The Fashion Fetish Analysed
Once more the question must be asked, “Why do women wear such hideous things as crinolines, bustles, and corsets, so universally abhorred by men?” Is it because they are inferior to men in æsthetic taste? Is Schopenhauer right when he says that “women are and remain, on the whole, the most absolute and incurable Philistines?” They are deficient in objectivity, he adds: “hence they have no real intelligence or appreciation for music or poetry, or the plastic arts; and if they make any pretences of this sort, it is only apish affectation to gratify their vanity. Hence it would be more correct to call them the unæsthetic than the beautiful sex.”
The pessimistic woman-hater no doubt exaggerates. Yet—without alluding to the paucity of women who have distinguished themselves in the fine arts—is it credible that the average woman would so readily submit to a repulsive fashion like the bustle, or a hat “adorned” with the corpse of a murdered bird, if she had even a trace of æsthetic feeling? If women had the refined æsthetic taste with which they are commonly credited, is it conceivable that they would voluntarily adopt the African bustle, because fashionable, in preference to a more becoming style? Have you ever heard that a person of acknowledged musical taste, for example, gave up his violin or piano to learn the African banjo, because that happened to be the fashionable instrument?
Yet there are, no doubt, many women whose eyes even custom cannot blind to the hideousness of most Parisian fashions. But they have not the courage to show their superior taste in their dresses, being overawed and paralysed in presence of a monstrous idol, the Fashion Fetish.
Never has a stone image, consecrated by cunning priests, exercised a more magic influence on a superstitious heathen’s mind than the invisible Fashion Fetish on the modern feminine intellect. It is both amusing and pathetic to hear a woman exclaim: “Our women are most blind and thoughtless followers of fashions still imposed upon them, Heaven knows wherefore and by whom” (Mrs. Haweis).
So great is the awe in which this Fetish is held that no one has yet dared to lay violent hands on it. Yet if we now knock it on the head, we shall find it hollow inside; and the fragments, subjected to chemical analysis, show that they consist of the following five elements:—
(1) Vulgar Display of Wealth.—A certain number of rich people, being unable to distinguish themselves from poorer mortals in any other way, make a parade of their money by constantly introducing changes in the fashion of their apparel which those who have less income are unable to adopt at once. This, and not the love of novelty, is the real cause of the minute variations in styles constantly introduced. Of course it is generally understood that to boast of your wealth is as vulgar as to boast of your wit or wisdom; but this makes no difference, for Fashion in its very essence is vulgar.
(2) Milliners’ Cunning.—Milliners grow fat on fashionable extravagance. Hence it is the one object of their life to encourage this extravagance. So they constantly invent new styles, to prevent women from wearing the same dress more than one season. And every customer is slyly flattered into the belief that nothing was ever so becoming to her as the latest style, though it probably makes her look like a fright. As a little flattery goes a great way with most women, the milliner’s hypocrisy escapes detection. “The persons who devise fashions are not artists in the best sense of the word, nor are they persons of culture or taste,” as Mr. E. L. Godkin remarks: “their business is not to provide beautiful costumes but new ones.”
It is to such scheming and unscrupulous artisans that women entrust the care of their personal appearance. And they will continue doing so until they are more generally taught the elements of the fine arts and a love of beauty in Nature.
To make sure of a rich harvest, milliners, when a new fashion has appeared, manufacture all their goods in that style, so that it is almost impossible to buy any others, all of which are declared “bad form.” And their poor victims meekly submit to this tyranny!
(3) Tyranny of the Ugly Majority.—This is another form of tyranny from which ladies suffer. Most women are ugly and ungraceful, and resent the contrast which beautiful women, naturally and becomingly attired, would present to their own persons: hence they favour the crinolette, the bustle, the corset, the long, trailing dresses, the sleeve-puffs at the shoulders, etc., because such fashionable devices make all women look equally ugly and ungraceful.
Mrs. Armytage throws light on the origin of some absurd fashions when she refers to the cases of “the patches first applied to hide an ugly wen: of cushions carried to equalise strangely-deformed hips; of long skirts to cover ugly feet; and long shoes to hide an excrescence on the toe.”
Surely it is sufficient to expose the origin of such fashions to make sensible women turn away from them in disgust. There are indeed indications that the handsome women have at last begun to find out the trick which the ugly majority have been playing on them; and many are now dressing in such a way as to show their personal beauty to advantage, undaunted by the fact that ugly women pretend to be shocked at short dresses which allow a pretty ankle to be seen, and jerseys which reveal the outlines of a beautiful bust and waist.
(4) Cowardice.—Many women adopt a fashion which they dislike simply because they do not dare to face the remark of a rival that they are not in fashion. As one of them frankly confesses: “We women dress not to be simple, genuine, and harmonious, or even to please you men, but to brave each other’s criticism.” A noble motive, truly!
One is often tempted to doubt the old saying that the first desire of women is to be considered beautiful, on observing how ready they are to sacrifice fifty per cent or more of their beauty for the sake of being in fashion. Last summer, for instance, the edict seems to have gone forth that the hair was no longer to be allowed to form a graceful fringe over the forehead, but was to be combed back tightly. So back it was combed, and beautiful faces became rarer than ever. Leigh Hunt had written in vain that the hair should be brought over large bare foreheads “as vines are trailed over a wall.” Théophile Gautier, “the most perfect poet in respect of poetical form that France has ever produced” (Saintsbury), agreed with Schopenhauer regarding woman’s æsthetic sense: “Women,” he says, “have only the sense of fashion and not that of beauty. A woman will always find beautiful the most abominable fashion if it is the genre suprême to wear that style.” He commends the women of Granada for their good taste in preferring their lovely mantillas to the hideous French hats, and hopes Spain may never be invaded by French fashions and milliners.
(5) Sheepishness.—It may seem ungallant to apply this term to the conduct of a woman who imitates the habits of a sheep; but, after all, which is the more gallant action: to applaud a woman’s self-chosen ugliness, or, at least, to ignore it for fear of offending her; or, on the other hand, to restore her beauty by boldly holding up the mirror and allowing her to see herself as others see her? It is the nature of a flock of sheep to jump into the sea without a moment’s hesitation if their leader does so. It is the nature of fashionable women to commit æsthetic suicide if their leader sets the example. Where is the difference?
It is surprising that Darwin did not refer to Fashion as furnishing a most convincing proof of his theory that men are descended from apelike ancestors. One of the ape’s most conspicuous traits is imitativeness—blind, silly, slavish imitation: hence the verb “to ape.” Blind, silly, slavish imitation is also the essence of Fashion. Imitativeness implies a low order of mind, a lack of originality. The more a man is intellectually removed from the ape, the less is he inclined to imitate blindly. Men of genius are a law unto themselves, while inferior minds can only re-echo or plagiarise. Just so the prevalent anxiety to be in fashion is a tacit confession of mental inferiority, of insufficient independence of taste and originality to choose a style suited to one’s individual requirements.