The Heritage of Dress: Being Notes on the History and Evolution of ClothesWebb, Wilfred Mark
History
The Heritage of Dress: Being Notes on the History and Evolution of Clothes
Webb, Wilfred Mark
Clothing and dress; Clothing and dress -- History
The state of affairs is this: man became perfectly well fitted for an
upright position, and his internal organs were arranged quite properly
for progress on two legs instead of four, although Mr. Heather Bigg
claims to the contrary. What may be the case is, that natural selection
no longer acts to keep man as perfectly constructed as he was, or to
improve him, and some human beings may need support, owing to weakness
or the undue development of their bust, just as those of us who suffer
from short sight and bad teeth take advantage of eye-glasses and the
skill of the dentist. We think it hardly time yet to say that all women
need stays, any more than that we all need eye-glasses or should be
provided with false teeth at a certain age.
Summing up the matter, when human beings take up work for which their
bodies were not specially evolved, or when they wish to do things which
at one time all human beings could do, but which, through the cessation
of the action of natural selection, they are not now able to do, then
they want help. This would explain why our soldiers when marching in
South Africa found puttees so useful, as Mr. Heather Bigg maintains.
The case of dress brought forward by Mr. Heather Bigg is exactly a case
in point. We have seen in the opening chapters of this book that man has
lost his hairy covering, and, so far as cold climates are concerned, we
must agree with Mr. Heather Bigg that it has been found by experience
that clothing is necessary for healthful warmth. All the same, we should
like to see some experiments tried to show whether even now it might not
be quite possible to exist in this climate with little or no artificial
covering. We do not agree at all with the statement that as man "has
reared himself from four legs on to two, so he has found by similar
experience that some sort of bandaged support is required in order to
assist an abdominal mechanism that is inadequate for biped progression."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account