Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 February 1884 — Fashions in 1725. [ARTICLE]

Fashions in 1725.

We must own that some of the fashions of this season are a little strange. But, in truth, the freaks of Dame Fashion in the past were far more fantastic than those at which we are occasionally obliged to smile to-day. If the over-dressed girls of our own time are ridiculous, what were the beaux and belles in the early part of the eighteenth century ? At that period Spain still held its head loftily among the nations of Europe. The dress of the Spanish belle was then cut high in front and very low behind, displaying her shoulders, which were touched with red paint. Her face, the tips of her ears, and even the palms of her hands, were also painted, and she was perfumed from head to foot. Jeweled bodkins were thrust through her hair, bracelets and rings adorned her hands and arms, a broad knot of diamonds glistened at the top of her stays, and from it a chain of pearls or precious stones extended, to her waist. Pendants over a hand-breadth long, to which were sometimes added watches, jeweled padlocks, keys,.or little bells, hung from her ears. If she were short, she went about upon pattens six inches high, and if she were young and gay, she wore huge spectacles perched upon her nose and attached to her overburdened ears, to give her an air of gravity. The Spanish beau was arrayed in a manner even more elaborate and absurd. He, too, was perfumed. His hair was parted on the crown of his head, and tied behind with a blue ribbon about four fingers wide and two yards long, and he wore an immense hat. He had a velvet vest and kneebrifeches, and a scalloped doublet of white silk with hanging sleeves. His cloak was black, and he carried it wrapped about his arm, that being considered more gallant. In one hand he bore a light buckler with a steel spike in the middle, and in the other a sword, of a kind so long that no ordinary man could draw it from the sheath, which was therefore made to fly open upon touching a spring. His shoes were of the finest leather, fancifully slashed and extremely tight, and his collar so straight and stiff that he could neither stoop nor turn his head. Viewed beside such attire as this, the curly brimmed hats, excruciatingly tight trousers, and pointed shoes of the young dandies of to-day rise, we had almost said, into good taste. Moreover, the dandies of a former period were obliged to “give their whole minds” to tiie great business of * personal decoration. At present the young fop can satisfy his elevated ideas of “good form” and “the requirements of society” by concentrating the whole powers of his mind upon his dress for a fraction only of his butterfly life.— Youth’s Companion.