ECONOMIC ROLE OF FASHION — CLEEGET. 763 



consumes and that which it does not consanie." ^ Mons. Pierre Mille 

 told recently in this Revue of patrons who spent as much as $60,000 

 each year, others up to $16,000, and a still greater number up to 

 $5,000. But it is mostly among the middle and laboring classes, 

 whose means are more limited, that unreasonable expenditure in fol- 

 lowing fashions is most harmful. 



These abuses, this tyranny of uniformity in nearly all outer mani- 

 festations of life, leads notably to the banishment of provincial cos- 

 tumes, the representatives of climate, products of local art, so full 

 of interest from an historical standpoint, picturesque, stable, durable, 

 which are handed down from generation to generation. Among these 

 costumes of historic interest are the Caux cap recalling the steeple 

 headdress of ladies of the fourteenth century ; the little Nicsean hat 

 reproducing the coiffure called " Thessalanian " by the Greeks, and 

 the antique Phrygian hat, still worn by the Arlesians. Although 

 formerly there was variation according to place and uniformity as 

 to the season, we now tend more and more toward a uniformity as 

 to place and variation as to season. 



The abuses denounced, it would be useless to demand, on the con- 

 trary, an immutability in complete opposition with the transforma- 

 tions of all sorts which surround us. Tertullian in his treatise " De 

 pallio," says that nothing is more natural than changing the cos- 

 tume and that nature sets us an example in assuming varied forms. 

 Human fancy thus asserts its supremacy over animals, obliged 

 always to wear the same livery. Austere philosophers have under- 

 stood perfectly the esthetic and social significance of fashion. Renan, 

 writing on Marcus Aurelius, admits that " woman in dressing herself 

 well fulfills a duty ; she practices an art, an exquisite art, in a sense 

 the most charming of arts. * * * A woman's toilet, with its re- 

 finements, is a great art in its way. Ages and countries which know 

 how to carry it out well are great ages, great countries." 



The appearance of a new style of garment is the visible sign that 

 a transformation is taldng place in the intellect, customs, and busi- 

 ness of a people. The rise of the Chinese Republic, for instance, led 

 to doing away with plaited hair and to the adoption of the European 

 costume. Taine wrote this profound sally : " My decided opinion is 

 that the greatest change in history was the advent of trousers. * * * 

 It marked the passage of Greek and Roman civilization to the 

 modern. * * * Nothing is more difficult to alter than a universal 

 and daily custom. In order to take away man's clothes and dress 

 him up again you must demolish and remodel him." ^ It is also an 

 equally philosophical conclusion which Mons. Louis Bourdeau gives 

 in his interesting " Histoire de Thabillement et de la parure " : " There 



ij. B. Say, quoted by E. PIcard, op. cit. 



- H. Taine. L'ltalie et la vie italienne. Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1865. 



