A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHARM. ARAB KNUTS. (From Our London Lady Correspondent.) The Temple of Sociology is in Grosvenor Road, Westminster. Its high priestess is Mrs. Sydney Webb, who was 73 this week. (Unlike the editor of "The Court Circular," I give Lady Passfield the designation she prefers!) She is the high priestess of the science by virtue of her pioneer work. Her passion for research work impelled her to desert an opulent Victorian home to study at first hand how the poor live; and even now, unless knowledge is first hand, she declines to recognise it as knowledge. Desiring to portray sweated industries in East London, to that inclement region she repaired and worked for six weeks as a tailoress in a sweating den. As a consequence, her writings on the subject were vivid without being sensational. During the first decade of this century she was a member of the Royal Commission on the poor laws and unemployment. The minority report of that commission attracted more attention than the majority report. It was largely, if not wholly, drafted by Mrs. Webb. In 1931 wc know that the Poor Laws, as they existed then have changed ont of recognition; but treating unemployment by reports seems futile in this year of grace. The more it changes, the more is it the same—except in volume! Mrs. Webb may be a "blue stocking," but she has great social charm, and as a hostess she is hard to beat. As compared with her husband she is, if anything, the more convincing speaker of the two. WHY NOT BRIGHTER MEN? I hear that an attempt is to be made to brighten the evening garb of London men, and I know at least one male member of the smart set who has adopted a crimson dinner jacket and embroidered trousers for wear in his own home. Women, on the whole, would welcome the change, for they admire men in picturesque dress. The English and ■ American women flocking every winter to North Africa find the costume of the Arab "knuts" very attractive, especially when richly-braided trousers and close-fitting beige or grey coats are enlivened by braided cerise, pale blue, or purple waistcoats. Slim and erect, with notably small feet and well-chiselled features, these wealthy young Arabs, if they appeared in London as "mannequins" for men's wear, would no doubt give masculine dress reform a big boost. FLORAL FANCIES. I think it was last year that debutantes began to revive the charming custom of wearing sprays of real flowers on the comir.g-out frocks instead of artificial ones or jewelled ornaments. Usually the spray was given by "daddy" to his daughter, and florists in the West End remarked on the care with which the flowers were selected by rather shy parents, who obviously felt very proud of the occasion. Now every smart woman wears a shoulder or corsage bouquet at 'a dance, and the flower artists are working out some delightful ideas by way of varying the fashions for evening wear. A girl who went to a snail private dance, in Mayfair last night carried a floral fan in her hand. It was the size and shape of the little fan of Victorian days, and the .wired framo was entirely covered on one side with single blossoms picked from the stems of particularly lovely blue hyacinths. Pink blossoms covered the reverse side, and one delicate mauve orchid was placed in the very centre of the fan. The handle was of silver ribbon with long streamers falling from it. FINDING NEW PLAYS. It can be no joke to run a big dramatic society off one's own bat, taking the risk of putting on Sunday night performances of plays by new authors rejected by other managers in London. But Mrs. Geoffrey Whitworth has had the pluck to do it, and as a result the play-going world has flocked to see two plays—plays, at least, that she has discovered. She had "Young Woodley" produced three years ago by the Stage Society, when the censor was so impressed that he removed the ban he had placed on it. She was also the first person courageous enough to try the effect of "Journey's End" on a postwar public—with the "result that fortunes were made out of "it by others. She told the Gateway Club, in recalling 6ome of her experiences, that luck has a great deal to do with the launching of a new playwright. ■ BRIDES TO GO TO COURT. The summer Courts at Buckingham Palace will be remarkable for the number of brides "to be presented on marriage." Weddings. of pretty society girls were numerous last year, and before June and July arrive quite a number will have been added to the list. All these brides are entitled to go to Court again, and among, the hundreds of applications the Lord Chamberlain's department has received are many on behalf of newly married girls. Their presentation as debutantes is, in nearly every case, made by their mothers, but when they go to Court "on marriage" they are sponsored by their respective mothers-in-law. Wedding gowns are invariably worn. TRIUMPH OF THE MUFF. The muff has quite definitely come back again. But not, I venture to think, in the form furriers expected it to take. Yesterday I saw two muffs; the night before I saw three. But not one of them was made of fur, or even trimmed with it. The day-time affairs were charming little things about the size of a jam roly-poly made for a family. They just held the hands of their owners, and had quaint little frills to cover the wrists. One was of astrakhan, with a bunch of Parma violets nearly as big as the muff , pinned to the centre. Another was of black satin, with a" bow and turned-back frills in Die fashionable turquoise tint. , The evening muffs were fascinating. A 1 girl in a long, white satin frock carried a small gathered one of the same njau-rial as her gown. When she danced she held it in her left hand, just poised against her partner's shoulder. An cUftrly woman hud a black velvet muff i,o match her gown, and there was a ehaming little brocade thing of I'lustern eoLfjijringi; to brighter; a frock of black fciti hi.