Page:Co-operative housekeeping.djvu/60

47 destroy our peace; but French and German men, in the employ of the manufacturers, and for their benefit make water-colour drawings of every novelty and extravagance that comes into their heads, and send them, with the new stuffs and trimmings that another set of men have invented, to the Parisian modistes, who, in conjunction with their rich patronesses, the court ladies and courtesans, contrive to modify them into something wearable, but still absurd enough, as a suffering sex can testify. Toilets at once healthful, suitable, and beautiful for women of every age, of every grade of means and position, and on every occasion, will never be attempted, nor so much as dreamed of, until cultivated ladies,—uniting that special talent for dress which is one of the most belied and abused of the feminine attributes to an accurate knowledge of the structure and requirements of the feminine physique, a fine perception of the ideal possibilities of all its types, and a historical and artistic mastery of all the resources for its adornment—shall make the attiring of their fellow-women their special vocation. One or two such costume-artists in every co-operative sewing-room, would in the end effect an entire revolution in the whole idea of fashion; for within certain limits every woman would have a fashion of her own. Such distressing anomalies as blond hair smoothed and pomatumed as it was twenty years ago, and dark hair curled and frizzed as it is now, with a thousand others, equally melancholy, would disappear, and every assemblage of women, instead of presenting a monotony at once bizarre and wearisome, would present the variety and beauty that now is only attempted at a fancy ball.

Beneficent and important as co-operative sewing-rooms would be to all of us, however, to my view, they are secondary in dignity and usefulness to the, since good, abundant, and varied food, accurately cooked and freshly served, lies at the very foundation of