Fashion
Fashion, in all its tyranny,
has made its appearance; if you wish, we will devote some of our
time to the subject, attempt to explain it as best we can. From
the very first, it is easy to let ourselves be persuaded that the
changes it brings in this year are of minimal importance; that
last year's dress could, if absolutely necessary, hold its head
up alongside the one that is newly appeared this season; oh, if
there were no subtle differences! but there are so many! You must
notice them, feel them, disown the past; open your eyes, and even
more so your purse, to whatever our designers summon up with such
slyness.
A wool or vicuna dress for the daytime; dark
green, violet, navy blue, are the correct things to wear. The
dark and simple style of this fashion justifies its name, riding
wear, if the length of the dress doesn't make it somewhat
restrictive. I would quite willingly call it the sweeper.
The straight skirt maintains its place, but it
has further increased its fullness, cut more and more on the
bias. This fullness thus driven back to its furthest entrenched
position, has become a problem that only our greatest dressmakers
know how to resolve.
The blouse is in complete revolution. It
doesn't want to let itself stop at the hip; it calls to mind its
grandest incarnation under the glorious reigns of Louis XIII and
Louis XIV. The great basque is no longer a fugitive vision,
but truly a very happy adaptation of our blouse, a refuge for
questionable hips. This authorized dissimulation is a great step
forward.
The blouse itself is subject to every possible
variation; but above all it is called upon to follow the shape of
the bust, if necessary to improve its gracefulness and reduce its
size.
Silk muslin - not the holy muslin of our
mothers - is always the order of the day - along with expensive
and precious lace around the decolletage, more square than
pointed.
Don't hold back on ornamentation in delicate
gem stones; emeralds, rubies, opals, turquoises; and don't go and
mislead yourself with false moral conclusions; your sincerity
will not be damaged, your finery risks nothing by being seen
beside its false sisters.
The hat delights in excess: large fedora, with
huge plumes, blocking the horizon, displeasing your neighbour in
the theatre! microscopic mantle; a little bit more and it will
only be a walk on part on the bill; but your head will not show a
trace of it. No matter! for the moment, a fabulous bird, emerald
in colour, gold or blue azure, delicately unfolding its long
wings in the middle of a medley of pearled tulle.
Mantle in black chenille, strewn with dark
stones, tucked up at the back by a clasp in black diamonds,
allowing a few curls of hair to escape, triumphant rivals of the
tuft of little feathers, already worn so much. A simple little
bow of a delicate shade, sky blue in preference, cast into this
rather severe ensemble like a livelier, more cheerful thought in
the middle of a serious dissertation: so much for the hat.
The most important question of all, the dress!
Great anxiety: the short jacket abandoned. Where would you want
the great basques to take refuge, if not beneath a long dress, in
the form of a round cloak or large jacket in the Louis XV style?
You gasp, madam; for the last year you have had a jacket in otter
fur; it cost you an arm and a leg; and now this vile fashion is
forcing you to abandon it! The short jacket banished, Romeo
banished! No, my dear Juliet, don't worry. The situation is not
as bad as you think; "he has made his peace with God";
we have agreed to leave the matter to the aristocrats, in otter
fur, in astrakhan, their usual cut and their relative length. The
great pelisse in wool is all the rage; it is garnished with gold
lace, with jet; Medici collar, decorated with feathers, so that
the edge of the dress, which is lined with shot silk, brings to
mind those fabulous dull coloured insects which, when they open
their wings, suddenly hit you with sparkling reflections. This
dress then is both sober and serious; but the way you wear it
changes the character, the effect; and if I may be so bold as to
offer some advice to the imprudent fisher who is approaching this
Lorelei, I would say...
Nothing today; we will come back to it next
time, and then we shall tackle the ball gown: that is to say the
infinite!
SHOOTING STAR
Le Mensuel no 3, Dec 1890. From Proust, Écrits sur l'art, GF Flammarion, 1999.
*
By promising you the other day
to speak about the ball gown I have put myself, I think, in a
difficult position. An article entitled "Fashion" must,
above all, aim for what is relevant; it must to some extent
anticipate the age. Well the ball gown is, nowadays, fully
functional, and anything I might say about it would be of no
consequence. Wouldn't it be wiser to confess that I am behind the
times? The frank confession of my badly chosen words will no
doubt excuse me for not keeping my word; but if I don't duly talk
to you about ball gowns and the snows of yesteryear, could I be
permitted by the way to express a regret on the subject? It is
about young girls' ball gowns. A young girl had a privilege that
she should never have had to give up: she could be simple. She
could wear tulle, flowers at a ball. Tulle, with its fragile
appearance, gracefully covered her and formed a barrier, so to
speak, against too close contact with her neighbours; one would
approach her with less assurance, with less boldness, for fear of
crumpling that delicate covering. Today that obstacle has been
removed: the young girl has almost become the young woman, and
that I deplore. It is, it seems, the Americans who have brought
about this change in us; would we not have been able, left to our
own devices, to manage better without them sending us this
import? But here I am far away from my subject, and I am almost
forgetting that "Prince Charming", spring, with all his
favours is upon us. For some time now he has been retiring under
his tent, giving free rein to wind and showers; but he is not
there so much any more because of it, and has left me free to
search among his treasures. There are so many that it is
difficult to know where to start, and to lose one's head over it.
Let's start there then - with the hat.
Getting smaller and smaller, the hat perches
itself on the curls like a circumflex accent. Sometimes it's a
butterfly, an aigrette in jet, sometimes wings of gold lose
themselves in tulle or in a bouquet of flowers.
The round hat is still waiting for the most
blazing rays of the sun to brighten it up; but we can already
predict that its brims will be large, the crown shallow and with
boundless imagination in its positioning of feathers and flowers.
- Below that the clothing.
The large jacket is always preferable for the
elegant figure; it can be worn long, in the style of Louis XV
with lapels, in simple wool or richly adorned with a mixture of
jet and matt embroidery.
The half-length cape is still all the rage;
but, the shops supplying the latest fashions having taken over
this creation, the mission of our dressmakers has become more and
more delicate: to triumph over banality, that is everything! they
have succeeded. - The cape in fine wool or in Sicilian with its
Mephistophelean shape or, if you prefer, Henri II, with its
trimmings a mixture of jet and gold, its fringes of jet or large
sections of lace; its Medici collar but cut lower to allow
greater freedom of movement for the neck, lined with a smooth
fabric, either light or dark, that is "the last word".
Above all avoid clothing embroidered with jet cabochons, the
carbuncle of the season! it has fallen into vulgarity; it is
yesterday's star attraction, as Sarcey said.
The spring dress has not yet made its
appearance felt; but the few specimens I have seen from our great
dressmakers give me license to talk to you about them with some
conviction. Above all let us be joyful for the freedom that
prevails there. One can wear anything; everything is acceptable
in the name of elegance and taste, also good the large, flapped
skirt with waistcoat embroidered with stylish designs, but the
bodice with embroidered or plain waist band leaving it to the
same material to play its little games in the form of pleats and
frills.
I have seen a grey dress of impeccable taste.
Where? How? I'll give you four guesses, I'll give you ten, I'll
give you a hundred! I shall restrain myself simply to giving you
a detailed description of it.
The dress in question is in a shade of light
grey; the fabric of fine wool recalls the velvetiness of
corduroy, so sought after this winter, and yet at the same time
as light to wear as a headscarf. The skirt, with a short train,
is lined with taffeta; this latest innovation avoids the bottom
of the skirt and simplifies matters for those who have not been
given the task of caring for the municipality and sweeping the
streets.
Lace that imitates old Venetian trims the
bottom of this skirt, the stuff of which is cut entirely on the
bias, which adds much to its elegance. The trimming of ribbon
that moderates the lace calls to mind that of the corsage all
strewn with embroidered steel pearls, the front of which ends in
pleats on a waistcoat of Venetian lace, which then continues
around the waist in the form of a basque.
A dress in black was able to charm me equally.
But wouldn't it be better to stop at the grey note?
"Perhaps". It is on this word that one of Alexander
Dumas' comedies ends (A Woman's Torment). Why say
anything more but release you from
SHOOTING STAR?
Le Mensuel no 6, March 1891. From Proust, Écrits sur l'art, GF Flammarion, 1999.