THE STORY OF COSTUMES 



body and limbs with skins, and later with woven cloth. 

 But the clothing of this man need not concern us here. 

 Our interest begins when he started on his migrations 

 into cooler regions and was obliged to adopt some form 

 of clothing more convenient than loose skins wrapped 

 about his shoulders or around the waist. For this 

 northern dweller is the one largely responsible for our 

 modern form of clothes and dress. 



So long as civilization centered in tropical regions 

 where dress for protection against the inclemencies of 

 the weather was unnecessary, such as the regions of 

 the Nile, there was little advance toward our modern 

 form of dress. But while the Nile dwellers were still 

 wearing the flowing garments that so little resemble 

 modern clothes, there were undoubtedly races of bar- 

 barous men in the wilderness lying to the north, who 

 were wearing garments closely resembling our modern 

 coats, trousers, shoes, gloves, and hats. 



The idea represented in these garments was that of 

 combining the greatest amount of freedom for the 

 limbs with the maximum protection. For this pur- 

 pose jackets, or shirts with sleeves, and trousers not 

 unlike modern ones were used centuries before they 

 were worn by more southerly races. And that these 

 northern barbarians had solved the problem better 

 than their more enlightened southern neighbors and 

 the Oriental races, is shown by the tendency of modern 

 practical forms of clothing. For although it has taken 

 millenniums to convince certain Oriental nations that 

 garments consisting essentially of jacket and trousers 

 more nearly meet the requirements of active men than 



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