Mark Twain and Fashion

Modesty Died When Clothes Were Born:

            Costume in the Life and Literature of Mark Twain

Catalogue by Lynne Bassett

Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, 64 pages.

 

 

 

I seldom review an exhibition catalogue, but I make exceptions when Samuel Clemens, aka/ Mark Twain, is concerned. In my mind he is the most “American” of all authors and Huckleberry Finn is the quintessential great American novel.

 

I won’t rehash his extensive biography except for a few spartan details. Clemens–always “Sam” to his family and friends–was born in Missouri to a father who churned through money, a harbinger of Twain’s own problems holding on to it.  As most know, he was a man of the frontier West for much of his youth. He acquired his pen name from his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, worked for several papers of minor renown, performed manual labor, dwelt in a cabin for a time, and lived up (or down) to the title of one of his earliest novels: Roughing It.

 

When he moved East, he fell in love with Olivia “Livy” Langdon, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and married her in 1870 after two years of determined courtship. Livy’s parents were not in favor of the match. They viewed him as uncouth, bombastic, and uncivilized. They were not entirely wrong! Sam promised Livy he’d wear decent clothing, and quit swearing, drinking, and smoking; he (mostly) managed three out of four. But not even Livy could tame Sam entirely. She adored him, but Sam had a positive knack for embarrassing her. Livy was a Victorian clotheshorse who loved fashion, new frocks, and all the trimmings. Sam fell into the category of you can dress him up, but you can’t make him take it seriously.

 

Bassett’s catalogue for a show at Hartford’s Mark Twain House is both a serious and mirthful look at fashion illustrated with photographs and several drawings of either actual dresses or types of dresses worn by Livy and daughters Suzy, Jean, and Clara, and accoutrements worn by Sam. (Some come from collections in Northampton.) Sam could put on airs, but his often unkempt red hair and sometimes unruly mustache betrayed him, as did the fact that his two favorite costumes were an Oxford academic robe awarded when he received an honorary degree and, of course, his famed white linen suits. 

 

Those interested in couture will enjoy reading about Victorian gowns, though they’re likely to cringe at what elite women had to go through to be fashionable–the bustles, corsets, layers, and changes of clothing up to four times a day. Livy was slight, but do you think she had a natural 18-inch waist?

 

Because Sam loved Livy he tried to show an interest in clothing, but this witticism pretty much sums up his attitude: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.” That’s among the barbs you’ll find in this slim volume. He paid enough attention to be able to discourse on clothing and their particulars, but he could only go so far. Who but Twain could write of that “Miss C. wore an elegant Cheveaux de la Reine …and a Garibaldi shirt” set off by a head-dress “crowned with a graceful pomme de terre,” or assert that the Empress Eugenie “dresses in buckskin?” When wry comments failed him, he simply invented terms that presaged Dr. Seuss. One of my favorite puckish moments came when Livy berated his coarseness for calling upon neighbor Harriet Beecher Stowe without wearing a cravat. He promptly had a servant deliver a box containing a cravat to Stowe with a kind request that she pen a note acknowledging that she observed that he actually owned one. Stowe perhaps understood wily Sam better than Livy on this score, as she played along.

 

As noted, Twain had a complicated relationship with money. He liked having it, but managed to lose it in bad investments such as his own publishing house, a typesetter that never worked, and plasmon, a milk food product that by all accounts was awful. It must have been hard on Livy and the girls when he invested away a fortune and they could no longer afford luxuries. Suzy died in 1896 and Livy in 1904. In 1906, Sam donned white suits all year round simply because he wanted to. As the expression goes, pick up this charming book and read all about it.

 

Rob Weir