758 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



general after the presentation of Chanteclair. We already had 

 the " Dame Blanche " fichus, and the Lutheran bonnet was popular 

 after Les Huguenots was played. 



Any striking idea may inspire a fashion. Under Louis- Philippe 

 '' all the fashionable young men of the capital wanted their trousers 

 plaited at the hips like those of the African chasseurs ; they had their 

 turbans and their Arab checias (skull caps) at their homes." ^ 

 Trocadero ribbons became the rage as a souvenir of the voyage of the 

 Duke of Angouleme to Spain, and the Kusso-Japanese War gave us 

 the kimono. It is to the passion for sports that we owe the English 

 styles, tlie success of the tailor-made costume, the fashion for furs and 

 leather garments, and also that " war hat " attempted by some 

 Americans. 



Literature also has been a great inspiration, as shown by the curious 

 and interesting book of Louis Maigron on " Romantisme et la Mode." 

 The essential characteristic of the romantist revolution was the re- 

 turn to national tradition, the style of the Middle Ages, which forced 

 itself quickly and in every direction, taking the place of the empire 

 style. According to Mons. Maigron, "romanticism creeps from 

 books into the daily life through social diversions." The masquerade 

 thus makes some pretensions, often justified, of reconstructing 

 history ; old engravings are appealed to for aid in costuming. 



The works of Victor Hugo, especially Plernani, have had an in- 

 fluence on fashion as great as pre-Eaphaelism has to-day on gowns 

 and hairdressing. The use of white muslins was the inspiration of 

 Taglioni, as were the " waves of the Danube " taffetas. The "Atala " 

 collars and the "Marie Stuart" hats were successively worn. The 

 " battlement " hat was designed in part from a headdress looked 

 upon as that of Jeanne d'Arc, and likewise the " leg-of-mutton " 

 sleeve recalls the costume of the sixteenth century. 



There is a complete revolution in the Avork of gold- and silver- 

 smiths. Jewelry is made in the shape of pointed arches with knights 

 in steel armor, pages with plumed toques, helmets, grey hounds, 

 coats of arms, escutcheons. A complete feudal arsenal is designed 

 in chased work and enamels. In architecture the Gothic comes into 

 full vogue, and it is constantly the romance styles which are most 

 fashionable. 



The red waistcoat of Theophile Gautier had its imitators; the 

 waistcoat was at one time the chief thought of young Frenclunen. 

 It is all a program that one cultivates and lives up to. Men's fash- 

 ions extend to lace facings, braids, furs, Merovingian style of hair, 

 and whiskers of an Assyrian king; the cravat is of a gloomj'- black.^ 



1 Louis Maigron: Lo Romantisme et la mode. Cliampion, 1911. Cf. also O. Uzanne : 

 Un sifecle de modes f6minines, et la frangaise du sifecle. H. Bouchot : Le luxe francais : 

 Challamel : Histoire de la mode. 



- L. Maigron, op. cit., passim. 



