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Hooks of the May;
The Philosophy of
Fashions
What determines those mysterious changes
which we call' fashions in dress? Are they
simply (in the words of Oscar -Wilde) "a form
of ugliness so intolerable that we have to
alter them every six months?"
ON HUMAN FINERY, BY
Quentin Bell (Hogarth
Press; 19/6) is an essay
which discusses these and
kindred questions, -and suggests
a line of approach to a philosophy
of clothes.
The illustrations are entertaining
and Instructive; such a book might
well have had a higher proportion of
illustrations to letterpress. Mr. Bell
does not claim originality in most of
his ideas, and acknowledges that many
of them derive from the American
Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure
Class." "The value of Veblen as a
philosopher of clothes," he states, "lies
in his economic approach to the sub
ject, an approach which leads him
directly to the formulation of those
illuminating theories of social beha
vior which he calls the Laws of Con
spicuous Consumption, Vicarious Con
sumption and Conspicuous . Leisure.
He fails, It would seem, to explain
the history of dress when he relies
upon notions which are not derived
from economics, and when his atten
tion has been too closely engaged by
the conditions of his own time and
country." ..
But Mr. Bell does not get much
further towards a completely satisfy-
ing theory of fashions. In fact, it is
when he drives his ecqnomic hobby
horse too hard that his argument is
least able to be described as a Con
spicuous Success. .He seems at. times
-to have an';" adolescent desire to be
shocking In his references to .-.royalty,
for Instance, or in describing 'expendi
ture on religious establishments as
wealth used "for an economically
futile purpose."
His style, too, has a tendency to
lapse into involved abstractions. "The
differentiation between the dress of
men and that of women; -which. begins
through a variation in .development
throughout the eighteenth century and
culminates in the schism of the nine
teenth century, arises from the fact.
that the exhibition of wealth In men
no longer depended upon a demonstra
tion of futility'-' — there is too much of
this sort of thing. .
When he writes more simply, how
ever, he can be both witty and Infor
mative, and there is undoubtedly much
truth In his contention that fashion
able clothes have often been the badge '
of a leisured class. The story of Cin
derella, is an illustration— "the glass
slipper is not only a means of Identi
fication, but a certificate of economic
inefficiency."
-Certainly fashion is often the foe of
utility, and the ally of snobbery. "The
black-coated, well-starched clerk, who
runs to catch the train with the tem
perature at 98 deg. in the shade, and
his sister who endures the agony %of
high heels and bare legs in a blizzard,
are frequently very Industrious per
sons, but their social pretensions, per
haps-even their- livelihood, demand a
decent standard of discomfort in their
dress."
Iivtriguing Material
The history of fashions provides In
triguing material for study. Why
should changing fashions of dress as
we know them be peculiarly character
istic of the last 500 years of European
civilisation ? For neither In, ancient
times, it seems, nor In China for
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been anything like. It; fashions
there are strict but static. Why
have the last two centuries in
Europe seen a change- In the
fashion of men's clothing from
flamboyance to sad sobriety ? Why
has the spotlight of fashion shifted
from the male to the female of the
species 7 Why has the fashion in the
female complexion changed. from pal
lor to sun-tan 7 And who creates
fashions 7 Mr. Bell recounts the story
of Charles II's unsuccessful attempt to
oust French fashions by designing a
new garment, an attempt which Louis
XIV neatly countered by clothing his
lackeys in it. He also considers the
theory that dress designers make
fashions, and accepts, a little too
readily perhaps, the protestation- of
the French designer Poiret that, far
from being such a dictator, he is the
obedient slave of women's wishes in
dress design. He demonstrates too,
the pervasiveness of fashions. "Though
fashion would certainly seem to have
some relevance to the spirit of the
age as manifested In its political and
social ideologies, yet it can penetrate
where those ideologies cannot" — for
example.' between countries actually at
war.
Mr. Bell is doubtless right In seeing
the Industrial Revolution as a main
turning point, when wealth began to
be the mark not of leisure but of work
and enterprise, and when fashionable
clothing became available to a much
wider section of society.
Whether he is right in his predic
tion that the continuation of this pro
cess of social levelling will lead not to.
more uniformity in dress but to,
greater variety time alone will show.
Many non-economic factors will play
their part in such a question. .
Mr. Bell's book would be better for
a simpler style and more -systematic
argument, but It touches a fascinating
field of inquiry and reflection.
$