, be filled with efficient needlewomen who had all been fully educated in their profession and loved it.

Now think again of a new kind of wardrobe at home. Think of the deep satisfying peace of having worked out the kind of costume which absolutely suited you, from the innermost to the outermost garment. Then to be able, without fuss or worry, to have made up, or to buy ready-made, a sufficient number of those perfectly satisfying garments; and then not to have to think of clothes again till they began to wear out!

The result is not monotony; nothing like the monotony of the present, where each and all must wear what “they" are wearing, whether they look well in it or not.

Some women would perhaps choose to wear always one kind of dress, but not many. Almost all of us like a change now and then. And there might be a thousand changes, yet, always beauty.

If some plump little curly-head preferred a Dolly Varden kind of dress of brightest figured chintz, she might wear it uncriticized by the side of another who insisted on a straight, long-sleeved, medieval gown of heavy silk; or still another who chose the slender “Empire" style in sheer muslin, and was beautified therein.

The differences we now find in the ever-revolving wheel of changing fashions we might still have, all at once and all the time—if we wanted them. Now we are all alike in one kind of foolish dress, until we are all alike in another. Then we could all be different, as different as in a fancy dress ball, if we so preferred.

The probability, however, is something like this: In the interests of comfort and convenience in ordinary work, women will become largely similar in dress through business hours; not as drearily identical as men are now, but still similar. Where the occupation agrees, the costume should agree, within reason. But when working hours are over, at home, or at play, anywhere, the whole world of women could blossom out to their heart's content, in beauty as varied as the flowers.

The human body is all one living thing. We cannot have disease in one part, and all the rest remain perfectly healthy. Even neglect of a given part, with its progressive atrophy, injures the circulation and general health. So with the human mind. The most elaborate education of one part does not make an intelligent person, if the rest remains a blank. Even the exercise of the reasoning faculty, on some subjects, does not make a reasonable being if the brain is never used on others.

So long as we remain positively foolish or negatively unreasoning, in any large department of life, the harmonious development of the mind is checked. This matter of the dress of women is mainly important as it affects the minds of women, and so the mind of the whole world. It is of measureless importance to our progress that women rapidly advance in all human powers and faculties. That advance is feared, disliked, and opposed on the ground that women are creatures of sex, whose place in life is wholly functional, limited to the fulfillment of sex relations, and of a group of low-grade, aborted industries practiced in the home.

The progress of women has been so far attained by colossal efforts. through which it has been proved, over and over, that women have human faculties as well as feminine ones. It is on the visible achievements of women that the change in public opinion turns. In our present stage of progress one of the strongest deterrent factors is the archaic absurdity of women's clothes.

They are now eagerly asking, demanding the ballot. The earnest speaker says: "The use of the ballot is human. I am a human being; treat me as such." But what the man sees, in the shop windows which leave no inmost secret of under-clothing concealed, and on the barenecked, bare-shouldered, bare-backed, bare-chested and bare-axillaed ladies at dinner and at dance, is a species of dress which fairly screams at him: “I am a Female! Treat me as such!"

And he does.

It is inconceivable to the masculine mind that a being capable of wearing those ultra-sexual shoes—shoes the entire purpose of which is to make of the foot an alluring ornament; or those under-garments so unmistakably created to be looked through, not in the least to clothe and cover, but to stimulate the imagination, to be more exciting than a decent nudity; or those evening gowns (unworthy of that decent name) which are mere casual draperies, appearing in immediate danger of coming off, and meant to appear that way—dresses so worse than sleeveless as to require the use of a razor under the arm, in order that there may not be exhibited what even our present shamelessness is a little ashamed to show—it is inconceivable to him that such a being is a reasonable being, a human being, anything but a Female with the largest of F's.

Can we blame the masculine mind?

Can we with any logic demand one kind of freedom, while visibly willing to submit to the senseless dominion of fashion?

Of course, if the masculine mind were wholly reasonable itself it would see that the pot cannot call the kettle black and expect the kettle to make no retort. Women may well point to the eighty-five million dollar tobacco crop shown in the report of 1911, or to the two-billion, two-hundred and thirty-three million, four-hundred and twenty thousand, four hundred and sixty-one gallons of spirits, malt liquors and wines consumed in these United States in one year, 1913. So long as the weak foolishness of men gives way to drug habits like these, it ill becomes them to say that the foolishness of women unfits them for the ballot. If unwisdom, or even wickedness were the measure of unfitness to vote, we should have a most restricted election.

But recrimination defends neither party. Men, with all their sins upon their heads (and also upon the heads of their wives and children) are still able to keep the world moving, while women are now claiming the right and the duty of helping in the process, and even asserting that they can move it to better ends.

It is the woman who must ask of the man the further opportunity to prove her wisdom, her high purposes, her effective human power. Such being her position today, it is immeasurably important that she should stand above all reproach. She has shown a cleaner record in vice and crime; she is proven industrious and faithful; she is, for the most part, a wise and careful spender of her husband's earnings; she still holds, in spite of all her limitations, a high place in man's esteem.

What then will be her place when she outgrows those limitations? When men see about them strong, sensible, active fellow-citizens. able and vigorous in body and mind, instead of these highly decorative objects, toddling about on their silly little heels, having to be helped on or off a street car, always inviting the open stare or furtive glance of superficial admiration.

The coming change in the Dress of Women is not so much a change of costume as a change of mind. Also it is a change of body. It is as if the women ceased to be dwarfs and suddenly grew up, grew to full human stature. It means a different kind of women; women with a new kind of pride, a new dignity, a new honor; women who with a few ycars of freedom and well-used judgment will marvel at the strange hypnotism which for so long has made them willingly ridiculous.

This is not a movement for dress reform. It does not require either a special kind of costume, or any laborious banding together to support one another in timid advancement, as, in the period of street-sweeping skirts there was a little society of women who wore short skirts on rainy days—“The Rainy Daisies," they were called.

All that is needed is the use of the individual judgment, the individual will, and both grow stronger with that use. There are no real lions in the path—nothing but mere false ideas. We slavishly do as we are told under the impression that something terrible will happen to us if we do not. But nothing does happen. How could it? There are no legal penalties for being sensible.

You say: “Oh, but I could not do it alone! If I wore low heels I should be conspicuous!"

Remember that you are not alone; there are millions of others, all in the same frame of mind; all waiting in their chronic submissiveness for somebody else to move first. Yet women have not lacked strength or courage to meet real danger. They stood with their men to fight the savages in pioneer days. They went to the stake as bravely as did men. They need only to see the importance, the duty, of this change and they will make it easily. Here is no stake, no lion, no savage, nothing to fear but the adverse comment of people you know to be foolish—whereas at present women boldly sustain adverse comment from the wisest.

Shall women, who in their folly have not been moved by the jeering ridicule of the wisdom of all the ages, flinch now, when their growing wisdom shall meet the ridicule of a dwindling group of fools? They who have been conspicuous by their folly for so long, ought not to shrink from becoming conspicuous by their wisdom.

Man's contempt for the excesses of women's dress has its root in a deep-seated instinct, an instinct which knew she is not the one designed by nature to strut and flaunt in gorgeous plumage.

The majesty of womanhood will shine out in a far nobler splendor when she drops forever her false decoration, and learns that beauty lies in truth, in dignity, in full expression of our highest human powers.

(The End.)