Chapter VII: A String of Surprises

The extremely delicate tints of Edith’s costume led me to remark that the color effects of the modern dress seemed to be in general very light as compared with those which prevailed in my day.

“The result,” I said, “is extremely pleasing, but if you will excuse a rather prosaic suggestion, it occurs to me that with the whole nation given over to wearing these delicate schemes of color, the accounts for washing must be pretty large. I should suppose they would swamp the national treasury if laundry bills are anything like what they used to be.”

This remark, which I thought a very sensible one, set Edith to laughing. “Doubtless we could not do much else if we washed our clothes,” she said; “but you see we do not wash them.”

“Not wash them!--why not?”

“Because we don’t think it nice to wear clothes again after they have been so much soiled as to need washing.”

“Well, I won’t say that I am surprised,” I replied; “in fact, I think I am no longer capable of being surprised at anything; but perhaps you will kindly tell me what you do with a dress when it becomes soiled.”

“We throw it away--that is, it goes back to the mills to be made into something else.”

“Indeed! To my nineteenth-century intellect, throwing away clothing would seem even more expensive than washing it.”

“Oh, no, much less so. What do you suppose, now, this costume of mine cost?”

“I don’t know, I am sure. I never had a wife to pay dressmaker’s bills for, but I should say certainly it cost a great deal of money.”

“Such costumes cost from ten to twenty cents,” said Edith. “What do you suppose it is made of?”

I took the edge of her mantle between my fingers.

“I thought it was silk or fine linen,” I replied, “but I see it is not. Doubtless it is some new fiber.”

“We have discovered many new fibers, but it is rather a question of process than material that I had in mind. This is not a textile fabric at all, but paper. That is the most common material for garments nowadays.”

“But--but,” I exclaimed, “what if it should come on to rain on these paper clothes? Would they not melt, and at a little strain would they not part?”

“A costume such as this,” said Edith, “is not meant for stormy weather, and yet it would by no means melt in a rainstorm, however severe. For storm-garments we have a paper that is absolutely impervious to moisture on the outer surface. As to toughness, I think you would find it as hard to tear this paper as any ordinary cloth. The fabric is so strengthened with fiber as to hold together very stoutly.”

“But in winter, at least, when you need warmth, you must have to fall back on our old friend the sheep.”

“You mean garments made of sheep’s hair? Oh, no, there is no modern use for them. Porous paper makes a garment quite as warm as woolen could, and vastly lighter than the clothes you had. Nothing but eider down could have been at once so warm and light as our winter coats of paper.”

“And cotton!--linen! Don’t tell me that they have been given up, like wool?”

“Oh, no; we weave fabrics of these and other vegetable products, and they are nearly as cheap as paper, but paper is so much lighter and more easily fashioned into all shapes that it is generally preferred for garments. But, at any rate, we should consider no material fit for garments which could not be thrown away after being soiled. The idea of washing and cleaning articles of bodily use and using them over and over again would be quite intolerable. For this reason, while we want beautiful garments, we distinctly do not want durable ones. In your day, it seems, even worse than the practice of washing garments to be used again you were in the habit of keeping your outer garments without washing at all, not only day after day, but week after week, year after year, sometimes whole lifetimes, when they were specially valuable, and finally, perhaps, giving them away to others. It seems that women sometimes kept their wedding dresses long enough for their daughters to wear at their weddings. That would seem shocking to us, and yet, even your fine ladies did such things. As for what the poor had to do in the way of keeping and wearing their old clothes till they went to rags, that is something which won’t bear thinking of.”

“It is rather startling,” I said, “to find the problem of clean clothing solved by the abolition of the wash tub, although I perceive that that was the only radical solution. ‘Warranted to wear and wash’ used to be the advertisement of our clothing merchants, but now it seems, if you would sell clothing, you must warrant the goods neither to wear nor to wash.”