Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/130

 CHAPTER IX IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

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 of the hapless Josephine—whose name, by the way, I should have added to the list of the few who have stood god-mother to a fashion—immediately appears before me in her graceful short-skirted evening dress with its high Empire belt.

That all women kill the style they love might with truth be said of the enthusiasm which raged for that Empire belt, for it grew smaller by degrees and grotesquely less when it commenced its career immediately beneath the arm, pushing the bust under the throat, presenting but an apology for a bodice, and needing the completely slim figure to withstand its liberties with any degree of decorum. Decorum was, however, not among its ambitions.

For walking wear the high waist was no less a desideratum, and cloth skirts, long and full, were completed by short velvet coats with long tight sleeves, vests of white, and stocks of black. The whole was crowned by small hats with feathers on one side, or high hats of masculine convention 92