Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/223

CHAP. XV Windsor uniform of red facings to the dress coat. Most men candidly confess to feeling themselves fools arrayed in any but the most conventional costume, and it is only the vanity of a few that will yield to the attractions of being a velvet-clad Cavalier, a slashed Romeo, or a bedizened Beaucaire. A woman, on the other hand, delights in being somebody else, and scarcely a country house party comes to its close in winter time without some attempt at dressing up, the "head-dress" dinner being quite an established function, whence, without doubt, much amusement may be evolved and much ingenuity result. The success of the head-dress in influencing the entire appearance gives, of course, proof to my favourite dogma, that the crowning point is the point of importance in costume.

Time and opportunity in the past have exhausted the decorative delights of simulating some flower, but although such tactics are distinctly commonplace, yet few frocks look prettier than these when well planned. One of the most successful I can recall represented a fuchsia, and it had a purple velvet skirt cut in pointed tabs, and bore an over-skirt similarly treated of crimson silk; the tight-fitting short bodice was of the palest green, cream-coloured stockings in pale green satin shoes appeared beneath these, while the hat was an entire fuchsia, violet, purple, green, and cream being all disposed in their proper places. This was easy enough to make, and facility must be an advantage, even as economy, in the planning of a dress for the carnival, since, after all, it is scarcely likely to make its appearance on more than one occasion. An original idea for which we can give thanks to the