FASHION NOTES FROM PARIS.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 22

FASHION NOTES FROM PARIS.

| (By AN" EXPERT.)

PARIS, October 3, 1923. Velvet is always the piece de resistance of every autumn season, writes our Paris correspondent, and it is always produced with the same pomp and flourish of trumpets as if it were an entirely new and unheard of idea. People, apparently, are blessed with a short memory, and nobody remembers how quickly history repeats itself. It is going to be a great velvet year, the authorities say, impressively, and velvet is quite the last thing. Of course it is. It never failed to be anything elbc. Nevertheless, it beholds you to be astonished, and it is nice to imagine that there is something new under the sun. Take brown and russet, for instance; they have been the autumn colours for more years than I can remember, and yet there are plenty of people to whom the regular reappearance of these two colours still comes as a tremendous surprise. The only difference that has crept in of late is in the number of browns invented. Once upon a time there was just chocolate and cinnamon-brown, and very little else. But nowadays the browns are legion, with their nigger, their Spanish tobacco, their .afe-au-lait, their russet, rust, beech, and copper variations. The more the merrier, as the latest are nicer than were the first. Fashion designers in Paris promise a surprise in the winter modes. The suspicion that it will take the preposterous shape of our grandmothers' crinolines is gaining ground. Women, taken as a whole, do not want the crinoline. .It would regulate her to the limbo of Early Victorian futility. Woman, in a crinoline, would be handicapped all through life's race. For evening wear, a full dress with wired hip-hoops is j very pretty, but when it comes to anything bigger, wired hoops are unthinkable. Just imagine! Doorways in trains, tubes, and omnibuses would require widening, theatre stalls would have to be enlarged, the chaos of billowing skirts at bargain sales may be imagined. Just as bad would it be if men took again to the fashions of Charles 11. and his time, with their big feather hats, their swords, and all the rest of it. Caii you imagine how difficult it would be to take one's ticket with your neighbour's sword tripping you up. No, present fashions are sensible, the only ones possible, and Messieurs les Couterieres will have to think of some other novelty to tempt their clients. With lace, some dressmakers are particularly successful this season. Many of the dinner dresses and race gowns have long transparent sleeves of lace with floating frills. Lace cloaks are i good, too, and one sees black lace over coloured Georgette, a very effective fashion. What a boon lace is to the older woman! In black and in brown, she can get some particularly good effects. Younger women may play with silver, beige, and black. For years and experience, black taffetas can be well employed. It is equally good for youth, especially when used wilh black and white cheeks or colour. Maturity avoids the checks, and chooses delicate touches of lingerie. Talking of taffetas, reminds mo that there are some lovely dance frocks in this fabric this season. It is a material of which, for certain purposes, one never tires. An old-rose picture dress I have seen has a narrow ribbon of royal blue and silver round the waist, with floating ends. Ribbon, indeed, plays a foremost part in dress this year. It flows and floats from waist and shoulder, it is ruched and pleated, it is used as braid, and wide bows of it are set among draperies. It is figured and plain,' black and coloured, wide as piece-silk, and narrow as fine straw. It's uses are legion, and it is always very practical. As a trimming, it is easily replaced, and a. damp cloth and an iron freshen up a bow or a sash quickly. The variety to be found in skirts this season should be welcome by the slim and the portly alike. A too slim figure is easier to correct than one which is too stout, but both women may be improved with little difficulty this season. For'tho very slim, there are draperies; for the too fat, there are pleats and back panels. A very tall, slim woman can indulge in flounces and bands of embroidery or woven tissue, or braided materials specially designed to replace embroidery. A woman who is sparingly endowed with inches can use fine plissees and tucks, broad pleating, and long pointed draperies to give an effect of height. The more normal place of the waist-line now in vogue is _ hejp, too, and pockets may be so placed so as to correct imperfect lines. The beginning and end of good dressing is, when all is said and done, perfection in line. The cut, the adjustment of draperies, the exact placing of the waist-line to suit the proportions of the figure, and the length of the skirt, are of primary importance. Our Sketch. The three-quarter length coat of novelty effect and Japanese inspiration will be much worn this autumn. In our sketsh we have an example which has