Ladies' Column.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 699, 27 October 1909, Page 2

Ladies' Column.

FABHION AND THINGS FEMININE. By Miss Ida Mellsr. (ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.) DRESS FOR THE BUSINESS GIRL. The secret of being well-dressed rests chiefly with the ability of the individual concerned to discern what is most becoming to her and what will be most serviceable to her needs. The woman who is mispress of her time, and can pick and choose her days for going out. can afford to dress in frailer fabrics, than she who is obliged to go out and about in all weathers, and with whom perishable materials would

soon lose their beauty, if subjected to the hard wear demanded by her of her toilettes generally. . Then again, women and girls wear

their clothes differently;" some are careful, others careless in their manner of dressing and treatment of their j clothes.; with some a new dress looks 3 shabby after a week or so of wear, with others a well-worn dress still looks fresh. The business girl must suit her wardrobe to her work, and will find greater use in simple fashions and weather-resisting fabrics than in the "frivolities" of dress —that is, if she journeys to a place of busin%i#every day, or her occupation is one that takes her out in all weathers. What she will rely on chiefly is a coat and skirt costume of tweed, serge, or cloth, with a blouse of washing material, or of the dress material itself, unless, of course, the costijme is of tweed, which is too substantial for a blouse. A serge or cloth blouse-bodice, however, looks, very nice and is particularly useful. The costumed sketched offers a suggestion for a coat and skirt for the business girl, the model being extremely simple and neat-looking The pleated skirt fastens at the leftfront, where it is trimmed with buttons holes, and the coat, with its roumded corners, is fastened with buttons and cord loops, and is faced on the collar and cuffs with velvet.

A COSTUME BLOUSE. The blouse-bodice sketched has been specially designed as a complement to the coat-and-skirt costume, and is suitable for cloth or serge, as well as for fancy, flannel, cashmere, or any such material. It fastens at the left side be-

neath a pleat, and is trimmed with buttons and simulated button-holes. Three stitched oleats are arranged on each side of the bodice, and are taken up, as it were, by the skirt. Light blouses are unquestionably charming, but the busy woman who must needs be economical and who saves laundry expenses by washing blouses, handkerchiefs, and other of her small articles herself, will find a good deal of time saved by generally wearing a blousebodice of dark serge or cloth, matching her skirt, instead of the lighter blouse of delaine or nun's usually preferred. For costumeblou'ses a'pretty style is seen in dark blue serge, arranged with a three-inch box-pleat, studded with buttons down the centre, and a smaller box-pleat on either side, outside each of these boxpleats being a single, fairly wide tuck, stitched along the edge. Another fashion in costume-blouses shows a plain centre-front, about four inches wide, and on either side a series of seven or eight tucks to the bust-line only. A WORK=TIDY. Pincushions, tidies, and so on, are trifles that come into possession, generally, as gifts from friends rather than as personal purchases. They are little things that just meet the occasion when only a simple gift can be offered but yet the gift must be useful, not useless. There is infinite variety in the dainty little pincushions, etc.. to be met with and some of them are easily made from cuttings of silk, velvet, or tapestry, and afford pretty work for deft fingers. A charming # little work-tidy for pins, scissors, thimble, crochet-hooks, and other necessaries for plain or fancy needlework, is sketched for the benefit of those interested in this column, and is a handy little article for hanging to the wall in

the sitting-room near the favourite work corner. The foundation is a piece of stiff cardboard, which should be covered in front with a padded piece of brocade, strapped across twice with bands of its own material or of ribbon, and provided" at the bottom with a pocket and at the top with a pincushion trimmed with ribbon. The pincushion might be heart-shaped, crescent-shaped, or otherwise, and be hing- by its ribbon trimming to the top of the tidy. Lower down, between the straps, which, if stitched down - at periods to the background, fornWreceptacles for knitting needles, etc.. is a little band of ribbon bound with dull gold braid after, however, the back has been covered with sateen. Finally ribbon is attached to the top corners to form a suspension for the tidy. The pocket at the base is very useful for reels of cotton and small, unfinished pieces of needlework.:..