Winter Fashions - 1956

Even the dashing young man in the plaid jacket, red Bermuda shorts, and plaid knccsox, could not provoke more raised eyebrows than did Marlene Dictrich in her gown of filmy gauze. Miss Dictrich demonstrated the truth of the widely accepted notion that women's clothing attracts more attention than do men's. Yet feminine styles and trends are oftimes obscure to the Harvard man, to say nothing of the Radcliffe girl.

For those who wish to broaden their knowledge on a century or so of fashion, Widener offers a number of interesting books. Among the earliest of the informative volumes is Mirror of the Graces whose author preferred to be called "A Lady of Distinction." She is a woman of many platitudes: "If beauty be a woman's weapon, it must be featured by the Graces, pointed by the eye of discretion, and shot by the hand of virtue."

Her god-like women are so well protected from both sight and air that they might well pine away. In addition to extolling the veil, she cries, "The exposure of the bosom and back is not only repugnant, but disadvantageous to nine women out of ten."

The eventual exposure of ten inches of leg, although covered by gaiters, was advocated by Helen Gilbert Ecob in 1893. Her book, The Well Dressed Woman, proposed "the emancipation of the body": from top to bottom, the removal of veils and a few inches of skirt, and in the middle the abandoning of the corset. The most serious hazard to health and freedom of the body was the corset which averaged seventy-five pounds of restrainment. "How shall women breathe?" she asks.

In a more scientific study, Professor J. C. Flugel in 1930 compiled The Psychology of Clothes. Among his first conclusions is "in the case of an individual whom we have never met, the clothes he is wearing tells at once something of his sex..." Proceeding from such sound observations, he concludes that the three purposes of clothing are decoration, modesty, and protection. In addition to traditional clothes ("a blush upon the face of humanity") he recognizes scars, tatoos, painting, mutilation, and deterioration. In the future he sees more zippers, fewer "finicky items" such as ties, collars flaps, and loose sleeves.

Models for this feature include: Dory Briggs, Carol E. Jacobs, Jean Harper, Grace Hill, Gail Finkel, Edward Abramson, Olivar Woodburn, Gregory Stone, Stephen Wald, Edward R. Chalfin, John Grady, William Prescott and George Hatch. Picture credits: Six foot scarf--Jeffrey A. Barach; Silhouette--Stephen F. Ells.