Costume: Fanciful, Historical and Theatrical

The time has long gone by when the dress of his own period would serve the turn of the actor in any character in any play, irrespective of the century in which its story passed....

In Russia the convention of dress may not serve as an index to the mind of the country, for the peasant is allowed to share with the prince a fancy for gold, coloured embroidery...

"And never the twain shall meet," lilts Kipling of the East and the West; and in the province of dress, as everywhere else in the Orient, caste, ruling supreme, writes incontrov...

The rules and regulations of ceremonial dress are as exacting, if not as unalterable, as ever were those of the Medes and Persians. Kings and Emperors punctiliously observe the...

All over China, and particularly in official circles, dress is determined by certain fixed laws, the result being that every detail possesses a meaning for those capable of inte...

I regret, from the practical as well as the artistic point of view, the threatened disappearance of local colouring, as emphasised by the characteristic costume of the people, f...

Marie Stuart shares with Madame de Pompadour the honour of standing godmother to fashions which will be known through the ages by their names. The former luckless lady will ever...

On trying to set down a chronicle of dress as it lived in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, my mind becomes immediately obsessed with short-waisted gowns; and a vision...

Sympathy between Church and Stage is of no novel date. The relationship between the two has been close and intimate since the days when no religious festival was complete withou...

The material question seems to have been answered in every country save England, where the initiative in manufacture is conspicuous by its absence, though we have through the ce...

The Tudor period brought an extraordinary revolution in dress, the first important change taking place in the sleeves, which were now of different material and different colour...

Italian in conception, the domino is of ecclesiastical origin, and as such has retained its monkish aspect throughout the many changes rung by fashion. In its primitive form it...

Familiarity has bred respect, even affection, for the typical costume of Charles I.'s reign, and that unfortunate monarch himself, depicted by Van Dyck in sombre coat and lace c...

While searching in the annals of the bygone costume of the peasant, the most democratic person might be tempted to regret the repealing of all sumptuary law. We are grateful to-...

Sumptuous and ever more sumptuous grew dress in the fourteenth century, when the outfit brought by Isabella of France, upon the occasion of her marriage with Edward II., was a c...

Extravagance to the fantastic point pursued its outrageous way in the fifteenth century; the dresses were tightly belted at the waist, and trailed long lengths upon the floor, w...

The fancy-dress ball of private enterprise has nowadays comparatively little patronage. The hostess is willing, but the guest is weak, and while idleness is at the root of most...

A comparative simplicity marked the raiment of the thirteenth century, when the elaborate detail yielded place to ample folds of drapery, capacious mantles, and flowing trains....

Fashion, even under exalted patronage, had scant chance to distinguish herself in the bad old days of the Romans. She, who now must be obeyed, was forced then to take a back sea...

From the days of the early Britons to the twelfth century is a long jump, but in many countries the growth of new fashions was so slow that to attempt to describe it would mean...