Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/109

VII Women of the lower classes wore muslin caps with ribbons twisted round them, but what lovely hats were obtainable by the wealthy! Above the

long ringlets huge plumes waved over a hat of straw, or the velvet cap would be covered with feathers. Hair-dressing was a fine art, and many were the styles in which the ringlets were treated; they would be cut to graduated lengths, short in front and long at the back, or would only obtain at each side of the face and round the neck, the main portion of hair being drawn up on the top; or the hair was cut rather short, and curled over the head, while black ribbons and pearls decorated it.

The cultivation of beauty was earnest and intelligent, and all ladies of high degree owned amongst their retinue starchers and brushers, and the position of patches had a political significance according to the opinions of the fair patched. The patch, by the way, was brought into fame about 1655; though, owing its first existence to the times of the Romans, it cannot conscientiously claim this to be the date of its birth.

The house coats and gowns and petticoats were quilted, and being made of silk from Japan, China, and Persia and trimmed with Flemish lace, may be freely granted a cosmopolitan sympathy. An attractive description of a dress of this time tells of a musk-coloured silk shot with silver, with trails of silver flowers, trimmed with white bone lace, whose importation from foreign lands excited the displeasure of Charles II. Lace was a