... around
the _decolletage_ four ruches ... the skirt relieved with drapery of
white satin falling behind like a peplum ... on the shoulder--the left
shoulder--a bouquet of myosotis or violets ... that is how I see
mademoiselle dressed." And Epinglard salutes gravely, while an
assistant, who has noted down the prophetic utterances of the master,
conducts the subject to a room in the centre of which is an articulated
model of a feminine torso, with movable breasts, flattened rag arms
hanging at the sides, and a combination of straps and springs to adjust
the _taille_ or waist,--a most sinister and grotesque object, all
crumpled and shrivelled up and covered with shiny, glazed calico. This
is the studio of one of the most important of the secondary artists in
dress-making, the _corsagere_. The chief of this department takes the
subject in hand, and, with the aid of pieces of coarse canvas, such as
the tailors use to line coats, she takes a complete mould of the body,
cutting and pinning and smoothing with her hand until the mould is
perfect. This is the first step toward the execution of the master's
plan. At the next _seance_ of trying-on, the subject passes
simultaneously through the hands of several heads of departments,--the
_corsagere_, the _jupiere_, who drapes the skirts and arranges the
train, and the second _jupiere_, who mounts and constructs the skirt.
The corsage is brought all sewn and whaleboned, but only basted below
the arms and at the shoulder, and as soon as it is in place--"_crac!
crac!_"--the _corsagere_, with angry fingers, breaks the threads, and
then calmly and patiently rejoins the seams and pins them together so
that the joinings may lie perfectly flat and even. On her knees, turning
patiently round and round, the _jupiere_ drapes the skirt on a lining of
silk, seeking to perfect the roundness, sparing no pains, and displaying
in all she does the artist's _amour-propre_, the desire to achieve a
masterpiece in the detail which the masculine designer has allotted to
her care. These women who lend their light-fingered collaboration to the
imagination of the bearded dress-maker are really admirable in their
sentiment of their work, in their artist's ambition, which thinks not
merely of the week's salary, but of the perfection of the masterpiece.
They seem to find intense personal satisfaction in producing a beautiful
toilet, in fashioning a delicate thing which almost has the qualities of
a work of a