in a frayed and greasy morning coat after the cut of that in which
a rich man will pay a London morning call. English fashions for
men are followed in Paris. London women follow the modes of
the rue de la Paix. Berlin tailors and dressmakers laboriously
misapprehend both styles. To those who do not understand the
international trafficking of the middle ages and the age of
renascence it is strange to note how little the fashions varied in
European lands. All kinds of folks, crusaders and merchants,
diplomatists and religious, carried between nation and nation the
news of the latest cut of the shears.
 | |
| From Hottenroth, Trachten der Völker. |
From Hottenroth, Trachten der Völker. |
| Fig. 50.—A French Nobleman (c. 1660). | Fig. 51.—A Spanish Nobleman (latter half of 16th century). |
Nevertheless, national character touched each nation’s dress—the Venetian loving the stateliness of flowing line, the Germans grotesque slashings and jaggings. Frenchmen, says Randle Holme in the 17th century, keep warm and muff themselves in cold weather, “but in summer through fantastical dresses go almost naked.” For the same writer the Spaniard was noted as a man in a high-crowned hat with narrow brim, a ruff about his neck, a doublet with short and narrow skirts and broad wings at the shoulders, ruff-cuffs at his hands, breeches narrow and close to his thighs, hose gartered, shoes with rounded toes, a short cloak and a long sword. In all of those points we may take it that the Spaniard differed from the Englishman as observed by this observant one. Even in our own days we may catch something of those national fashions. The Spaniard may no longer walk with his long sword, his ruff and gartered hose, but he keeps his fancy for sombre blacks, and so do the citizens of those Netherlands which he once ruled. (O. Ba.)
III. National and Class Costume
Costume, as readers of Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus know, always has a significance deeper than the mere whims of fashion. In the cosmopolitan society of modern times dress everywhere tends to become assimilated to a common model, and this assimilation, however regrettable from the picturesque point of view, is one of the most potent forces in the break-down of the traditional social distinctions. In the middle ages in Europe, and indeed down to the French Revolution, the various classes of the community were clearly differentiated by their dress. Everywhere, of course, it happened that occasionally jackdaws strutted in peacock’s feathers; but even in England, where class distinctions were early less clearly marked than on the continent of Europe, the assumption of a laced coat and a sword marked the development of a citizen into a “gentleman” (q.v.). Nothing has more powerfully contributed to the social amalgamation of the “upper-middle” and the “upper” classes in England than the fashion, introduced in the 19th century, of extreme simplicity in the costume of men. But, apart from the properties of richness in material or decoration as a symbol of class distinction—at one time enforced by sumptuary laws—there have been, and still are, innumerable varieties of costume more or less traditional as proper to certain nationalities or certain classes within those nationalities. Of national costumes properly so called the best known to the English-speaking world is that of the Highlands of Scotland. This is, indeed no longer generally worn, being usually confined to gentlemen of birth and their dependents, but it remains a national dress and is officially recognized as such by the English court and in the uniforms of the Highland regiments in the British army. The chief peculiarity of this costume, distinguishing it from any others, is the tartan, an arrangement of a prevailing colour with more or less narrow checks of other colours, by which the various clans or septs of the same race can be distinguished, while a certain general uniformity symbolizes the union of the clans in a common nationality. Thus, e.g. the tartan of the clan McDonell is green with narrow checks of red, that of the clan Gregarach red with narrow checks of black. The costume consists of a short tunic, vest, a kilt—heavily pleated—fastened round the waist, and reaching not quite to the knees (like a short petticoat), stockings gartered below the bare knee, and shoes. In front of the person, hanging from a belt round the waist, is the “sporran” or “spleuchan,” a pocket-purse covered with fur; and a large “plaid” or scarf, usually wrapped round the body, the ends hanging down from a brooch fastened on the left shoulder, but sometimes gathered up and hanging from the brooch behind, completes the costume. The head-gear is a cloth cap or “bonnet,” in which a sprig of heather is stuck, or an eagle’s feather in the case of chiefs. A dirk is worn thrust into the right stocking. Up to the end of the 16th century the tunic and “philibeg” or kilt formed a single garment; but otherwise the costume has come down the ages without sensible modification. Kilt and plaid are of tartan; and sometimes tartan “trews,” i.e. trousers, are substituted for the former.
Among other national costumes still surviving in Europe may be mentioned the Albanian-Greek dress (characterized by the spreading, pleated white kilt, or fustanella), and the splendid full-dress of a Hungarian gentleman, the prototype of the well-known hussar uniform; to which may be added the Tirolese costume, which, so far as the men are concerned, is characterized by short trousers, cut off above the knee, and a short jacket, the colour varying in different districts. This latter trait illustrates the fact that most of the still surviving “national” costumes in Europe are in fact local and distinctive of class, though they conform to a national type. These “folk-costumes” (Volkstrachten), as the Germans call them, survive most strongly in the most conservative of all classes, that of the peasants and naturally mainly in those districts least accessible to modern “enterprise.” These peasant costumes, often of astonishing richness and beauty, vary more or less in every village, each community having its own traditional type; and, since this type does not vary, they can be handed down as valuable heirlooms from father to son and from mother to daughter. But they are fast disappearing. In the British islands, where there were no free peasant cultivators to maintain the pride of class, they vanished long since; the white caps and steeple-crowned hats of Welsh women were the last to go; and even the becoming and convenient “sun bonnet,” which survives in the United States, has given place almost everywhere to the hideous “cloth cap” of commerce; while the ancient smocked frock, the equivalent of the French peasant’s workmanlike blouse, has become a curiosity. The same process is proceeding elsewhere; for the simple peasant women cannot resist the blandishments of the commercial traveller and the temptation of change and cheap finery. The transition is at once painful and amusing, and not without interest as illustrating the force of tradition in its struggle with fashion; for it is no uncommon thing, e.g. in France or Holland, to see a “Paris model” perched lamentably on the top of the beautiful traditional head-dress. Similarly in the richer Turkish families women are rapidly acquiring a taste for Parisian costumes, frequently worn in absurd combination with their ordinary garments.
The same process has extended far beyond the limits of Europe. Improved communication and industrial enterprise have combined with the prestige of European civilization to commend the European type of costume to peoples for whom it is eminently unsuited. Even the peoples of the East, whose costume has remained unchanged for untold centuries, and for whom the type has been (as in India) often determined by religious considerations, are showing an increasing tendency to yield to the world-fashion. Turkey, as being most closely in touch with Europe, was the first to feel the influence; the introduction of the fez and the frock-coat, in place of the large turban and flowing caftan of the old Turk, was the most conspicuous of the reforms of Sultan Mahmud II.; and when, in 1909, the first Turkish parliament met, only a small minority of its members wore their traditional costumes. The introduction of Japan into the comity of nations was followed by the adoption of European costume by the court and the upper classes, at least in public and on ceremonial occasions; in private the wide-sleeved, loose, comfortable kimono continues to be worn. China, on the other hand, has been more conservative, even her envoys in Europe preserving intact (except sometimes in the matter of boots) the traditional costume of their nation and class, while those of Japan, Corea and Siam appear in the conventional diplomatic or “evening” dress in Europe. In the Mussulman East, even when
