conventional diplomatic or "evening" dress in Europe. In the
Mussulman East, even when European dress has been adopted, an exception
has usually been made in favour of head-gear, which has a special
religious significance. In Turkey, for instance, the hat has not
succeeded in displacing the fez; and in India, though the Parsis had by
the beginning of the 20th century begun to modify their traditional high
turban-like hat into a modified "bowler," and Hindus--abroad at
least--were affecting the head-gear of the West, those Mussulman princes
who had adopted, wholly or partially, European dress continued to wear
the turban. On the other hand, the amir of Afghanistan, when he visited
India, had--out of doors at least--discarded the turban for the ugly
"solar topee." In spite of the natural conservatism, strengthened by
religious conventions, of the Eastern races, there is a growing danger
that the spread of European enlightenment will more or less rapidly
destroy that picturesque variety of costume which is the delight of the
traveller and the artist. For Indian costumes see INDIA: _Costume_; for
Chinese see CHINA; &c.

IV. OFFICIAL COSTUME

Official costumes, in so far as they are not, like the crowns and
tabards of heralds, the coronets of peers, or the gold keys tacked to
the coat-tails of royal chamberlains--consciously symbolical, are for
the most part ceremonious survivals of bygone general fashions. This is
as true of the official costume of the past as of the present; as may be
illustrated from ancient Rome, where the toga, once the general costume
of Roman citizens, in the 3rd and 4th centuries was the official robe of
senators and officials (see also under VESTMENTS). Thus, at the present
time, the lay chamberlains of the pope and the members of his Swiss
guard wear costumes of the 16th century, and the same is true of the
king's yeomen of the guard in England. In general, however (apart from
robes, which are much older in their origin), official costumes in
Europe, or in countries of European origin, are based on the fashions of
the 18th and early 19th centuries. Knee-breeches, however, which survive
in the full-dress of many British officials, as in ordinary court dress,
had practically disappeared on the continent of Europe, surviving only
in certain peasant costumes, when the emperor William II. reintroduced
them at the court of Berlin. The tendency in the modern democratic
communities of Anglo-Saxon race h