be recognised as a distinct phase; as distinct as the
Gothic, Elizabethan, Empire or Victorian period.

PLATE XXXI

Costume of a Red Cross Nurse, worn while working in a
French war hospital, by Miss Elsie de Wolfe, of New York. An
example of woman costumed so as to be most efficient for the
work in hand.

Miss de Wolfe's name has become synonymous with interior
decoration, throughout the length and breadth of our land,
but she established a reputation as one of the best-dressed
women in America, long before she left the stage to
professionally decorate homes. She has done an immeasurable
amount toward moulding the good taste of America in several
fields. At present her energies are in part devoted to
disseminating information concerning a cure for burns, one
of the many discoveries resulting from the exigencies of the
present devastating war.

[Illustration: _Miss Elsie de Wolfe in Costume of Red Cross Nurse_]

As we have said, in studying the history of woman decorative, one
finds two widely separated aspects of the subject, which must be
considered in turn. There is the classifying of woman's apparel
which comes under the head of European dress, woman's costume affected
by cosmopolitan influences; costumes worn by that part of humanity
which is in close intercommunication and reflecting the ebb and flow of
currents--political, geographical and artistic. Then we have quite
another field for study, that of national costumes, by which we mean
costumes peculiar to some one nation and worn by its men and women
century after century.

It is interesting as well as depressing for the student of national
characteristics to see the picturesque distinguishing lines and colours
gradually disappear as railroads, steamboats and electric trolleys
penetrate remote districts. With any influx of curious strangers there
comes in time, often all too quickly, a regrettable self-consciousness,
which is followed at first by an awkward imitation of the cosmopolitan
garb.

We recall our experience in Hungary. Having been advised to visit the
peasant villages and farms lying out on the puestas (plains of southern
Hungary) if we would see the veritable national costumes, we set out
hopefully with letters of introduction from a minister of education in
Buda Pest, directed to mayors of Magyar villages. One of these planned a
visit to a local celebrity, a Magyar farmer,