Summary
Wilde takes the 'Girl Graduate' first. She argues that high heels keep a dress out of the mud and that a tight corset is needed to hold up petticoats. He agrees the corset is necessary while lower garments hang from the hips, but the mistake is not hanging everything from the shoulders; the farthingale, the hoop, the crinoline and the dress improver all come from the same error. Height, if needed, should be given to the sole as well as the heel: the modern high heel is the clog of Henry VI's time with the front prop left out, and it throws the body forward. Clogs can be beautiful, or a lady may try the loose Turkish trouser. The divided skirt's flounces are superfluities, but its principle is sound.
Mr. Huyshe says Greek dress does not suit the English climate. Wilde replies that warmth depends on material, not the number of garments, and that over a layer of pure wool, on Dr. Jaeger's system, Greek principles work here, as Mr. E. W. Godwin's handbook for the Health Exhibition shows. He wants no antiquarian revival, only the right laws of dress: Greek beauty joined to German health.
Huyshe also prefers the men's dress of a hundred years ago, the late eighteenth century, to that of 1640. Wilde compares them piece by piece: the broad-brimmed hat against the narrow brim that led to the chimney-pot, the turned-down collar against the strangling stock, the cloak against the overcoat, the doublet against coat and waistcoat, loose trousers against knee-breeches, soft boots against the stiff Hessian. He hopes for a national revival of the older dress.