Fashion Etiquette and Absurdities

The body and waist of the dress are remarkable only in one respect the last is exceedingly tight, and the former rather loose at the top and exceedingly low. It is below the waist that what is monstrous in the costume first attracts and then repels the eyes of man. A hoop of moderate dimensions, overspread with an underskirt or two, and a dress of whatever fabric, are worn. Underneath the rear of this hoop, just below the waist of the person designated, is bound a coil of wire from two to three inches in diameter, which “throws out” and elevates the upper portion of the dress behind, and forms the foundation, so to speak, of an exterior protuberance called the pannier. –Public domain image of a Pannier –

(England, circa 1780 Costumes; underwear (upper body) Linen twill and baleen Center back length: 14 7/8 in. (37.7825 cm) Purchased with funds provided by Suzanne A. Saperstein and Michael and Ellen Michelson, with additional funding from the Costume Council, the Edgerton Foundation, Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer, Maureen H. Shapiro, Grace Tsao, and Lenore and Richard Wayne (M.2007.211.353) Costume and Textiles Also illustrated: Hoop petticoat or pannier, English, 1750-80. Plain-woven linen and cane. (M.2007.211.198) Chemise, English, 1775-1800. Plain woven cotton. (M.2007.211.428)

The Latest Fashionable Absurdity

SARATOGA, August. The nights are, more absolutely than they ever were, devoted to follies the most fascinating, and exhibitions of fashionable manners and attire so absurd, that it would seem as if the tailors and modistes had conspired together this season to play a monstrous joke upon their patrons. Perhaps the dandies are worth less notice than ever. The difference between a fop and a gentleman in the United States is happily wide enough to render it impossible that any sane person should ever confound the two. But the difference between a female popinjay and a lady is here defined by such a curious and vulgar set of peculiarities ap- pertaining to the former person, that I cannot forbear to describe them. In the first place, a toilette is affected, which of itself suffices to turn a woman in full dress into a caricature.

The body and waist of the dress are remarkable only in one respect the last is exceedingly tight, and the former rather loose at the top and exceedingly low. It is below the waist that what is monstrous in the costume first attracts and then repels the eyes of man. A hoop of moderate dimensions, overspread with an underskirt or two, and a dress of whatever fabric, are worn. Underneath the rear of this hoop, just below the waist of the person designated, is bound a coil of wire from two to three inches in diameter, which “throws out” and elevates the upper portion of the dress behind, and forms the foundation, so to speak, of an exterior protuberance called the pannier. The pannier is a bustle, more or less enormous, upon which, in successive folds or layers gathered up or confined by a band encircling the dress from the stomach of the wearer around and beneath, an extra skirt, reaching just below the posterior, hangs, or or rathe rather “wobbles” to and fro. The dress has a train from four to six feet in length.

The posture affected in order to set off this attire is called the “Grecian Bend,” a contortion of the body which, as it is highly improper in itself, I find it difficult to describe with propriety. High-heeled shoes dispose the wearer to incline forward, and dispose high-heeled gaiters are, therefore, adopted by the “belle of the season.” She is thus the more readily enabled to elevate her hips behind, enhancing the aspect of the panier, to contract her stomach, and to form an S-like curvature of her upper shape, by thrusting out her chest, drawing back her shoulders, and bending forward her head. The latter is crowned by a hideous chignon, surpassing by several inches the thickness of the shallow nether brain. 

So bent and deformed, the belle constrains her elbows against her sides; and, with horizontal forearms and little gloved hands dangling from limp wrists, tilts painfully along. The profile of such a figure, and its ungraceful gait, are irresistibly suggestive of a lame kangaroo. When it is whirled and tossed about in a dance by one of the fashionable jumping-jacks in black broadcloth, who are here so numerous and so much alike that you can hardly tell one from another, the sight- what with the bobbing up and down of the woman's panier and the agile sidelong leaps of the jumping-jack across the immense trail piled on the floor- is too exasperatingly ridiculous for laughter.

It has been confided to me by an elderly woman with whom I conversed at a recent ball, that the distortion of the shape known as the Grecian Bend” is quite painful and wearisome, and that some girls adopt artificial contrivances to aid them in preserving the posture for several consecutive hours. A belt is fastened about the waist, under the skirts. From this belt, down either side the hips, the straps furnished with buckles, descend and are attached to strong bands, made fast around the lower thighs. As the buckles of the straps are tightened the hips are drawn up and held “in position.” This, says my amiable informant, "is a relief, of course, to only one part of the frame. The constriction of the upper part has to be preserved with no other aids than the stays; and those often render it the more difficult and tiresome.

“You perhaps notice another peculiarity about some of the ladies' dresses. The bodies are not only cut very low, but are so far from clinging jealously to the figure as to seem to challenge the gaze of partners to that satisfaction in regard to the reality of certain charms, which it was formerly claimed by marriageable bachelors that they were denied. So gracious a condescension on the part of our belles,” continued the matron, in a tone tingling with irony, “commends them, you will surely admit, as a far more honest and unequivocating set than the haunts of fashion are used to boast of.” 

And, indeed, this claim might be founded upon proofs even more striking than the one alluded to. Nobody who has been entrapped here, as a spectator of the frequent displays of under-drapery on the stairways and the edges of verandahs and colonnades, can doubt that many of the embroidered hose and delicate laces which adorn the limbs of the exhibitors were donned as well for beauty as for wear, and that the manner of making a graceful disclose of them is studied as a fine art. – Correspondence of the New York World, 1868

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia  

Gilded Age Physical Etiquette and Fashions

The kangaroo walk is to be very fashionable this coming season. One should be careful in trying it, otherwise one presents a very ridiculous figure. Do not bend the upper body over too far; simply rest the weight of the body on the balls of the feet as far forward as possible, and the kangaroo walk will follow naturally.

EASY LESSONS PHYSICAL CULTURE

This is all that its title implies "An Easy Lesson in Physical Culture." No apparatus is required. Very little time is needed. All you have to do is to keep a few simple rules in mind and then see that you live up to them. Other papers will follow this one, every one of which will aim at common sense and the greatest benefit for the least trouble. These articles have been written by a woman who has made a life study of physical culture, and they are written entirely for women.

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WHAT TO DO

1-Throw the weight of your body on the balls of the feet. 

2-Take long walks in the early morning. 

3-Thrust your chest forward. 

4-Hold your head high. 

5-Breathe deeply.

WHAT NOT TO DO.

1-Don't throw the weight of your body on your heels.

2-Don't let your shoulders droop forward.

3-Don't let streetcars spoil you.

4-Don't carry your head down.

5-Don't slouch.

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THROW away your bottled tonics. Get rid of paints and enamels. Learn to walk. Learn to stand. These two tricks comprise a big part of the secret of "how to be beautiful." You very probably think that you know all about them now, that you always have known, that everybody knows instinctively.

So we all do, likely enough, but we forget. If you carried yourself when standing and walking as you did when you were a wee bit of a youngster you would be a better and a prettier woman to-day. Perhaps you are one of the few women who know how. This is not for you, then, The rest of you, come forward. There is a tip or two that may be worth your while.

The word "better" was not used carelessly. It meant better. For correct standing and walking induce good health and good health induces goodness. You know that yourselves. Don't you always make allowance for the bad temper and unreasonableness of cripples and blind people and invalids on the ground of their ill-heath? You call it an excuse for badness, for cussedness in general you reason, then, to the converse?

Correct standing and walking are valuable as a means of improving one's appearance, besides being conducive to good health. It is surprising how few women stand or walk well. Many go along with a slovenly, slouching gait, their shoulders bent forward, the waist line on a curve and their heads down, thus making a god-forsaken appearance, Not only do they mar an otherwise beautiful figure, but they utterly destroy their vitality.

This is one of the greatest and most common faults to be found the world over. Women frequently appear to lack pride when they assume ungainly positions, but this is often not true at all; they may simply lack muscular vigor of the chest and shoulder muscles, which through disuse are allowed to starve and so weaken. In the end they refuse to do their duty.

There are certain muscles of the back, around and between the shoulders, which if not exercised by holding a proper position of the body and other daily exercise weaken and naturally incline to let the shoulders droop forward. This in a short time gives what we call round shoulders, or a bottle back.

Never resort to the aid of shoulder braces, for they only tend to make matters worse. Exercise the shoulders dally by the use of dumbbells until they become strong enough to keep from drooping. You will be surprised how easily the shoulders will assume their proper position.

Carrying the body properly tends to produce a better mental condition. One is more cheerful and capable of doing better mental work.

Standing improperly is noticeable in its influence on the digestive organs. When the shoulders are held correctly the stomach is held higher and is more free; in this way it more readily performs the work of digestion.

The same with the lungs; the chest being thrust out, the lungs are more free, and one is able to breathe much more deeply. People as a rule do not seem to realize how necessary air is to the lungs, and yet they know they could not live twenty minutes without it. Then if air is of such vast importance, if it is so necessary to life, why not take in all the fresh air we can get?

The failure to breathe properly undoubtedly causes many cases of consumption yearly. If those who have a tendency to lung trouble would take early morning walks in the bracing fresh air, first sipping a glass of very hot water before starting out, and if they would pay a great deal of attention to breathing, inhaling long and deeply through the nostrils, and exhaling slowly through the mouth, and if they would walk with a quick, regular stride, holding the body erect with chest prominent, it is more than probable that in a few months they would forget that they ever thought of lung trouble.

There is no need to rob yourself of needed sleep for this walk; 7 o'clock in the morning is early enough for bracing air. You can walk briskly, for about twenty-five or thirty minutes just before breakfast. If walking is very agreeable to you take an hour's walk, but not as long as that if it tires. Gradually increase the walk. It is too bad that most women do not take more pleasure in this exhilarating exercise. How often they exclaim: "Oh, how I hate to walk! I never walk when I can ride." This accounts for the slovenly gaits so often seen and ridiculed. 

So long as these women think walking so disagreeable they will never know that there is more real, throbbing, pulsating joy in it than in any other exercise. Cultivate your determination and carry yourself past. the period when walking tires. Try walking a short distance at first, and gradually increase until the exercise becomes a pleasure. Here are a few suggestions for walking and standing which any one can follow without special instruction:

Women generally stand and walk with the weight of the body thrown on the heels. This position throws the body backward and makes the abdomen protrude, which is decidedly to be avoided, as it has a tendency to enlarge the abdomen. The weight should rest on the balls of the feet; this throws the body slightly forward. This will seem hard to do at first, but practice will overcome the feeling of tipping forward Do not hold the shoulders back; this gives the appearance of rigidity. Anything that shows effort is incorrect. Simply raise the chest and let the shoulders all naturally, thus giving the chest that appearance of fullness and strength which is so desirable.

Hold the head proudly, which, of course, means high; this gives more fresh air to the lungs, helping them to cast off disease. Always be careful to carry the skirts gracefully; nothing looks quite so untidy as to drag the skirts through the dirt of the streets. It is not only untidy, but it is tempting disease.

Tailors' or dressmakers' best work never shows to advantage on a bad figure; well-hung skirt or finely fitting coat is wasted on the woman who stands or walks improperly. Why? Because standing and walking badly throws the lines of the garment out of their beautiful curves. Proper attention to the attitude is essential in preserving the lines of the figure and giving that desirable combination of good health, style and dignity.

The kangaroo walk is to be very fashionable this coming season. One should be careful in trying it, otherwise one presents a very ridiculous figure. Do not bend the upper body over too far; simply rest the weight of the body on the balls of the feet as far forward as possible, and the kangaroo walk will follow naturally. Lillie Langtry, Leslie Carter and Blanche Walsh rest the weight of the body on the balls of the feet, which accounts for the graceful forward inclination of their figures.

Once more - throw away tonics, and learn to walk and stand.

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

The Kangaroo Walk Explained

The “kangaroo walk” this mode of pedestrianism has already been dubbed by the women who do not admire and adopt it. The sliding and yet plunging manner in which the strides are taken gives to this name a decided character of suitability. But the new walk, however striking and fashionable it may be, will not do for all occasions.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE KANGAROO WALK?

It is queer enough upon the boulevards, but how would it be in a ballroom? And how about wedding processions and figures in the cotillion? Besides, while bearable and in some sort of keeping with heavy, man-tailored, short skirts, stiff-necked dressings, and wide-brimmed felt hats, it could not be considered at all in connection with the trailing gowns, beautifully sweetly feminine hats and bonnets to prevail during the coming season. What then? 

The "woman who walks" is very much in evidence in Los Angeles. But she does not walk at all as have done her predecessors of other pedestrian seasons. A new walk has made its appearance, and now up Spring Street it is rampant, it is by no means unknown upon Main Street. The new walk is as startling as it is unique and — peculiar. 

The walk and carriage of the fashionable woman has been really a thing of beauty for some years past. The most commendable style of walking of late years has been based upon Delsarte principles — head well up, chest out, abdomen held well back, back quite deeply indented. The Delsarte teachers and devotees were responsible for its introduction into America and the" polite world. Once introduced, the Delsarte carriage — being the proper and hygienic pose of the human body into the bargain—became almost universal.    

That it was a healthful and becoming mode of locomotion cannot be doubted. Now comes the new form of pedestrianism. It owes nothing to Delsarte or the physical culture principles. It seems to be based rather upon a desire to see to what lengths the old statement that walking, for human beings is really a series of forward tumbles with accompanying and subsequent recoveries, can be carried without resulting in dire disaster. 

The body and limbs are all held stiffly, the head — the chin particularly — is poked forward in a decidedly ungraceful and unbecoming manner, the back is bent stiffly from the waist, and the arms hang loosely and lifeless. With each forward step— and each step is a long, quick, hurrying stride—the arms swing stiffly out and back again, as though hung on pivots at the shoulders. The eyes are usually directed toward the ground or straight ahead, and the whole appearance is that of a Dutch doll unexepctedly endowed with the power of motion and in a great hurry to get back to the dollshop and exhibit

A clever and merry woman says that she believes the new walk is the direct result of the vain and fruitless efforts which women for so long made to correct and coerce the natural and innate wickedness and depravity of the short walking skirts which have become so indispensable to woman. These skirts, as every woman knows, will "sag" at the back and "hike" up in the front, no matter how good the tailor who fashioned them, how careful, graceful and stylish the wearer, and how expensive the materials from which they were constructed. 

The witty woman who claims to have invented this reason for the new walk, says that it was undoubtedly evolved by some poor feminine who had been driven to desperation and despair, almost to lunacy, by the altogether abominable conduct of a succession of these skirts. Bankrupt, despairing, at her wit's end, she decided to tip forward as she walked, thus bringing the edge of the skirt she was wearing into something like a right line. 

While this explanation of this new walk is not vouched for, it is the only one which has yet appeared, and it certainly bears with it an atmosphere of that "sweet reasonableness" which is conspicuous by its absence from the new walk itself. 

The "kangaroo walk" this mode of pedestrianism has already been dubbed by the women who do not admire and adopt it. The sliding and yet plunging manner in which the strides are taken gives to this name a decided character of suitability. But the new walk, however striking and fashionable it may be, will not do for all occasions. 

It is queer enough upon the boulevards, but how would it be in a ballroom? And how about wedding processions and figures in the cotillion? Besides, while bearable and in some sort of keeping with heavy, man-tailored, short skirts, stiff-necked dressings, and wide-brimmed felt hats, it could not be considered at all in connection with the trailing gowns, beautifully sweetly feminine hats and bonnets to prevail during the coming season. What then? 

Some provision must be made for the girls and women who cannot or will not adopt this style of carriage and locomotion, so still an advantage may be noticed in swelldom at present. The walk, or carriage has been termed, not inaptly the "religious walk." because it goes so well with the gentle, demure and sweetly serious appearance and expression which the fashionable woman cultivates upon certain occasions. 

It "looks lovely," to be appropriately feminine, when entering or leaving church, and it is "just too beautiful for anything" in the case of a wedding procession. The girl who can "do" the "religious walk" charmingly is sure of a certain amount of belledom wherever she may be. And for entering a crowded drawing-room or clubroom, for promenading at the opera, or between dances at a ball, there is nothing like it. 

The Delsarte devotee usually carried something in her hands when she went a-walking. Whatever it was, umbrella, golf stick, pocketbook, roll of music, it was so held as to accentuate the long, slender, straight, and slightly forward-tipping line of the figure. The girl with the kangaroo method of locomotion generally discards umbrellas and "small traps" of every kind. Her hands are usually clinched in decidedly enough. 

The Delsarte girl loved to wear her hat straight on her head, a la the sailor hat so beloved of the dear, impossible Gibson girl. The kangaroo maiden pulls her soft felt almost down to her eyebrows or pushes the round golf cap which replaces it almost back to her crown. The girl with the "religious walk" has taken points from both of them. She has, in fact, seized upon many of their distinguishing chnricteristics and transmuted them to uses of her own—with a difference. The mouth of the Delsarte girl was a delicious thing of sweet curves, modified by a slight degree of determination.- Los Angeles Herald, 1901

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia