[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY III. (1216-1272) Heavy cloak and fulness of dress characteristic of this time.] If one may take fashion as a person, one may say: Fashion arrived in 1066 in swaddling-clothes, and so remained enveloped in rich cloaks and flowing draperies until 1240, when the boy began to show a more active interest in life; this interest grew until, in 1270, it developed into a distaste for heavy clothes; but the boy knew of no way as yet in which to rid himself of the trailings of his mother cloak. Then, in about 1272, he invented a cloak more like a strange, long tunic, through which he might thrust his arms for freedom; on this cloak he caused his hood to be fastened, and so made himself three garments in one, and gave himself greater ease. Then dawned the fourteenth century--the youth of clothes--and our fashion boy shot up, dropped his mantles and heaviness, and came out from thence slim and youthful in a cotehardie. Of such a time as this it is not easy to say the right and helpful thing, because, given a flowing gown and a capacious mantle, imagination does the rest. Cut does not enter into the arena. Imagine a stage picture of this time: a mass of wonderful, brilliant colours--a crowd of men in long, loose gowns or surcoats; a crowd of ladies in long, loose gowns; both men and women hung with cloaks or mantles of good stuffs and gay colours. A background of humbler persons in homespun tunics with cloth or frieze hoods over their heads. Here and there a fop--out of his date, a quarter-century before his time--in a loose coat with pocket-holes in front and a buttoned neck to his coat, his shoes very pointed and laced at the sides, his hair long, curled, and bound by a fillet or encompassed with a cap with an upturned brim. [Illustration: {Two men of the time of Henry III.}] The beginning of the coat was this: the surcoat, which up till now was split at both sides from the shoulder to the hem, was now sewn up, leaving only a wide armhole from the base of the ribs to the shoulder. This surcoat was loose and easy, and was held in at the waist by a belt. In due time a surcoat appeared which was slightly shaped to the figure, was split up in front instead of at the sides, and in which the armholes were smaller and the neck tighter, and fastened by two or three buttons. In front of this surcoat two pocket-holes showed. This surcoat was also fastened by a belt at the waist. In common with the general feeling towards more elaborate clothes, the shoes grew beyond their normal shape, and now, no longer conforming to the shape of the foot, they became elongated at the toes, and stuck out in a sharp point; this point was loose and soft, waiting for a future day when men should make it still longer and stuff it with tow and moss.