The results of the minute division of labour, to which so much of the
excellence of all that is excellent in London is mainly owing, is in
nothing more apparent than in that department of the fine arts which
people devoid of taste call fashionable tailoring. We have at the West
End fashionable _artistes_ in riding coats, in dress coats, in
cut-aways; one is superlative in a Taglioni, another devotes the powers
of his mind exclusively to the construction of a Chesterfield, a third
gives the best years of his life to the symmetrical beauty of a
barrel-trouser; from the united exertions of these, and a thousand other
men of taste and genius, is your indisputably-dressed man of fashion
turned out upon the town. Then there are constructors of Horse Guards'
and of Foot Guards' jacket, full and undress; the man who contrives
these would expire if desired to turn his attention to the coat of a
marching regiment; a hussar-pelisse-maker despises the hard, heavy style
of the cutters for the Royal Artillery, and so on. Volumes would not
shut if we were to fill them with the infinite variety of these
disguisers of that nakedness which formerly was our shame, but which
latterly, it would seem, has become our pride. With the exception of one
gentleman citywards, who has achieved an immortality in the article of
box-coats, every contriver of men of fashion, we mean in the tailoring,
which is the principal department, reside in the parish of St James's,
within easy reach of their distinguished patrons. These gentlemen have a
high and self-respecting idea of the nobleness and utility of their
vocation. A friend of ours, of whom we know no harm save that he pays
his tailors' bills, being one day afflicted with this unusual form of
insanity, desired the artist to deduct some odd shillings from his bill;
in a word, to make it pounds--"Excuse me, sir," said Snip, "but pray,
let _us_ not talk of pounds--pounds for tradesmen, if you please; but
artists, sir, _artists_ are always remunerated with guineas!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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