Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/230

184 can be cheaply and sufficiently represented by a frock of white calico, with the hooped skirt set in a succession of thickly padded rolls, the hair net of white chenille, surmounted by a crown of white cardboard painted with the title. Ingenious, but perhaps not very becoming, is a dress of white linen, with a big clock painted in the middle of the skirt, the hands pointing to, say, 5 a.m., with the obvious purpose of suggesting that the wearer is "Better late than never." A character which never fails to attract at the gay carnival is Mephistopheles, the feminine or masculine variety being alike adopted with avidity, in bright red, feather in the cap, and a little shoulder-cape, and spangles complete. A good costume for a man is the Druid, when he can arrange voluminous white draperies as he will, and take unto himself the liberty of the mistletoe wreath. A popular habit prevails of embodying the names of certain illustrated journals, and representing the titles of some books. Some daring innovator suggests labelling himself as a Doctor, and vows he represents the "Dark Lantern," and the principle opens up a large field for selection. Why should not an ordinary evening-dress-coated gentleman be labelled "The Sphinx's Lawyer," and "The Coming Race" be expressed by the Oxford and Cambridge crews limned on satin; and "The Imaginative Man" might have a pair of wings fixed to the shoulders of his ordinary broadcloth, a sign that he imagines himself an angel. The ground is fruitful of suggestion.

"Fancy me in fancy dress," sings some gay lady in some gay play, and the notion is full of fascination, which may best be realised, not by the borrowing of clothes, but by making them,