CHAPTER XXII
THE BEAUTY’S PERSONALITY AND HER CLOTHES
HAVE you ever seen a jeweler at work making a gem as fine and handsome as he can or as the nature of the jewel will permit? That is what you must do for yourself. Polish your personality.
The jeweler makes the jewel shine with all its possible luster. That is what every woman should do for the gem which is herself. The jeweler holds the gem to the light to see what is its best angle and sets it so that that angle is prominent. So should a woman do with her best feature.
Study yourself in silhouette. Place yourself before a mirror so that you can see yourself as one would see you who hurriedly brushed past you in the street. See yourself sidewise. If you see that you have a good profile and that the lines of your figure are graceful, keep your side to the world, so to speak. Remember that this is your best line and live up to it. Dress your hair so it will enhance the profile, making it cameo like. If you discover a style of dressing your hair that is becoming to you, and that makes that profile stand out in finer relief, never mind whether it is the fashion of to-day or of ten years ago. Its beauty will be its excuse and will make it the fashion for you. So in your gowning. If your figure has a better silhouette when draped in full gathered and shirred effects follow them. If, as is liable to be true if you have a full figure, flat folds and tucks and bands are more becoming, make abundant use of them.
Learn dressmaking yourself, if your means are limited, and learn to apply your own principles of dressing. Make yourself individual. It costs but little to dress well if you can make your own clothes. If you find that your front view is better, face the world, as it were, instead of turning your side to it.
I have heard of some women, “Her hair grows prettily.” When I have scrutinized their faces I have found that what was meant by the phrase was that it grew in odd, attractive little ripples or scallops about the face. Yet I have seen the same women brushing their hair flat and pressing it back in a hard, straight line from their faces. These human jewelers were neglecting one of the best angles of their personality. I have seen women whose rich, thick hair was their greatest charm draw back the hair from their faces and twist it up in a hard little knot. I wanted to cry out against this thoughtlessness.
I once overheard a pair talking while in the first stages of love-making on board a transatlantic steamer. The man said, “You have beautiful eyes, but you don’t know how to use them.” The next day as I saw her while on a deck promenade I saw that he was right. She half covered them with heavy, lazy looking lids. When she looked at any one with them she looked with a slow, steady regard and without a smile in them. If I had had eyes like that I should have been most industrious with them. I would have opened them very wide, very often every day. It would have illuminated conversation, and promoted mutual understanding. And I would have taught them the pleasant trick of smiling.
I know a woman of whom it has often been said: “She is handsome when she smiles, but she hardly ever smiles,” and this should have been enough of a tip, as you say in America. Yet it wasn’t. Whenever I saw her her lips drooped. Her cheeks muscles relaxed. If anything startled her out of herself she smiled, quickly, roguishly, with a flash of intelligence and good humor that was entrancing. Her smile transformed her from a plain, dejected looking woman to a radiant, attractive one ten years younger in appearance than she had looked a second before. If she had polished her personality she would be always living up to that smile.
I know another woman, more intelligent, though younger. She has lovely, red-gold hair. At a time when it was fashionable to wear hats that come low upon the face, completely hiding the hair, I said to her: “And do you hide your beautiful hair beneath the foolish fashions?”
“No,” she answered. “Somehow, I always manage to show some of it. Perhaps I draw it back from the forehead a little more than the fashion requires. Or, I may tilt it a little more to the side than is necessary. But I always show my hair.” Polishing her personality, you see.
If a woman has a beautiful mouth she should be at more pains than another to massage the lips to keep them full and moist. She should massage the gums to keep them strong and red. And of her teeth she should take infinite care. Such a woman should smile and smile again, for fine teeth and a fresh, sweet mouth are always attractive.
If she has a classic chin and a fine throat she should keep the chin well up to reveal the line from chin to chest.
If her hands are pretty she should wear her sleeves short enough to display them. If her hands are shapely and tapering she should wear her sleeves still shorter.
If the lines of her throat and shoulder are good she should form the Dutch collar and low necked habit. If her figure is good she should emphasize that within the limits of modesty.
In short make radiant your personality. Discover your best points and keep, preserve and accent them. To use your plain Americanism: “Keep your best foot forward.”
Fashions change, but taste endures. Fashions come and go, but becomingness is a fixed quantity.
The woman who is wise in her own beauty will make this her creed. She will determine after much observation of herself what is becoming to her and what is not, never to cross the danger line between.
She will not aggressively defy fashion. She will adopt its becoming modes, and adapt its unbecoming ones to the point only of becomingness. But she will resolutely determine that she will wear nothing that will detract from her beauty.
In the matter of dress, I have the courage of my convictions. I will not wear that which I believe to be unbecoming to me. Sometimes I may fancy I look well in what another may not admire as a part of Cavalieri. In that I may be mistaken. But I never consciously wear what makes me look less well than I would otherwise.
For instance, you will observe from my photographs that I almost never change the style of wearing my hair. Long ago I found that flat waves drawn low upon my brow and cheeks were becoming to me. In itself the style is a trying one, but it happens to be becoming to my type of face. The Italian women are almost the only nation that can wear it to advantage. It seems to belong to the large, soft eyes, straight nose and delicate chin of the race. And so through the succeeding years I have worn them, and because I looked well in them have worn them in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, have worn them to early musicales, to luncheons, to teas, for drives and the opera. I have varied the style only when the times or character I was playing in opera demanded that they be changed.
It is my opinion that the woman who discovers the style of hair dressing that is adapted to her individual style and with some possible slight modifications, which are concessions to the mode, preserves that general style until the chiselling of the years has so changed her face that she requires a different coiffure, is the clever woman. Such a woman is Alexandra of England. The court hair dresser, a great artist in his way, gave weeks to studying the coiffure that should best frame the facial charms of the Princess of Wales.
He determined upon the present style. Queen Alexandra dressed her hair in the same style for thirty years. It is admirable for her long, patrician features, setting off their mingled delicacy and strength, and her fine English coloring. In time she will doubtless change the style to one softer and looser, calculated to lessen the effect of aging features. But that time, happily, is far off for her gracious Majesty. In general, it is true that preserving the same outlines of a coiffure for most of a lifetime makes a woman seem younger.
In general, too, these rules may be followed in choosing the coiffure that shall be yours. Do not accentuate that which nature has already accentuated too much.
If nature has given you a round, chubby face counteract this too decided tendency by building the hair high. Give the coiffure the effect of a pyramid. The one high point at the top of the head will materially lengthen the face and lessen the roundness which tends to insipidity. The high coiffure will thus give distinction to a face that had lacked it.
If the forehead is too low comb the hair loosely back from it. This will add to the alertness and intelligence of the expression. If, on the other hand, nature has given you the knobby, by which I mean what you call the intellectual, forehead, the brow which is full and high and broad, with projecting bumps, modify nature’s extreme by training the hair to fall in loose tendrils upon it. Also comb the rest of the hair, but loosely, from about it. Never tightly, for that will give the drawn, frightened look which nature has already carelessly bestowed.
If your face be broad, the high coiffure increases its apparent length.
If yours be a slender countenance, then affect the low coiffure, for its tendency is toward breadth.
If the face be broad, do not build the hair out loosely about the ears. Instead comb it upward above the ears.
If the face be slender, its apparent breadth is added to by the “fluffing” out of the hair about the ears.
If the face is angular, its hardness is reduced by a soft arrangement of the hair.
In arrangement of the hair remember that balance is the law of beauty, as it is of wisdom. For instance, balance the heavy jaw by drawing the hair in a loose mass well forward above the brow. Balance the snub nose by a loose coiffure with no jutting protuberance at the back to suggest that it is the corresponding pole of the nose.
As to color of the hair, it is my judgment that we would better leave it as nature painted it. Nature is the greatest colorist. She matches complexion, eyes and eyebrows perfectly with the hair. Transform your hair, and you will be at the trouble of transforming your entire person.
We are not to blame for our hair, but we are to blame for our hats. They must look as though they belonged to us as our faces, our eyes, our teeth belong to us.
I always trim my own hats. First I began to trim them because I had not the money to buy them or to pay for trimming them. Now I trim them because no one can do so to suit me.
I prefer simple hats, for the sufficient reason that they are more becoming to me. But an overtrimmed hat is inartistic. It is ugly. It is vulgar. The hat should serve its function of being a becoming frame for the face. The head should not be a mere pedestal or milliner’s dummy for a monstrous hat. Women answer criticisms of the terrible travesties now worn, “But they are the fashion.” Yes, but who made them the fashion? You and you and you. A fashion can be killed at its birth, in the shops of Paris, if women will but determinedly say: “No, no, no. I do not like it. I shall not wear it. Show me others.”
Remember the law of balance. A woman with a tapering chin should wear a hat built to a corresponding peak at the top. The effect of these two peaks should be to form an agreeable oval.
The round-faced woman’s safety of becomingness lies in the hat in which angles predominate. It should have stiff ribbon bows and sharp aigrettes, or pointed wings and dagger-like ornaments. This woman will always be improved, too, by wearing V effects in coats and wraps and gowns.
The hornlike effects should be avoided by the woman with sharp features. Her task of lending a semblance of softness and roundness to her face is made easier by a hat with a soft brim trimmed with a fall of lace or a shirring of silk or velvet. Also the sharp-featured woman should never wear a sailor hat. Neither should any woman over twenty-five.
Here are some rules about dressing, so fundamental that I would hesitate to give them were it not that every day I drive down Fifth Avenue I see them flagrantly transgressed.
For instance, I see the short, stout woman wearing a short, stout coat. The long, thin woman wears a long, thin coat. That is, each woman, forgetting the law of balance, has chosen that which accentuates what nature has already overaccentuated. The short coat should have been worn by the tall woman. It would have made her seem shorter. The long coat should have been worn by the short woman to disguise her brevity.
I see short women wearing horizontal trimming, when they should have had lengthwise trimming, pointed trimming or no trimming at all.
I see a tall, slender woman wearing a long cape, when she could have divided her superabundant height in two by wearing a short one.
I see a short woman wearing a flounce about her already absurdly short skirt. By some perversity the short woman tries to emulate the barrel and the tall woman the telegraph pole.
The woman with a crane-like neck bares its funny length to a grinning world, and the woman with a mere line where a neck should be muffles that up with ruches that make her look like a frightened setting hen.
If only they would have ever before them the thought, “What is becoming to me?” and put far behind them the other question, “What is the fashion?” then would women dress artistically, not ridiculously.
I do not preach that which I am not willing to practice. It happens that I do not like white. To me it is a dead, trying color. Therefore I never wear it. I am told this is to be a white season. I answer, “It will not be for me.” And I continue to wear blue or black on the street, and pale shades of rose or blue or green or yellow at night. And merely because it happens to be “a white season” people do not forget to look at La Cavalieri in rose or yellow or blue or green.
Let me recall to you the most beautiful of American women, Maxine Elliott. One winter the coat covering the hips, forming a second thickness of cloth upon them, was fashionable. Did Miss Elliott wear it? Not at all. I saw her wearing a very pronounced cutaway coat, one in which the frock part of the coat was cut at the very middle of her hips, so taking from instead of adding to the width of her figure. And the Maxine Elliott hats! Have you noticed how like they are, no matter what the fashion?
Always beautiful, because of elegant, yet simple lines, but more particularly beautiful because they are becoming to their wearer. They are very little trimmed; usually with large, flat bows or low curving feathers. Almost always they are black, or black with a touch of white, but always they look as though they were designed for or by Miss Elliott, as I doubt not they are.
The lank woman must shun the V-shaped corsage as His Satanic Majesty is said to avoid the bowl of Holy Water. The broad corsage, draped with full flounces of lace or tulle, will be most becoming.
In the same degree the stout woman must avoid the corsage with round effects. She should seek the pointed effects to counteract her redundancy of curves.
I will not go further into details on this subject. The intelligent woman to whom this law of balance in dress has been presented will work out successfully her own problems.
It applies as well to colors as to form. The high-colored woman needs pale tinted colors to reduce her own exuberance of color, while the neutral tinted woman, she with light gray or blue eyes and ash-brown hair, requires in her youth at least brilliant shades.
When buying your wardrobe I beg of you to think less of the fashion plates displayed by your tailor and dressmaker than of your own style.
Everyone has a style of her own, and that is good style for her. One authority on woman’s dress even goes so far as to urge women to know themselves so well as to decide whether in their composition mind or soul or body dominates. “For,” according to this lecturer on womanly beauty, “each of these three parts of your composition is represented by a color. If you are a woman of intense spirituality you should wear much yellow, for that represents the soul. Should you lean more to the material side of life you are best represented by red. If you are one of the growing army of the intellectuals, this authority advises wearing much of the mental color, which is blue.”
It occurs to me to inquire whether that is the reason why women of strong mentality are often referred to as “blue stockings.” I do not wholly agree with this woman lecturer.
If, for instance, you are a red woman, why not wear considerable yellow? It will give you a more soulful aspect, and, if our manners react upon our characters, why should not colors? Wearing the soul color may develop latent soul qualities. Or the red woman, by wearing much blue, might, to use a term of the stage, “convey an illusion” of greater mentality than she has, and perhaps stir that part of her self to greater activity.
It is an interesting theory, but may, perhaps, be pursued to the point of attenuation. One quality I like so greatly in you Americans is that you are practical, and theories so tenuous as this I have quoted move you to laughter. I recall that when one of your authors wrote of the color of individual auras and talked of a “pink personality,” she greatly interested the humorists. I leave with you this theory to smile at or to adopt as you like.
But in what I shall say next I am most gravely serious. That is that in selecting your wardrobe I would have you think far more about your individuality than about the passing fashion. I do not know what will be the next caprice in furs. I do not care. Being tall and slight I shall choose long-haired furs, as the silver fox, because, to use an Americanism, I can “carry them well.” But if you who read this are short, and especially if you are short and stout, wear short-skinned furs, as mink and seal and sable, if you can afford them, for long-haired furs will render you out of drawing, absurdly costumed.
While choosing your hats and wraps, your gowns and gloves, be for once self-centered. Self-centeredness is excusable when one is shopping. It is in the direction of economy, for if we think steadily of ourselves we will not purchase a fur coat in which our sister looks adorable but ourself ridiculous, and we will not order a gown that will prove so unbecoming that we will give it away after once or twice wearing it.
Keep in mind, after your own individuality, certain art principles that apply to dress. This is a good one as to color. “Dress up to your eyes, your hair or your complexion.” Permit me to explain. If a girl has brown eyes she may not always wear brown gowns. But she can be exceedingly careful to wear no tint that will make her creamy skin look sallow. For her creamy shades are becoming, because they harmonize with her complexion.
If a girl has red hair she will be wise if she wears shades, regardless of the tint of the moment, that will throw the hair into relief—as blue, or green, or black. If a woman has Irish eyes—that fascinating mixture of blue and gray, that holds in its depths much of infant innocence yet much of worldly wisdom, deep eyes that fascinate because they are inscrutable—she will look her best in gowns that match her eyes, the same indeterminate blue and gray.
Think of yourself steadily and not tenderly in the selection of stuffs. If you are thin and active, soft materials, as chiffons, crêpe de chines, light weight silks, will be becoming. If you are of heavier habit, heavier silks and broadcloths are more expressive and so more becoming.
The dividing line between the skirt and bodice is ugly. If you cannot have a one part dress, then hide the dividing line by a girdle. If you are stout, let the girdle be of the same shade and material as the gown. If not slender, you may safely wear a girdle of different shade than your gown.
Artists know the beauty of the straight line, and for a few seasons coutourieres have groped their way toward it. Parallel lines running lengthwise are the lines of beauty in dress because they consistently follow those of the figure. For this reason a gown whose pronounced lines are from the shoulder, the drapery curving slightly at the waist, give grace and beauty to the figure. Trimmings that run around the figure always lack beauty, and if of contrasting material they have a ludicrous effect. The high girdle gives an appearance of greater length to the limbs. The girdle, if not of the same color and material, should not be of too glaringly the opposite.
Remember that stiff effects are always inartistic, so avoid the appearance of being trussed up, as a fowl in the oven or soldier on parade. For this reason shun tight sleeves, tight gloves, or skirts, so heavy or narrow that they make your gait an awkward one. I am glad that fashion permits the wearing of loose gloves. They give ease to the hands and are far more graceful than the tight ones that gave the hand the appearance of being stuffed into it.
When selecting your hat, a bit of brilliant color may be introduced; but let it not be directly above the face, for it will give to the face the illusion of being pale, whether it is or not.