Dress and Fashion
XXVI
The plainest dress is always the most genteel, and a lady that dresses plainly will never be dressed unfashionably. Next to plainness, in every well-dressed lady, is neatness of dress and taste in the selection of colors.
XXVII
Let your dress harmonize with your complexion, your size, and the circumstances in which you may be placed: for instance, the dress for walking, for a dinner or an evening party, each requires a different style of both material and ornament.
XXVIII
Avoid the extreme mode; and, in adopting the style of your friend, be careful that it will suit your figure, your complexion, and stature: the dress which may be adapted to her may be absurd in you.
XXIX
If your stature be short, you should not allow a superfluity of flounces upon the skirt of your dress: if you are tall, they may be advantageously adopted when fashion does not forbid them.
XXX
A very high head-dress would not be suitable for a very tall or short person; the latter may venture upon a higher dress than the former. A person with a short neck should be careful as to the sort of frill she wears, if she considers one necessary; while a person with a very long one may relieve the awkwardness of the appearance by judiciously adopting this article of dress.
XXXI
A hostess should not dress so richly as when she is a guest: it is good taste in a lady not to appear to vie with her guests in the richness of her attire.
XXXII
Be not ostentatious in the display of jewelry: if, however, you have superb jewelry, your dress and your establishment should harmonize therewith, or the world will either not give you credit for their real worth, or it will charge you with ostentatious extravagance.
XXXIII
Never wear mosaic gold or paste diamonds; they are representatives of a mean ambition to appear what you are not, and most likely what you ought not to wish to be.
XXXIV
Let your ornaments be, then, more remarkable for their intrinsic worth, and for the taste with which they are chosen and worn, than for profusion.
XXXV
Ladies of good taste seldom wear jewelry in the morning, and when they do, confine themselves to trinkets of gold, or those in which opaque stones only are introduced. Ornaments with brilliant stones are unsuited for a morning costume.
XXXVI
In large parties do not exhibit any remarkable anxiety for the care of your dress, nor, if an accident should happen thereto, exhibit peculiar or violent emotion; if you are so distraite, many will believe that you have exhibited the best portion of your wardrobe.
XXXVII
Adapt your head-dress, or the style of your hair, to the character of your face. If you have your own maid, she will soon ascertain what style suits you best; if, however, you intrust to a friseur this important portion of your appearance, give him complete directions, or he will not regard the character of the physiognomy, but arrange your hair according to the last importation of blocks from Paris or London.
XXXVIII
Gloves should harmonize with your dress; and must always be clean. Nothing can be more vulgar than high-coloured gloves: the primrose (and the white for evening parties) are the most elegant, if your dress will admit of their being worn.
XXXIX
Perfumes are a necessary appendage to the toilet; let them be delicate, not powerful; the Atta of roses is the most elegant; the Heduesmia is at once fragrant and delicate. Many others may be named; but none must be patronized which are so obtrusive as to give the idea that they are not indulged in as a luxury but used from necessity.
XL
Keep your finger-nails scrupulously clean, and avoid the disagreeable habit of allowing them to grow to an unnatural length.
XLI
Singularity of dress and ostentatious ornament are by no means characteristic of a lady, but their adoption proves a primâ facie case against the wearer of being a nouveau riche striving after notoriety. Station and refinement of manner will make those vulgarisms bearable, or even pleasing; but the parties are then bearable or pleasing in spite of, not in consequence of them.