Christmas Scenes: Choosing your dress for the ball

A Christmas Ball:

Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant  

 

published 1876

[Phoebe is discussing with her mother what to wear for a ball]

“Green is the complementary of red. If you want to bring out my pink [complexion] and make it more conspicuous than ever, of course you will put me in a green dress. No, mamma, dear, not that —I should look a fright; and though I dare say it does not matter much, I object to looking a fright. Women are, I suppose, more ornamental than men, or, at least, everybody says so; and in that case it is our duty to keep it up.”

“You are a funny girl, with your theories of colour,” said Mrs. Beecham. “In my time, fair girls wore greens and blues, and dark girls wore reds and yellows. It was quite simple. Have a white tarlatan, then; every girl looks well in that.”

“You don't see, mamma,” said Phœbe, softly, suppressing in the most admirable manner the delicate trouble of not being understood, “that a thing every girl looks well in, is just the sort of thing that no one looks very well in. White shows no invention. It is as if one took no trouble about one's dress.”

“And neither one ought, Phœbe,” said her mother. “That is very true. It is sinful to waste time thinking of colours and ribbons, when we might be occupied about much more important matters.”

“That is not my opinion at all,” said Phœbe. “I should like people to think I had taken a great deal of trouble…What I incline to, if you won't be shocked, is black.”

“Black!” The suggestion took away Mrs. Beecham's breath. “As if you were fifty! Why, I don't myself old enough for black.”

“Black would be a great deal the best for both of us. It would tone us down,” said Phœbe, decisively, “and it would throw us up.”

“But for you, a girl under twenty, my dear—”

“Mamma, what does it matter? The question is, am I to look my best? which I think is my duty to you and to Providence.”…

The consequence of this solemn appeal was that both the Phœbes went to Mr. Copperhead's ball in black; the elder in velvet, with Honiton lace (point, which Phœbe, with her artistic instincts, would have much preferred, being unattainable); the younger in tulle, flounced to distraction…

 

comments: The justification for this as a Christmas entry is slight: there is some controversy over who can come to the ball, and the author ends up

‘but still it was Christmas, and all the newspapers, and a good deal of the light literature which is especially current at that season, persistently represented all the world as in a state of imbecile joviality, and thus, for the moment, every objection was put down.’

--which is a typical sudden sharp remark from Mrs Oliphant, and as true now as it was then. (Another Oliphant book featured in last year’s Xmas entries, with a similar strikingly contemporary note)

And anyway, obviously I had to take the chance to find some pictures of dresses.

Mrs O mentions styles of 20 years ago, so although the book is sometimes described as set in the 1860s, I am putting it in the 1850s. I loved this discussion of colours for ball dresses for young ladies, and was amazed to find Phoebe is going to wear black.

Life was obviously much less dramatic in London than in the USA – in the Bette Davis film Jezebel (1938), her character’s life is ruined (as are the lives of some other people) because she wears a scarlet dress to a ball in New Orleans in 1852.

I have a strong objection to the moral framework of Jezebel – it is deeply misogynistic – but I did enjoy this comment in the Wikipedia description:

The film demonstrates that the North could have avoided the Civil War had it simply waited for the Southern hotheads to kill themselves off in duels.

But Jezebel is an argument for another day. It is clear that Phoebe’s choice has quite a different effect:

And the consequence of this toilette, and of the fact that Phœbe did her duty by her parents and by Providence, and looked her very best, was that Clarence Copperhead fell a hopeless victim to her fascinations…

The ‘point lace’ that Phoebe would have preferred is being contrasted with needle lace, and I looked this up and read about the differences, and it really wasn’t worth passing on in my important view.

The book is a bit too tied up with snobbery, and trade, and who is infinitesimally more important or less classy than another, and the social importances of religion. There is an attempt to point out that some of this is ridiculous, but in my socialist opinion this doesn’t go far enough. But it is still a most enjoyable read. I absolutely loveMrs Oliphant.

I found these wonderful 1850s gowns at the NYPL, though no – not seeing young women in black balldresses.

And was reminded by a comment below that tarlatan was always a subject of interest on the blog - see this post, with a link to another. 

There have been two previous posts on this book, including the Hideous Mourning Jewellery post, and I have also featured Mrs O's masterpiece (of those I have read so far), Miss Marjoribanks.