Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/666

 DRESS Mo de Fontanges was present at a Royal nunting party, when a breeze disarranged her head- dress. Promptly she tied it in its place by means of her ribbon garters, the ends of which fell over her forehead. Louis XIV. was so fascinated by this improvised novel effect that a head-dress, called a la Fontange, was instantly adopted by the ladies of the Court and afterwards by the Parisian bour- geoises. . It was a framework of cap wire about half a yard in height, divided into tiers and positively covered with bands of muslin, ribbons, fl o w e r s, che nille, and up- standing aigrettes. To each tier of the structure names were given such as the Duke, theDuchess, the Capu- chin, the Soli ta ry One, the Asparagus, .the Cab- bage, the Cat, the Organ Pipe, the First or Second Sky and the Mouse. The last a little bow of "nonpareil" fixed in the fringe of crisply wav- ing hair that was arranged below the curled "fon- tange." The fash- i o n a b 1 e woman of these days was as inseparable from her pet dog as is her descendant of to-day. She therefore carried it in her muff, which was largs and flat, and as limp as quite recently fashionable muffs have been. The dogs were small and went by the name of muff-dogs. It was a thoughtless age. How the " French kickshaws " of the Court must have annoyed the sense of decorum cherished by the Puritans, who "shook their heads at folks in London." But it was a picturesque one, too. The Roundheads, for all they were as simply clad as could be, left us a heritage of the prettiest and most demure of fashions. We should not have kn£)wn the full skirt hanging straight and un- adorned, the big white apron and the hood, so closely tied beneath the chin that scarcely a wisp of hair was revealed, prettiest of frames for the sweet, unpainted face if the Puritans had not designed them for us. The pure white muslin "tippit" and the sensible square-toed shoes — would any mind save that spurred to a sense of violent contrast, by the extreme modes of an opposing faction have thought of aught so seriously sweet ? To the riot of bright hues the Royalists approved, to the musk-coloured silks and the starches of various tints they brought and used as a sedative; cold greys and duns and blacks they deem- ed suitable for the clothing of their poor flesh. The re- n o w n e d diarist Pepys gives us a vivid picture of the great ladies in their fine array, in- ters per sed with refer- ences to his own fine " camlet " and " jack- ana p e s " coats and his wife's " new yel- low bird's- eye hood " and other deli cate pieces of apparel. It is not amazing that the children's dress of that day serves as a copy for those of small damsels and boys who are to act as attendants and pages in wedding retinues to-day. They were garbed then in replicas of the pictuiesque grown-up attire, the little maids with stifl satin frocks falling to the floor and the little boys in satin knickerbockers and coats and silken hose with rosetted shoes. Their haii was cut across the forehead in a fringe and fell softly about their broad lace collars. The painters of the period, such as Sir Peter Lely and Van Dyck, indeed, afford an endless source of inspiration to the designers of modern dress. Mary Queen of Scots Portrait similar to the one at Haftipton Court by A/yteus