Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/140

102 who all show a most delightful appreciation of, and a becoming sympathy with, every vagary of La Mode.

Yet our supreme Royalty takes interest in the national aspect of the affairs of costume, and bestows much personal trouble in arousing loyalty towards Irish poplins, British-made silks, the tweed industries of Ireland and Scotland and Wales, and the lace manufactures of Devonshire and Bucks and Nottingham.

The blouse and the teagown of to-day date their inception from the last century, but the beneficent law of evolution concedes them the grace of novelty, even while dogma tediously reiterates "There is nothing new under the sun."

In costume the Victorian era was "Everything-arian," welcoming and discarding all shapes and styles of garments, and gathering in the fashions