Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/665

 639 ORC88 r^^Q^ r3^,(WF^ ^^! ^=^sytor^^ .^ ^SJT' DRESS IH THE STUART ■mm A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION TO MODERN DESIGNERS By MARY HOWARTH CoiitiHUtd from paj^e jSj, Part j. Dress in the Age of Louis XI V— The Effect of the Restoration upon Costume nPo avoid recognition, black velvet masks lined with white satin were worn at this period. They folded in two like a man's pocket-book and so were very easily carried. Neither were there any strings with which to have to fumble when the moment for mask- ing arrived. Instead of them a slender silver bar was provided on the inside of the mask, ending in a button which the wearer of the mask placed between her teeth so that she could hold her face-screen in its place. Women wore masks during the public prom- enade, at balls, and even in church. There were different patterns. Some hid the eyes only, others covered the face more completely and were a thorough disguise, not only be- cause they obliterated the features but because, worn over the mouth, they changed the " timbre " of the voice. In France during the minority of Louis XIV., when political troubles were rife and the great ladies of the day played their part in them, masks were used for a more serious purpose. Conspiracies were cradled in the boudoirs of the wealthy, and those great dames to whom the name of "belles frondeuses " was given, in allusion to the troubles of the Fronde, went masked to the councils of Conde and Beaufort in order to escape observation. To pass to a more frivolous subject, let that of jewellery now take precedence. It was owing to the influence of Charles II. and his early life in France that the women of the Restoration Court were more wonderfully dressed and gorgeously bedizened than any who had gone before. The reaction after the sober guise of the Commonwealth accounted for exaggera- tions of all kinds, and extravagance in every direction reigned supreme. The materials worn were absolutely superb, and into them were woven silver and gold, while they were thickly plastered with jewels for high days and holidays. Bodices were laced with pearls, festooned with diamonds, throats encircled with ropes of pearls, exquisite brooches and galaxies of jewels decked the corsage, the sleeves, and the hair of the great ladies of the day. Jewellers of our own times keep ever before them ornaments worn in the reign of the Merry Monarch, and now, as then, ropes of pearls, rivulets of diamonds and emeralds. and the great round boss brooches fringed with gems are fashionable. When the hair was not decorated with a string of pearls a ribbon ornament was sub- stituted, another source of inspiration for the • coiffure decorations of our own day. Women wore their hair curled, and arranged with the greatest skill, adding to it in many instances what were called " heart-breakers," artificial ringlets posed at the side of the head on a neat arrangement of wires. In the latter part of the reign of Charles II. hoods came into fashion, and were issued in various patterns, all of them bewitchingly quaint and charming. It was customary then to paint the face as well as to patch it, an act of vanity that was criticised with the greatest severity by Richard Baxter and other purists. " I am no judge of painting," replied a Turkish Ambassador who was interrogated as to his opinion of the beauty of Frenchwomen. There is a chronicle of the dresses worn at the festivities of a Royal betrothal in France which gives so graphic an idea of the apparel of the time that it is well worth repetition. The Duchesse de Bourgogne wore one day a gown of silver tissue with gold flowers, touched with a little flame colour and green, and in her hair the finest of the Crown diamonds. Her gown on the next day was of grey damask with silver flowers, and her jewels were diamonds and emeralds. Mademoiselle (the young fiancee) wore a coat of gros de Tours richly embroidered in gold, and a skirt of silver tissue embroidered in gold touched with flame colour. She was adorned by a splendid set of diamonds and a mantle of gold point d'Espagne, six yards and a half long — two and a halif more than the Court trains of to-day. On another occasion her coat and skirt were both made of cloth of silver, and her jewels were diamonds and rubies. The famous Madame de Maintenon intro- duced to the jewel-casket the cross called a la Maintenon. At that time she set a fashion for severity in attire, which con- sisted of forbidding-looking coifs and veils and black and sombre dresses. The inauguration of fashions by the great Court ladies and the Parisian actresses of the period was a feature of the times. It hap- pened one day that the beautiful Duchesse