Where is Fashion Going ?
By JAMES LAVER
THE time has gone by when Fashion could be dismissed as a frivolity, and those who took an interest in its vagaries as triflers. It is, of course, a surface-pattern, and by its nature superficial ; but, says Keyserling, "whoever profoundly understands a superficial part of Life, necessarily gains metaphysical insight along with it. . . . No change in fashion is fully comprehonsible without knowledge of the deepest spirit of the age."
We may accept the Spirit of the Age, the Zeitgeist, as a convenient summing-up of all those pressures—psychological, political, economic and religious—that seem to impose upon a period its characteristic shape: and that there is such a shape, recognisable not only in its main outline but in its minor con- volutions, must be obvious to anyone who has made any study of the decorative arts, of which clothing is one. There is an extraordinary consonance between the swirls of an Art Nouveau lampshade and the skirt of the Gibson Girl, between Louis XV furniture and the toilette of Madame de Pompadour, between a Queen Anne chair and a fontange, between the top-hat and the chimneys of industrial England. The list might be extended indefinitely.
If we accept this view at all, we must abandon the notion that Fashion is something arbitrary, imposed on the foolishness of womankind by half a dozen dress-designers conspiring in Paris to "change the fashion" and so increase their own profits. Even the greatest of creative couturieres is no more than an interpreter, or rather a mediunrpossessed by a spirit ; and the spirit that possesses him is the Spirit of the Age. When we look back upon the fashions of the past we recognise, or fancy that we recognise, their complete suitability. Thus, and not otherwise, it seems, could Queen Victoria have dressed, and Queen Elizabeth, and the Empress Josephine. Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, just as scientists can recon- struct a whole prehistoric bird upon a single bone, so can the student of fashion reconstruct a whole epoch from a single fashion-plate. It is plain, for example, that the Empress Josephine. in the toilette which is so familiar to us from con- temporary paintings, lived in a period following a great social upheaval, that she was an "emancipated woman," with short hair, straight-lined dress of very pale colour or no colour at all. and with her waist in the wrong place. For all its superficial differences, the emancipated dress of the nineteen-twenties tells the same story ; short hair, straight lines, pale colours (universal beige!), and the waist in the wrong place. Queen Victoria, on the other hand, was obviously living in a world in which women were not emancipated. Her waist was tight (" straight-laced epochs are strait-laced "), her skirts voluminous, her slippers heel-less to make her look even smaller than she was. "What a little woman it is! "cried the Victorian male with condescending affection. What of the present age? Since woman has remained emanci• pated, why did not the fashions of the nineteen-twenties continue indefinitely? How can the fashions of the nineteen-thirties and the nineteen-forties be explained? The 'thirties were a tug-of- war. On the one hand were all the tendencies of an emancipated epoch to make lines straight and colours pale ; on the other the growing nostalgia for a new Victorianism, for a period of social stability and " good " money, even at the cost of a revival of paternalism. The latter tendency put the waist in its right place in 1930; the former kept it from becoming really tight. Instead, small hips were admired, and small hips are incompatible with Victorianism of any kind. They say, as loudly as the forms of fashion can speak: "We are not going to have large families." Tight waists and full skirts really did come in just before the war, but the war upset the hopes of social stability and "good " money and pulled the lines straight again. When Englishwomen. at the end of the conflict, saw the French fashions which had developed under the paternalism of Main they had quite a shock. Ever since there has been a "whirlpool," as there always is when the lines dictated by the actual social situation are obscured by "wish-fulfilment." Today, we all live in a world of wish-fulfilment. The New Look means: "I do wish I had someone to wash-up." And the bowler hats and narrow trousers of elegant young men represent a longing for the lost .Edwardian epoch when every- body "got five per cent, on their investments "—assuming, of course, that they had any investments. As these two wishes are not in thz least likely to be fulfilled, neither the New Look nor, the narrow trousers can be expected to last. What are we to expect, then? There has been a wave oi female emancipation several times in history, but always it has spent itself and receded. This time it almost seems as if the process were, at last, irreversible, and that the emancipation of woman—or, as it would be more honest to call it, the indus- trialisation of women, would proceed to its logical conclusion. An alternative of dungirces and maternity gowns! It is not a very alluring prospect. In the past two influences have kept women's clothes gorgeous' and seductive. Their gorgeousness—their sheer expense—served to indicate and advertise the wealth of the husband or father! Their seductiveness indicated their wearer's desire to find a mate.' The first of these motives has almost disappeared ; the second will probably be always with us. So that to the dungarees and maternity gowns we must add the "party frock "—the decolletd gown which even factory girls put on when they go to the dance- hall. There will probably be an increasingly obvious division between day and evening dress, for women will never willingly abandon so potent a weapon in their armoury. nor would men wish them to do so.
As far as men are concerned, we arc plainly at the parting/ of the ways. The eighteenth century's was the costume of aristol cracy, and it was French ; the nineteenth century's was the costume of gentility. It was English, and it was designed to show that its wearer was a " respectable " man, able and willing to support a family. Women subconsciously chose their mates by this criterion, and with reason. But the need to do so has diminished because women can now earn money for themselves,' Woman can therefore begin to choose their husbands by theig attractiveness as men, and so men's clothes will begin td exaggerate the male characteristics as women's clothes hal exaggerated the female characteristics in the past. This is th meaning of the wide shoulders of the "spiv." He lives in world in which there is some prestige in being a "tough guy." The "frontier mentality" which has persisted in Amen ca tends to the same result ; and he must be blind indeed who' does not see that it is from America that we must expect the future lines of men's clothes. Even " respectable " factors are beginning to ask their customers if they would like their coats "slightly draped." In the past innovation in men's costume has always come from "sports clothes." The early nineteenth century adopted the English hunting-coat as ordinary dress. The twentieth century adopted the country "lounge suit" in the same way. The American lumber jacket (which is already a sports outfit for hard wear) and the "Palm Beach suit" for idling in the sun, may be expected to exercise a similar influence. And we may escape at last from the drabness that has haunted our clothes since the French Revolution.
Of course, all these tendencies may be reversed by a counter- revolution, the emergence of a new paternalism (as seemed likely, for a moment, in the 'thirties). There might even be a new Victorianism with social stability ; ",,good" money—and crinolines. If we could prophesy the history of the world we could prophesy the course of Fashion. We cannot do either ; we can only be sure that the events of the one will inevitably dictate the forms of the other.
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