The Best-Dressed Woman
By Hildegarde Lavender

The passion for perfection, considered in the abstract, is doubtless an ennobling attribute of poor humankind. Even when it degenerates, as it so often does, into an ambition for supremacy, it still performs its miracles. It crowned the Acropolis with the Parthenon, it reared St. Peter's, it erected wonderful edifices throughout mediaeval Europe for the edification and instruction of modern tourists, it fought great battles, painted great pictures, composed wonderful music; it also grew record crops, it established schools and colleges, it built the locomotive. Most of what we have, much of what we are, is due to that "spark which disturbs our clod," as Browning calls it.

Where the Spark Leads.
The spark has disturbed the female clod, also. The results of that disturbance have not been quite so spectacular as the results of that which presumably agitated the male clod, but they have been no less pervasive and far reaching. Probably the flame has burned with all the more intensity because of the restrictions laid upon feminine ambition. Did Michael Angelo, pondering the great pile that is his glorious monument, put a greater passion for perfection than Dame Abigail into the sanding of her floor in her farmhouse? Did Benvenuto Cellini, working patiently with his jewels and metals, dedicate himself more earnestly to the task of out-distancing all competitors than Mistress Priscilla, decorating a complex cake with towering icings, dedicated herself to making every other cake in the village look mean and amateurish by comparison?

The determination, the energy, the idealism, that have gone into waxing ancient sideboards of mahogany and walnut, the fiery single-hearted zeal for excellence that has put together patchwork quilts designed to outlast and outshine all other patchwork quilts, the ambition and pride that have spent themselves upon the pickle jar and the soft-soap kettle - these could have built all the cathedrals in the world, painted all the old pictures of the old masters, and codified the Roman law, had it only happened to be proper in the old days for women to concern themselves with matters remote from their kitchen ovens and their spinning wheels.

The passion for perfection still persists in the feminine heart, though it is now deprived of its old avenues of expression, and is not yet well inducted into its new. The big soap manufacturers have relegated the private soap kettle to the museum of antiquities; other large firms have pushed the private preserving-pot into the desuetude of a long holiday. But the feminine passion for perfection still persists, and not all women are yet able to give it expression by studying astronomy or organising cults or struggling after personal excellence. The quality known as "public spirit" and intellectual interests have not been immediately bestowed upon the sex whose ancient occupations have left it, and whose future occupations still elude it.

A Well-Dressed Woman
There is Corinne, for example. There burns brightly within her bosom a fiery zeal for excellence ; but Corinne has no interest whatever in perfecting her French accent, and only a very slight, almost negligible, one in providing dinners for poor children, and other similar good works. Upon what, then, can her passion expend itself in this day and generation? Corinne's secret ambition is to be a well-dressed woman. To that end she devotes hours of thought, hours of study. With that ambition at the point of realisation, her eyes shine, her cheeks glow; with that ambition defeated by the carelessness or crudity of some dressmaker or tailor, or by some lack of effort on her own part, Corinne's features grow dolorous, her words are leaden, and she sees the universe shrouded in grey fog.

Corinne's sisters, both those of her blood and those merely of her sex, are prone to point out to her the folly of her ambition.

"It's perfectly ridiculous," says one of the thrifty ones, "for you to spend your money in this way. You haven't so much of it, goodness knows. Why should you have to buy a velvet suit for I-shudder-to-think what price- "

"Twenty guineas," Corinne obligingly and defiantly supplies.

"When you would have been exactly as warm, exactly as well dressed, if you ask my opinion, in a tweed for four guineas, or even three, if you would only consent to shop a few yards further from bond street. You could have invested that twenty guineas in something to help make your old age comfortable-"

"Old age will never give me a sensation as satisfying to my soul as possession of that velvet suit," Corinne retorts with spirit. "If I have to sit in a county almshouse, quarrelling with the other inmates over a corner near the fire, I shall warm myself with the recollection of that brown velvet costume, and shall be glad I bought it!"

How she Justifies Herself
Against such obstinacy as this it is difficult for even the most eloquently critical of sisters to make much headway. Corinne's sister sputters feebly, and calls the reply "nonsense," which it very probably is. Then she changes her base of attack. How much time does Corinne give to the selection of her clothes? How many hours does she put in at the shops which she might put in a variety of useful ways - taking healthful exercise, improving her mind with literature, ancient or modern, elevating her spirit with the sight of great works of art? To all of which Corinne replies succinctly that, to her, the possession of good clothes is meat and drink, exercise and education, social life and mental uplift. Which, if somewhat exaggerated, is nevertheless sufficiently definite to bring all arguments to a close.

It is true Corinne does spend a great deal of money upon her garments - a great deal, that is, for a self-supporting woman in moderate circumstances. It is true, also, that she spends a great deal of time in obtaining them. Whenever she takes a walk or ride, it is apt to be westward, where she can visit her favourite exclusive shops. She has a passion for all shops which pander to the desire for rarity. Corinne wishes to be attired in the height of the mode, but with a difference. She does not want to meet the model of her velvet suit done in serge on the omnibus. She objects, if, on removing her jacket at the afternoon concert, she finds that her neighbour's chiffon blouse is a replica of her own, with only the colour changed.

Therefore she eschews all shops not labelled "exclusive," except for fabrics and the purposes of general study; and she gives her patronage to those bijoux of shops wherewith the West-End is alluringly set. She is well-known in many of them; her post is largely composed of announcements to the effect that "Juliette, late of Louise," will open an outfitting shop at No. 8, Blank Street on April 1st; or that Mr. Morris Robinsky, for many years with Brodsky, solicits patronage in the establishment he has just opened as a tailor on his own account.

The Cost of Preserving Clothes
But the time and money Corinne spends upon obtaining her clothes are proportionally less than that which she spends on taking care of them. Her wardrobe is like a motor-car; the initial expense is bad enough, but the upkeep is ruinous. An almost perpetual occupant of Corinne's small flat is the visiting dressmaker; she is always changing collars, letting out sleeves, taking up hems, sewing on the hooks and eyes that seemed merely to have been blown on by the original costume makers. She is ripping out guimpes, freshening linings, steaming velvets, tightening buttons, padding dress-hangers, making dress-covers, fitting drawer-linings, and the like. It is obviously impossible for Corinne to do these things for herself. That part of her day that is not devoted to the profession in which she earns enough to gratify her ambition towards being well dressed, is apt to be devoted to the afore-mentioned study of fabrics and styles, of bargains and possibilities.

Now, all the critics of Corinne's manifestation of her passion for perfection have failed to touch upon the vital weakness of her position. So long as they imply that she is immoral for spending what she earns in ways displeasing to their tastes, Corinne considers she is justified in metaphorically snapping her fingers in their faces, and in maintaining that her own satisfaction, her success, justify her course. But the weakness of Corinne's position is this: She has not achieved what she set out to do. She is not a well-dressed woman. She is a failure. And anyone upon whom failure is proved must make some other defence of her position than that she likes what she is doing; for no one likes to be a failure.

Where She Fails
Corinne's failure is not a vulgarly obvious one. She does not wear tan laced boots with her velvet frock; she does not combine clashing colours; she does not hurt the tender hearted by barbarities in the shape of egret-trimmed hats, nor can anyone accuse her of being hard-hearted or cruel. In her desire to be in the mode, she never makes the fatal mistake of being a year or two in advance of it. She eschews the merely bizarre. Nevertheless, she has failed in her career as a well-dressed woman.

Like many other Englishwomen, she has failed to see that dress is not an isolated fact in a woman's life in which success may be achieved without regard to other factors. The art of dress is not an absolute art, merely a relative one. And the fact to which it relates itself most insistently is the fact of background. Unless the normal manner of life leads itself readily, naturally, to the wearing of fine garments, the wearing of fine garments is not part of being well dressed.

One often thinks, seeing Corinne, among her teacups, beautifully arrayed in a tea-gown of apricot crêpe and princesse lace, that Mrs. Overtheroad, in the country, clad in her cotton frock, and bearing the hospitable glass of milk from the dairy, is better dressed than she. For Mrs. Overtheroad's lilac print, pretty in tone, attractive with the crisp charm of starch and cleanliness, is not in revolt against the dairy or the farmhouse kitchen in which the milk is drunk; while Corinne's elegance clashes with her plain background. Corinne's tea-gown requires a Louis Quinze boudoir, or a Watteau-decorated drawing-room, as a harmonious background. Whereas Corinne's sitting room is a rather shabby, nondescript sort of place, with nothing in it to match the frivolous perfection of her tea-gown.

The Lack of Suitability
So it is with the rest of that perfect wardrobe. Corinne comes proudly, exaultantly, to dinner in the modest houses and flats of her friends, clad in dinner-gowns that would not discredit a banquet to an ambassador. She drinks her tea in a confection that brings out any shabbiness in her hostess's furniture and her hostess's attire. To houses in which the only maid is engaged in last minute work at the kitchen oven she comes wearing carriage shoes that require a maid's attention, covering the most beautiful of slippers. And, worst of all, least forgivable of all, she wears carriage clothes in the tram-cars!

Corinne's passion for perfection has expended itself in vain. She has failed in the first requirement of her art. She has ignored the fact that the Peacock requires a stately background of terrace and Italian garden, of marble fountain and balustrade, for the proper display of his irridescent beauty.

Only, some day, Corinne - perhaps even through the educational influence of well-made garments - is going to awake to the fact of their incongruity. And then, what passion for perfection will be freed, to expend itself upon some extreme cause, or the study of high art!