Punch has lived to see a most acute and wholesome reaction. A sentimental "Buoy at the Nore" writes to put on record a protest against the enormous sunbonnets which covered up the "dear heads" of beauties on the Ramsgate sands. In those days the use of cosmetics and pigments was far less general; veils and bonnets and sunshades, notably the projection aptly nicknamed the "Ugly," were in great demand. The resources of civilization were employed to preserve complexions rather than to supply artificial substitutes. So we find Punch in 1855 describing with much gusto a young lady at the seaside wearing: (1) A huge, round hat doubled down to eclipse all but her chin, (2) an "Ugly" of similar magnitude, (3) a veil, and (4) a parasol. These huge, round hats, like shallow bowls, were worn by little girls, who were often dressed like their parents with flounces and voluminous skirts. But extremes meet, and along with the monstrous seaside hats—big enough to be used as a substitute for an archery target by undisciplined younger brothers—small bonnets, worn on the back of the head, and tiny parasols were in vogue in 1853. A certain masculinity of attire was affected by young ladies of sporting tastes—in the way of waistcoats and ties for example—but the fashionable world set its face as a flint against anything in the way of rational dress reform. In 1851 we find one of the earliest instances in Punch of the use of the word "æsthetic" in connexion with costume, where in an imaginary dialogue Miss Runt, a strong-minded female, speaks of "our dress viewed as sanitary, economical, æsthetic."28 Mayfair had no appreciation of any of these aspects of millinery, and "Bloomerism" never caught on with the fashionable world.
WHAT MUST BE THE NEXT FASHION IN BONNETS
PLAIN
RINGLETS
This was the age of flounces and crinolines; it was also the age of ringlets. Bands and braids and hair nets are features of early Victorian coiffure, but ringlets were undoubtedly the favourite mode for full dress occasions. The fashion lasted for a good many years. You will find it in the ballroom scene depicted by Leech in 1847, and Leech illustrated Surtees's novel Plain or Ringlets? in 1860. Of the "plain" variety of hairdressing there are several good examples in Punch, notably the head given above, with which we couple the ringleted belle illustrated at the foot of the same page.
ÆSTHETIC PIONEERS
Mrs. Turtledove: "Dearest Alfred! Will you decide now what we shall have for dinner?"
Mr. Turtledove: "Let me see, poppet. We had a wafer yesterday—suppose we have a roast butterfly to-day."
Coiffures in the Fifties
In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed à l'impératrice in imitation of the Empress Eugénie, and Punch satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a coiffure unsuited to people of certain ages, features, and positions—a wide scope for his wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if they had, they escaped Punch's vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing, walking or doing nothing, the young women he drew were almost invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture below.
Bathing Woman: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not he!—He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"
MERMAIDS AT PLAY
Fashions for Men
Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's dress as we know it was already established, though in regard to colour, details, and decoration the influence of the Regency period still made itself felt. Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see Parkes's Hygiene) at the time of the Peninsular War, but pantaloons—the tight-fitting nether garments which superseded knee-breeches late in the eighteenth century, and were secured at the ankles with ribbons and straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You will see no trousers, as we know them to-day, in the illustrations to Pickwick, and in the early 'forties pantaloons appear in Punch's illustrations of fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the "claw-hammer" dress-coat does not differ from that of to-day, but it was often of blue cloth with brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and waistcoats of gold-sprigged satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling that worn by nigger minstrels. "Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive till the late 'forties—they are mentioned in Thackeray's Book of Snobs, and gentlemen always carried their tall hats in their hands at evening parties, and habitually wore them at clubs. For morning wear blue frock-coats, with white drill trousers and straps, were fashionable in 1844. Stocks and cravats and neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties. The dégagé loose neck-cloth of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by Punch, who traces its origin to the neck-wear—as modern hosiers say—of the British dustman. Amongst overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like garment, called after the famous dancer, is most frequently mentioned; the Petersham, a heavy overcoat named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of the Waterloo period, still held its own. The Crimea brought Alma overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and Crimea cloaks, and about the same time Punch caricatures a long garment reaching nearly to the heels, which gave the wearer the appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark. There is a mention of the "Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One Stultz was the fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however (according to Punch), was Prince Albert, whose continual and unfortunate experiments with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere. Punch speaks of his obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from calling him "the mad hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet emerged from the brain of Lewis Carroll. But Punch himself was much preoccupied with hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall beaver hat which tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid "chimney-pot" or cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European head-dresses, with its flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by 1850. Punch warred against it almost as vigorously and as ineffectually as against the crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to the length of suggesting the form and materials suitable for an ideal hat:—
The Ideal Hat
Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible sombrero of grey, or brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a dress at once becoming and congruous.
WHY, INDEED!
Perceptive Child: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"
A MOST ALARMING