The first plate in the book is dated 1893, and serves as a frontispiece. The costumes of the lady and gentleman are familiar enough, although we note with surprise that the gentleman's coat-talks seem to have a crinoline cast, and if the turned-up bottoms of his trousers are a little mortifying, it is atoned for by a triumphant attitude which disarms hypercriticism. Also the lady's posture makes it difficult for us to tell whether it is a stick or an umbrella she is carrying. [Illustration: 1908] There is a pictorial hiatus of some years, but the text notes that crinoline for women enjoyed a sway of some years' duration. For, taking the tracings from the plates in the order in which they are given in the book, we find a subdued form of the article in the female costume for 1905. The ladies may well regard this plate as astounding. There is even a suggestion of "bloomer" about its nether portion, and if the hat is not without precedent in history, the waist is little short of revolutionary. [Illustration: 1910] The next plate displays a gentleman's habit for the year 1908. The tailors, fifteen years hence, seemed to have borrowed, in the construction of the coat, very liberally from the lady's mantle of 1893. Apropos of this and the ensuing three plates, it is pleasing to be told, as we are by the author of this book, that the long reign of black is doomed. Towards the close of April, 1898, Lord Arthur Lawtrey appeared in the Park attired literally in purple and fine linen, _i.e._, in a violet coat, with pale heliotrope trousers. [Illustration: 1902, 1911-12] Yet, in spite of the opposition to Lord Arthur, the wave was due, and the affection for colour spread. The new century, at its birth, saw black relegated to the past--also to the future. This was midway in the Ebullient Age. Pent up for decades, mankind naturally began to slop over with sartorial enthusiasm. In 1920 its _bizarrerie_ became offensive, and an opposition crusade was directed against it. Something had to be conceded. Trousers, which had been wavering between nautical buttons and gallooned knees--or, in the vernacular of the period, a sail three sheets in the wind and a flag at half-mast--were the items sacrificed. Knee-breeches enjoyed vogue for a time, but only for a time; for they vanished suddenly in 1930 and were replaced by tights or shapes. Boots made way for Elizabethan slippers. Hats had long since gone the way of the superannuated. Taught by the Darwinian theory, society discovered whence its tendency to baldness originated. They had recourse by degrees to flexible tiles of extraordinary cut. [Illustration: 1912] [Illustration: 1912]