From the very earliest times the evolution of dress has been governed by two contending principles--Protection and Decoration; and the student of "primitive culture" will find these principles asserting themselves even in our own highly sophisticated times. One need not be an expert in psycho-analysis to trace in modern fashions the survival of the primitive instinct of decoration or the conflict between the irrational and the rational selves which is writ large in the annals of Mode. Profoundly conscious of my own incompetence to deal adequately with this fascinating and momentous subject, I nevertheless venture to submit that Laxity is the outstanding feature or "note" of the period now under review. It is an ambiguous term, but none the less suitable on that account, for laxity in its original sense implies a looseness which conduces to comfort, while, in its later and ethical use, it stands for irregularity, extravagance and eccentricity. Both meanings are richly exemplified in the fashions which prevailed in the years 1892-1914; but it must be admitted that, on the score of a wise laxity, man was more "rational" than woman in endeavouring to reconcile the claims of comfort and adornment. Women's dress is far more various, interesting, amusing and even exciting, but on the principle that one should keep one's cake for the end, I prefer to begin with the mere bread-and-butter of male costume. _Punch_, as my readers may remember, had in his earlier days inveighed against the rigidity and discomfort of men's dress, the tyranny of the top-hat and the strangulation of tight-fitting collars. In middle age, we find him more of a stickler for propriety of costume. Thus in 1893 he describes, with affected amazement, the strange garb adopted by fashionable young men for their morning exercise in the Park between nine and eleven--a straw hat worn on the back of the head, an unbuttoned coat, no waistcoat and flannel trousers. Simultaneously one of his artists depicts the strange and casual attire of M.P.s in the House of Commons in August--tweeds and knickerbockers, sombreros, caps, and even blazers. Yet, with an inconsistency which did credit to his humane instincts, _Punch_, at the close of the same year, assails the high stiff collar worn by young men of fashion and refrains, in 1894, from any serious comment on an article in the _Scotsman_ on the laxity of costume characteristic of modern Oxford. "Straw hats and brown boots appear to abound everywhere," while "bowlers" were gradually discarded. When the centenary of the top-hat arrived in 1897, _Punch_ suggested that its abolition would be a suitable way of celebrating the year of Jubilee. But the "top-hat" had its defenders as well as detractors, and the "pros" and "cons" of the correspondence in _The Times_ are admirably summed up in _Punch's_ article:-- It would be advisable, or inadvisable, as the case may be, to abolish It in the Jubilee Year.