WOMEN'S FORUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 13

WOMEN'S FORUM.

PAINTING THE LILY. The craze for dyed flowers readied its height in London during the most famous wedding month of the year, June. At some fashionable weddings every flower had been dyed, not only for the bouquets of the bride and bridesmaids, but for the whole of the massed decorations of the church. Sunset pink and powder blue lilac, green carnations and,.perhaps most striking of all, double white narcissi dyed blue, were seen at weddings or in drawing-room vases, and apricot hydrangeas were produced by a bride's demand for a church colour scheme to match the flowers and dresses of her attendants. The dyeing was done by a powder applied to any white flower that was porous. The waxed surface of the lily, for instance, would not dye. With this fashion for artificial colours came the demand for a back-to-Nature arrangement of flowers. Even the lily bridal bouquet had to be arranged naturally. The Queen's lead in forbidding any of her flowers to be wired was followed by all up-to-date hostesses, and flowers had to be arranged in their vases in such a way as ,if they were "just thrown in"—a process which required a good deal more art than people imagined.

AMERICANS ARE SLIM. The great controversy still rages about the figures of American and French women since the famous French dressmaker declared in a Paris court that after trying a hundred French mannequins she failed to find one who really fulfilled the requirements of her American clients. American women, it seems, are slim, but not thin; supple, but not angular; and they have a charming carelessness of pose that is by no means French.