GIRLS DECIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 65, 17 March 1934, Page 15

GIRLS DECIDE.

ACID TEST OF FASHION. I have bad a note from Kevilles, of Hanover Square, announcing that the favourite colours leading at the moment in the race for summer favour, are blue», fawns, browns and green (writes Nelle M. Scanlan, from London). The manager of this exclusive dress house states that in these days it is not society women who decree fashions. The shop, office and factory girls of to-day have a greater influence upon the fortunes of the new fashion, than the ladies of Mayfair. "I hold the view," he says, "that a style of dress or bat only becomes a fashion when it emerges successfully from the acid test of popular fashion. The fate of a fashion does not hang on the verdict of the smart eet."

Revilles claim that English women are the best dressed crowd of women in the world. American women slavishly follow a fashion, whether it suits them or not, and so look alike. But English women will take a fashion, and modify it to suit their individual appearance, and so you seldom see them turned out alike in every detail. "You are facing a season of fashions of compelling attraction, but you will find no radical changes," says Revilles. "Hats are the champagne of fashion; they give a sparkle to women's eyes, which is equalled only by champagne. Women bought 30,000,000 hats in England last year. This year there will be a variety of hats, some large, some small, berets and bonnets, sailor hats and pirate hats, and some like fishermen, while others are like Salvation Army bonnets. The right tilt will be more favoured than the backward tilt. "Evening dresses will have that flattering streamline or mermaid silhouette, with° cascading back draperies, also sashes and bows, tight to the knees, and full below. Some have bare shoulders,

high neck, and no back, but others have returned to the low front, and many have short trains. "Embroidered gowns aro coming in. Fur capes and capelets and liip-length coatees are accompanying many evening dresses. "Day dresses will be longer, especially those for indoor wear, bridge, and tea parties. Tailor-made suits, with silk blouses will be more popular this year than they have been for a long time. Many silks have patterns like Victorian wallpaper. Moires, line stripes, dice, lozenge, and tesselated patterns, and interlaced circles will be 1 fashionable. Many popular materials are being made to look like Irish linen, coarse canvas and coconut matting. And there is to be a perfect epidemic of novelty effects, which give materials of luxurious quality an inexpensive face."