Dress design Part 1

Dress design.

by Talbot Hughes.

GENERAL PREFACE TO THE SERIES

In issuing this volume of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims.

In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of workshop practice, from the points of view of experts who have critically examined the methods current in the shops, and putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship, and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially a.s.sociated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat design itself as an essential part of good workmanship. During the last century most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of an academic kind, were little considered, and there was a tendency to look on "design" as a mere matter of _appearance_. Such "ornamentation" as there was was usually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by an artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved in production. With the critical attention given to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought--that is, from design--inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a language addressed to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech of the tool.

In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing reasonable occupations for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art, the compet.i.tion, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen, there is every probability that nearly every one who would pa.s.s through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success.

In the blending of handwork and thought in such arts as we propose to deal with, happy careers may be found as far removed from the dreary routine of hack labour, as from the terrible uncertainty of academic art. It is desirable in every way that men of good education should be brought back into the productive crafts: there are more than enough of us "in the city," and it is probable that more consideration will be given in this century than in the last to Design and Workmanship.

The designing and making of Costume is a craft--sometimes artistic--with which we are all more or less concerned. It is also, in its own way, one of the living arts, that is, it is still carried forward experimentally by experts directly attached to the "business." It has not yet been subjected to rules of good taste formulated by Academies and Universities; but when Inigo Jones, the great architect, was asked to make some designs for fancy dress, he based them on the Five Orders of Architecture, and ponderous fancies they were.

If we look for the main stem of principle on which modern Costume develops, we seem to find it in the desire for freshness, for the clean, the uncrushed, and the perfectly fitted and draped. Probably a modern lady's ideal would be to wear a dress once, and then burn it.

A correlative of the ideal of freshness is the delight in perfect "cut,"

and the rapidly changing fashions are doubtless conditioned in part by the desire for the new and unsullied. "Novelty" is a guarantee of newness.

In such ephemeral productions it would be vain to seek for certain fine types of excellence which were once common when dresses were not so lightly cast aside. So it is necessary that we should understand what the ruling principle is, for it is one which will not be set aside at the bidding of well-meaning reformers. I will only venture to say that it would be desirable to make the attempt to separate in some degree the more constant elements of dress from those which are more variable. It will seem a pity to more than outsiders that a "well-dressed" person need wear so little which deserves to have been made by human hands, and nothing which deserves to be preserved. Fine laces and jewels are allowed to be antique--could not the circle of such things be a little broadened? A properly groomed man carries about on him literally nothing worth looking at. We might surely look for a watch-chain with some delicacy of handiwork--something beyond mechanical reductions of iron cables. Fine b.u.t.tons might conceivably be made to go with the studs, or be made of crystal, amethyst, and silver or gold. Women might allow of the transfer of fine embroidered applications from one dress to another, or make more use of clasps and the like. I am confident that when it is pointed out, it will be felt as a shortcoming that no part of a fine lady's dress need now be too good to throw away. Although the present volume is cast into the form of a history, it is also intended to be a book of suggestions; and the hope is held that modern dressmakers may refer to it as much as, or more than, those who are interested in dress from the historical point of view.

In any case the author's accurate knowledge of the facts, and his many bright sketches--which are often drawn from examples in his own remarkable collection--make the present volume an admirable handbook of English Costume. The more technical "patterns" which are included amongst the ill.u.s.trations will be found most valuable to all who wish to go deeper than the first glance reveals.

W. R. LETHABY.

1913.

CONTENTS

PAGE GENERAL PREFACE TO THE SERIES xi

_Preface_ xiv

LIST OF PLATES xxiii

INTRODUCTION 33

CHAPTER I

Prehistoric Dress--Female 40 Prehistoric Dress--Male 41

CHAPTER II

The Development of Costume to the Tenth Century--Female 45 The Development of Costume to the Tenth Century--Male 49

CHAPTER III

Tenth to the Fifteenth Century--Female 57 Tenth to the Fifteenth Century--Male 71

CHAPTER IV

Fifteenth Century--Female 84 Fifteenth Century--Male 92

CHAPTER V

Sixteenth Century. Character of Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs 109 Sixteenth Century. Henry VIII--Female 113 Sixteenth Century. Henry VIII--Male 118 Sixteenth Century. The Reigns of Edward VI and Mary--Female 124 Sixteenth Century. The Reigns of Edward VI and Mary--Male 129 Sixteenth Century. Elizabeth--Female 133 Sixteenth Century. Elizabeth--Male 139

CHAPTER VI

The Character of Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs through the Seventeenth Century 142 James I 142 Charles I 143 The Commonwealth 145 Charles II 145 James II and William and Mary 146 Seventeenth Century. James I--Female 147 Seventeenth Century. James I--Male 150 Seventeenth Century. Charles I--Female 154 Seventeenth Century. Charles I--Male 160 Seventeenth Century. The Commonwealth--Male and Female 168 Seventeenth Century. Charles II--Female 169 Seventeenth Century. Charles II--Male 174 Seventeenth Century. James II--Female 178 Seventeenth Century. James II--Male 180 Seventeenth Century. William and Mary--Female 184 Seventeenth Century. William and Mary--Male 186

CHAPTER VII

The Character of Decoration and Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of the Eighteenth Century 190 Eighteenth Century. Anne--Female 193 Eighteenth Century. Anne--Male 198 Eighteenth Century. George I--Female 201 Eighteenth Century. George I--Male 207 Eighteenth Century. George II--Female 211 Eighteenth Century. George II--Male 214 Eighteenth Century. George III to 1800--Female 217 Eighteenth Century. George III to 1800--Male 231

CHAPTER VIII

Character of Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of the Nineteenth Century 237 Nineteenth Century. George III--Female 241 Nineteenth Century. George III--Male 246 Nineteenth Century. George IV--Female 248 Nineteenth Century. George IV, 1820-30--Male 254 Nineteenth Century. William IV--Female 258 Nineteenth Century. William IV--Male 263 Nineteenth Century. Victoria--Female 264 Nineteenth Century. Victoria--Male 273

PATTERNS OF VARIOUS REIGNS FROM ANTIQUE COSTUME 276

PATTERNS TO SCALE 283

PATTERNS TO SCALE, DETAILED LIST 353

INDEX 359

LIST OF DESCRIPTIVE LINES TO THE PLATES

FRONTISPIECE _Facing t.i.tle_ A Long-trained Muslin Dress, about 1800.

PLATE I _Facing p. 39_ Boots and Shoes from the Fourteenth to Nineteenth Century.

PLATE II " 42 _A._ Elizabethan Robe in Plush, 1585-1605.

_B._ Elizabethan Robe in Silk Brocade, 1565-85.

_C._ Elizabethan Male Robe in Velvet Brocade, 1580-1615.