A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 147, 23 June 1928, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

GOSSIP FROM LONDON

TOWN.

SHORT HAIR STILL SMART.

(From Oar London Lady Correspondent.

Mrs. Amabel Williams Ellis, who )3 just off to "Russia with her brother, is the wife of Mr. Williams Ellis, the architect. She has written a book on architecture and a number of novels, and is a charming hostess with a very wid'J circle of friends. She also has time to help run a "country house hotel" in Wales, bring up a family of children on original lines and be a Socialist as well. Her politics she shares with her brother •nd travelling companion, Mr. John Strachey, and they are remarkably at variance with those held by her father, the late St. Leo Strachey, who was in the innermost confidences of the Conservative party. Both Mrs. Williams Ellis and her husband have ideas on interior decoration and live when in town in an unusual house in Royal Avenue, Chelsea.

Reviving the Salon. Musical parties have been go numerous and so successful lately that the idea of renewing salons is beginning to be dismissed quite seriously. There are a good many hostesses in society who have •nough money and influence at the back of them to make a salon possible. Some of them have gone so far as to arrange regular "Sunday nights" and other occasions to which they invite the so-called lions of the artistic world. The real lions, of course, have passed the stage when salons appeal to them, if, indeed, they ever reached it; and those who are struggling to achieve fame seem to find •11 the salon life they need at impromptu parties in Chelsea. Titled Ranchers.

After a stay in England, Lord and Jiodney have gone back to the life they have grown to like better than Town—their farm at Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Lady Rodney is the daughter of Lord Lonsdale's brother, and seem* to have inherited the family lotc of open-air life. She puts in long hours on her farm, and when she and her husband first went to Canada, turned her hand to all kinds of very hard work. Lord and Lady Rodney are only two of a number of distinguished people wbo have gone' in for ranching in Canada. Others, besides the Prince of Wales, include Lord Minto and the Duke of Sutherland. Boyal "Brollies."

' The women members of the Royal family are vej\ faithful to the umbrella tradition. The Duchess of York has not learned to carry one, but the Queen always does, and Princess Mary and her Royal aunts all have favourite umbrellas. The one the Queen uses most has a beautiful straight handle of pale ftnd very clear amber. It broadens slightly towards the top, and I heard Her Majesty explaining to somebody '.he Other day that it _was a shape which was most comfortable to carry. The Duchess, instead of an umbrella, clutches A handle less bag tightly in one hand, always conveying the impression that it, something very precious. Prettier Shingles.

The French hairdressers say quite definitely that smart women are not allowing their hair to grow long. There is no doubt, though, that the eloselycropped shingle h*t gone lor ever. A lew people have adopted the little 1 bunches of curls over the earfc, but far more have resorted to a style between a bob' and a shingle, in which the hair is allowed to grow much thicker at the back, is waved in deep, natural-looking waves, and brushed across to one aide or the other. At the side of the face the full waves are caught back by a slide. ,The effect is very much prettier. In fact, the 1028 shingle, is a most attractive affair.. Perhaps an Embryo "Play Boy"?

Among the eleter children of actors And actresses who took part in the mati*MM of "The Young Visitors" was a boy who should "emerge" either in drama or in literature. Young John Mair*s mother is Maire O'Neill, who won fame when the Irish Flayers first came from the Abbey to captivate play-loving London, while hia father, who died a couple of years ago, was a briliiantlygifted Scottish scholar and journalist, as Well as an unusually'lovable personality. So young John has long odds in his favour. His sister, Regeen, a tall, pretty girl of 10 or so, used to long For an art career, but has lately taken to the stage, and is, I hear, on tour in America with her mother, her talentel aunt, Sara Allgood, and her step-father, Arthur Sinclair.

"Pekinese Blues.** While I'was having tea at the Savoy S bar or two of a popular "Bluca" tune floated across the next table, followed hy peals of laughter from the young people flitting there. The music came joot from a pocket musical instrument or • joke Christinas present, but from the' latest fashion in Paris handbags. Xt to the shape of a miniature peke, ,mMd« of silky,, long haired plush, and has a leather collar finished with a huge satin bow to mateh its owner's «oaturne or >hwt. The poke ha« to be pressed to make it produce a tune.

Baronets Matsni. Wives of foreign ambassadors to England!' play a big part in the work of diplomats themselves, for the life of their nationals resident here more often than not centres in them. Japanese in London will, therefore; miss Baroness Matsui, the wife of the Emperor's Ambassador to the Court of St. James, when she goes home with the baron next month. She has been the leader in work not only of interest to the "colony" of which she and her husband are the head,: hut has also helped charitable purpose* which are essentially British and have no Far Eastern associations. BarojiesS Matsui is a charming hostess, and Sven mere than iae normal Japanese, i* •ourtesy personified. The Cult of Ugliness. • ? London's bright young people dance,!!! -masks and oilcloth dresses in their own -particular haunts these days. Eaehgirl • tries to get the most grotesque-looking eovaring for her face, and eacn matPtlie most vacuous. The effect is hardly plc-i turesque, for the masks are painted" in ■ard gold and silver and dead whiM 11 w 'th, and the expressions V. ' ' *h* m register perpetual boredom and But the moderns pretend P*— beauty and to look upoii ■ :'.'222ek2L cold and brainless. The are" designed by one .*** with an artistic tern- ■ *W£lr