ABSTRACT
Dress is the second self, a dumb self, yet a most eloquent expositor of the person. In modern days—so far removed from those when dress was regarded as a mere covering, and aspired to be no more—we no longer look upon a gown as a shield against wintry cold, or a modest veil drawn between ourselves and the outer world. French women, on the contrary, have carried too far the idea of dress as an index of the inner self. A woman may wear a dress many times without really knowing how the materials and folds mingle on her train. Dress once expressed the person, it disguises it; well, disguise may sometimes be necessary—but when dress carries its anatomical fictions as far as evasion may be carried, as far as falsehood, it ceases not only to be respectable, but beautiful as well.
