Themes
The shoulders, not the hips
One principle runs through every answer. Wilde traces the corset, the farthingale, the crinoline and the 'dress improver' to a single error, 'the error of not seeing that it is from the shoulders, and from the shoulders only, that all garments should be hung.' Freed from the corset, the body can breathe and move, and 'there is more health, and consequently more beauty.' The same test of freedom lets him condemn the high heel, which shortens the step and produces 'that want of grace which always follows want of freedom.'
Laws, not costume history
Wilde insists that he is 'not proposing any antiquarian revival of an ancient costume'. He wants 'the right laws of dress', dictated 'by art and not by archæology, by science and not by fashion.' Greek dress matters for its principles, which can survive even in a tight gown with sleeves, and the seventeenth-century man is praised for what his hat, cloak and boots do: shade the face, keep him warm, let him walk freely.