SARTORIAL ECGENTRICITIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2646, 30 October 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

SARTORIAL ECGENTRICITIES.

SOME QUEER IDEAS. Four or five years ago the relatives of a, certain (Herr Sziueny applied to the comes at Vienna to have him adjudged a lunatic, their chief allegation being that he wore 'queer clothes.’ The court, says Mr Taylor Edwards, writing in the New York “Tribune," refused the application; but evinced the keenest interest in the evidence, wherefrom it appeared that Sznieny, when on his country estate, invariably c ’ad himself in a leather suit, provided with immense scales, an imitation of the slowest of animals, the tortoise. - Szmeny, however, was not the only individual in Austria-Hungry -who ever commanded public attention by reason of sartorial eccentricities. A prominent society man of Budapesth had various suits made of material so designed and colored as to match the different papers on the walls of his big house. For instance, it is said, his dressing gown, adorned with sunflowers, was an exact reproduction of the paper in his dressingroom. Then his smoking jacket showed an Oriental design corresponding with the Eastern decorations of his smoking room, and he had many lounging suits of white and gold, pink and red, and so on. Against this freakishness of attire may be set the fad of a Pole of ‘Warsaw, a banker of some prominence, who had his overcoat lined with patchwork made from the garments of famous men. This lining, the owner contended, contained pieces from the military cloak of the first Napoleon, a bit of waistcoat worn by Byron, a section of a necktie belonging to Disraeli, several bits of the blanket used by Von Moltke during the Eranco-Prussian war, together with other sartorial relics of cerebrated persons now dead. An eccentric man in Lisbon imposed an odd system of dress upon his unfortunate servants. These domestics, he insisted, should each represent a particular flower. Accordingly, there was presented the ludicrous sight of servants whese outer garments were embroidered with violets, roses, lilies of the valley, etc. The master himself chose carnations for his emblem.

For many years one of the queer characters of Montmartre in Paris, was an old man, generally reputed to be ■very wealthy, wlio took his constitutional garbed in brightly printed cotton, of the kind generally used in France for women’s blouses. This old chap’s name was Pere Greville; and he had a mania for pockets. He always had at least six on front of his funny, cotton jacket, and sticking out of each pocket might be seen a bundle of grimy papers. Greville never wore a hat, but carried an, umbrella over his head in all kinds of weather. . .. In Russia one of the Court officials nursed a strange notion with reference, to his overcoats. He spent years in the invention of a reversible garment or that character. When he had finally attained liis desire, he was the most pleased man in St Petersburg. In winter be made a practice of entering a friend’s house clad in beaver, and of leaving dressed in reitulcer skin. Ho once boasted that his overcoats were so devised that lie could attend a wedding and a funeral in the same garment. Greeks in Athens had a notion not long ago that it would be good form to revive the ancient classical dress. Accordingly, they organised a society for the encouragement of the project, it being stipulated that every member must go about in Grecian robes, wearing sandals instead of shoes. A wealthy Silesian land owner, with bizarre notions of dress, got into trouble with the police authorities in Berlin not long ago. His failing was gold lace. So far did he carry out his sartorial ideas, that he became the observed of observers. Such'a crowd assembled in the streets of the German capital on the occasion of the Silesian’s last visit that the police promptly arrested him for a violation of the municipal ordinances. “The accused’s clothing,” states the police report, “which was made of blue serge, was completely covered with gold lace and braid, and oven his shoes were thus decorated. The accused’s brother explained his conduct on the ground of eccentricity, stating that the accused possessed no fewer than 150 suits of clothes, all embroidered with gold in various designs.” Some interesting facts were disclosed with reference .to the weakness of a Roumanian in the matter of clothes when be found himself in the bankruptcy court. It transpired that in the course of four years he had managed to expend two hundred thousand dollars in striving to gratify his longings for fine feathers. A specimen suit was produced in Court. The buttons were set with diamonds, and in ono pf the cuffs was sewed a watch. Seams were hidden by rows of pearls,-.and in other ways this genius managed to achieve a novel effect in his general make-up. The evidence also showed that he possessed a pair of shoes made of glass, “which he always wore when at home, and of which he was inordinately proud.” This natty dresser was not m a class by himself, however, for authentic accounts show that one .Signor Abraggia, a contractor in a town of Southern Italy, ran him a close second when dazzling effects are considered. Abraggia’s clothes carried mirrors. They had looking-glass buttons and were inlaid with medallions of the same material. When Abraggia took his stroll m the sunshine, his appearance was too much for folks with weak eyes. He was. blinding. As one narrator put it, “It was impossible to stand with one s hack to the sun and look at him. .Among the first cabin passengers who arrived in New York on an Atlantic liner a few years ago was a woman whose sole costume consisted of a hall dress. She carried no baggage, aside from four carboys of mineral water and a bucket, which were necessary, she confided to all, for her. ablutions. She had rendered herself ' agreeable to everybody during the voyage; ami all admitted that, if her silk and lace ball dress was somewhat had form m the.. morning, it was quite appropriate in the evening when, in the saloon, , sue pleased the ..company with song; and dance. This passenger was certified to. by the physicians as a monomaniac, and was accordingly deported "to the place whence she came. '