y a
white veil, a style we associate with nuns and certain folk costumes. As
fashion it had a passing vogue.

Originally, the habit of covering woman's hair indicated modesty (an
idea held among the Folk), and the gradual shrinking of the dimensions
of her coif, records the progress of the peasant woman's emancipation,
in certain countries. This is especially conspicuous in Brittany, as M.
Anatol Le Braz, the eminent Breton scholar, remarked recently to the
writer.

Note the silk bag, quite modern, on the arm; also the jewelled line of
chain hanging from girdle down the middle of front, to hem of
skirt,--both for use and ornament.

To us of a practical era, a mysterious charm attaches to the
long-pointed shoes worn at this period.

In the fifteenth century, the marked division of costume into waist and
skirt begins, the waist line more and more pinched in, the skirt more
and more full, the sleeves and neck more elaborately trimmed, the
head-dresses multiplied in size, elaborateness and variety. Textiles
developed with wealth and ostentation.

In the sixteenth century the neck was usually cut out and worn low on
the shoulders, sometimes filled in, but we see also high necks; necks
with small ruffs and necks with large ruffs; ruffs turned down, forming
stiff linen-cape collars, trimmed with lace, close to the throat or
flaring from neck to show the throat.

The hair is parted and worn low in a snood, or by young women, flowing.
The ears are covered with the hair.

PLATE XXII

Mrs. Conde Nast wearing one of the famous Fortuny tea
gowns.

This one has no tunic but is finely pleated, in the Fortuny
manner, and falls in long lines, closely following the
figure, to the floor.

Observe the decorative value of the long string of beads.

[Illustration: _Mrs. Conde Nast in a Fortuny Tea Gown_]

_The Virgin in Art_

When writing of the Gothic period in _The Art of Interior Decoration_,
we have said "... Gothic art proceeds from the Christian Church and
stretches like a canopy over western Europe during the late Middle Ages.
It was in the churches and monasteries that Christian Art, driven from
pillar to post by wars, was obliged to take refuge, and there produced
that marvellous development known as the Gothic style, of the Church,
for the Church and by the Church, perfected in countless Gothic
cathedrals, crystallised glorias, lifting their manifold spires to
heaven; ethereal