How Fashions Are Created

Whatever may be said of fashions, they are not imposed by decree, and no skilled designer can draw up the design for a dress of his own accord and guarantee its success. What women wear must have women's approval.

In 1920 women took up the style that lengthened bodices down to the hips and shortened skirts to above the knees. This style caught on amid a certain astonishment; and since the bodices had reached the utmost limit of length, they turned short again. And since it was not customary for skirts to be short, they returned to length by the rule of "the general taste."

In 1926 a ball was held in London, the guests being people of taste and elegance. No sooner had one lady entered than the eyes of the company turned to her in amazement and disapproval, for she was wearing a gown with a full skirt — except that it was so exaggeratedly lengthened at the back that it touched the floor, and so exaggeratedly shortened in front that it bared the knees. Talk multiplied until the observers settled on the opinion that her coat was very elegant; and this incident was the first sign of opinion's turning toward longer skirts.

The lengthening of evening gowns on every side is counted among the innovations of Madame Lanvin, the famous Parisian mistress of fashion; and this style spread not because Madame Lanvin invented it, but because she knew before anyone else that people wanted it so.

Whoever belongs to the masters of this craft must look closely at everything women wear, of every class and in every place — in the automobile, in the street, in the cinema houses, in her home, and on visits to her friends — and make a minute study of the general taste. If he keeps watch over this interest and is faithful to it, he will know how to manage his affairs, and he will know what women want to wear once the present fashion is gone.

As for the claim that fashions are influenced by international or historical factors, the skilled masters of fashion find no proof of it. It is well known that the circumstances of the war narrowed the forms of fashion and even their meanings; women in the belligerent countries had no choice but to make up for the rationing of fabrics imposed upon them. They found, it appears, that nothing could compensate for the sudden shortage but recourse to a natural capital that woman possesses, which no government and no wartime circumstance had the power to reach with rationing — namely, "the hair." So they kept silent about the fashions of dress, grudgingly, and gave themselves over to the fashions of the hair. And it must be observed that the men, too, bowed to the fact, for in judging elegance they shifted their gaze from waists and legs to heads crowned with wonders and marvels of shapes and colors.

If we have one observation to make, it is that woman after this war will incline toward less adornment and more orderliness, and will accept the middle course between nature and artifice. As for the fashions, they will follow the easiest rules of simplicity — and this is certain, because women in this age have come to rely on scientific principles, and the time has come for them to grasp matters in their convincing, settled aspects.