Moods and Women's Clothes
by Lydia Languish
(Appearing in McCall's Magazine, April 1908)

The discussion arose in quite an unpremeditated fashion, as usual. I expect I made a rash statement - rash because it was difficult to prove, not because I had not a great deal of personal faith in it. At any rate, bright afternoon as it was, several people who ought to have been better employed gave utterance to their views upon a subject which has often concerned my mind - the importance of suiting one's clothes to one's mood.

First of all, of course, the One Man Present endeavoured to knock the whole theory on the head by declaring that women's moods changed even faster than it was possible for them to change their gowns, but nobody attached much weight to this would-be last word. The Little Miss, a chit of seventeen, who knows a great deal too much and is suffering from the indigestibility consequent upon a too rapid assimilation of modish information, remarked inconsequently that for her part she couldn't listen to Caruso in black ; and she was promptly sat upon by the Woman of Thirty (who is forty).

"You're wrong, my child" - the Little Miss is quite grown up in every respect but one : she hates being a baby - "You're really and truly wrong. One can do anything artistic in black, feel anything artistic, be anything artistic. There is only one drawback to black : you mustn't wear it on water and you musn't go among flowers in it. But you can be very happy in black, and of courses very unhappy ; in fact, if I have to feel deeply I'd rather be in black than anything else, but not when I am in physical pain. No ; I know quite well that one instinctively flies to black when one is miserable and suffering, but it is a distorted, a mistaken instinct. Remember that!"

"White?" I said. My friend laughed. "White is difficult to place. White to wear on water - blue water - and in gardens and near hills ; white for a green thought in a green shade, and when one is very young and fresh and innocent, and there is a great deal of mental champagne in the air ; white when one is very good, when one is honestly trying to" - she looked at the Little Miss with a fleeting smile - "trying to play the game. And yet, white when one is just as bad as ever one can be."

"By George!" I wondered if you were going to say that," was the startling comment of the One Man Present ; a comment which was so unexpected from that quarter we all laughed. "No ; I mean it," he said stoutly, sticking to his guns. "I wondered if a woman quite sees the point of Miss --'s" - here he mentioned the name of an exeedingly clever and original actress, who excels in the ultra-modern type of "adventuress" parts - "Miss--'s always wearing white, very simple, very expensive, very careful of outline (you know!), with very few jewels, and most beautifully fitting shoes."

"Bless me!" said I. "I'd no idea men had eyes in their heads! Of course, I have always seen her point, and I know exactly the type of gown you mean, and the type of shoe - not patent leathery, nor buckly, nor high-heeled, but fitting very 'finely' - she has such beautiful narrow feet - and that is the sort of way she dresses in her most thrilling parts ; not only the wickedest, the most love-making kind. I suppose white is the right thing in which to wear to be made love to - white or black, but white for that type of part, I agree."

"Black if you're not quite that sort of woman," said the One Man, so seriously we all laughed again. "No ; don't laugh! I certainly say black, because ninety-nine men out of one hundred like a woman best in it, and it's so more appropriate somehow."

"Indoors," interpolated the Woman of Thirty, slowly. "Indoors if you like," and we left it at that.

"I don't think one ought ever wear navy blue if one feels sentimental," remarked the Little Miss, meeting with instant agreement. "Am I not right?" That is, for out-of-doors, if you like. One shouldn't wear navy blue in the house. Open air, and games, and dogs and things" (smiling at the man) : "when one sits on the grass with one's elbows on one's knees and one's chin in one's hand - that's the real navy blue attitude."

"Bravo!" said I. "And brown. Brown is lovely out-of-doors. But we are wrong to wear it in early summer ; then is the time for green - pale, translucent green. With all due deference to you, my dear," turning to the Woman of Thirty, "pale green for inland water - lake or river - and for gardens ; pale green is perfect with flowers."

"What about pale blue?" said the man. "I think it's difficult to put wrong. It may not always be suitable, but however wretched a woman may be, mentally or physically, I believe that wearing blue - a rather turquoisy sky blue - bucks her up, and all that." The flow of masculine eloquence broke down into descriptive if unlovely slang. "And gray. Now I don't think any disagreeable woman ought to wear gray, or any nice woman when she's feeling cross. It may be a bit 'sippish', as my old cook used to say when she meant insipid, a sort of dovy, nun-like color ; but it's rather attractive, even if it isn't stimulating."

"Heliotrope? Heliotrope is the color for red-haired women, only they will never see it ; and women in red-hair moods," I added. It brings out all the lovely tints in their skins, and it tones down the ginger - no, I'm not alluding to color, but to the electricity which goes with the type. I'm sorry if you don't see what I mean, or if I can't say it. As it is, red-haired women fly to blue until one is weary ; or else they will wear scarlet, which makes me ache, not because it's wrong art, but because it takes all the lovely coloring out of red hair."

"Ecru - biscuit - dun color?"

Wear them when you feel like a big black hat and one diamond broach. The mood in which you want to look - 'the gracious woman.'"

"Yellow?"

"Don't ever wear yellow," said the man, earnestly. I have been wondering why ever since.

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