Strategic naming salvages weak costumes

(Practical advice for the lady or gentleman with a mediocre costume. Note the last costume on the list: in a one throwaway line, Holt has just provided for futuristic costumes…as imagined by someone in the 1880s! And I have never wished so much for an illustration as for the Bounding Ball of Babylon…)

There is much in a name, — A Coquette, a Lady of the Past Century, Petite Sole à la Normandie, the Bounding Ball of Babylon, His Picture in Chalk, a Duchess of the Next Century, &c., have attracted attention to very mediocre costumes ere this.

Source: Holt, Ardern.  Fancy Dresses Described, 5th Edition.  London: Debenham & Freebody, 1887.