CHAPTER I.
ON THE RELATION OF DRESS TO THE HUMAN FIGURE.
EVER since the cultivation of literature in Europe, and long perhaps before that time—for there were talkers before there were writers in the world—the absurdities of Fashion have formed a constant theme of declamation; but, after a careful review of what has been written upon this subject, we rise from the perusal of a number of learned and interesting books, without having in the whole course of our reading met with one single observation on the true principle of a scientific adaptation of the dress to the body. Nature has taken care to suit the external envelope to the internal organs of the frame—has made even the bones so yielding that the soft and delicate organs which are encased in them may have a free development; but the designers of dress have ever been interfering with her method; and, for this simple reason, because dressing has been an art in which the fashion and cost of the clothing have been the objects of display. Now, in our conception, there should be a science rather than an art of dressing, and that, too, founded upon certain principles of adaptation by which the external clothing shall display the full beauty of the naturally well-formed figure; and, in cases where nature has not bestowed a perfect form, the defect should be atoned for by supporting the weak organs, and restoring the figure according to our ideal of what it was intended that that particular body should be. Everyone, we suppose, will admit that there is a natural standard of beauty; and that standard is what we are ever attempting to approximate to.
In all uncivilized countries mankind mutilate the body under the
