Clothing Makes the Man

1905

Historical Personages Stripped of Accustomed Raiment Seem Unreal

A meeting of the Custom Cutters' Association of America was held in Philadelphia the other day. J. O. Madison of New York, in explaining the part that clothes play in making the man, said:

"An undraped Caesar never could have quelled rebellion with a speech, nor could, undressed, our great Washington have awed his friends with his impressive dignity. What do we know of Moses, not knowing how he was dressed? And how much greater would our interest be in Aristotle if we knew the kind of clothes he was in the habit of wearing?

"What do we know of Nero or of Judas, ignorant, as we are, of what their clothes were like? And if we knew how St Patrick clothed himself how much more feelingly would the Christian world do reverence to his memory. We know that Adam wore a fig leaf, and he seems, because of this historic fact, more real than if we knew him only as the man whose appetite for apples made tailoring necessary."