FASHION NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

FASHION NOTES.

THE VOGUE FOR SEQUINS.

BRACELETS IN PAIRS. (By A PARIS EXPERT.) Women who wear sequinned dresses this season will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are indirectly helping a very typically French trade to flourish, after it has been almost at a standstill for over five years. Prosperity has returned to the manufacturers and "brodeuses" of sequins with this season's fashion vagaries. Dressmakers have launched sequins as the correct trimming f;or garments for all hours of the day, with the result that over 250,000 people are at work again, busy supplying the world with the shimmering metal varnished wafers, which are cut in a variety of shapes from the finest and lightest sheets of gelatine. This year steps have been made in designing aluminium sequins which have depth, instead of being quite flat, and washable sequins are made from a crystal-like composition.

A prominent manufacturer of sequins tells me that he anticipates three years of prosperity for the trade. As sequins cannot be produced or sold cheaply, they are not likely to become vulgarised through the channel of copying and cheap dressmaking, and so smart women will not cast them aside so quickly.

An Answer to Your Prayer. Have you ever racked your brain to decide what sort of blouse you could possibly wear with "that little suit" you like so much? A blouse that was not just satin —always so obvious; nor chiffon, much too thin, and unless it is very grandly done, inevitably looks so poor! Well, the answer to your prayer has come this season. It is the simplest of the simple in black paillette blouses. Neckline collarless at the base of the throat, but a narrow self tie or just a diamond clip. Not even a suggestion of fullness back or front, and three-quarter loose sleeves. You can have long, close-fitting mitten sleeves if you like. Both are equally smart. Actually a jumper, but a jumper glorified and abandoned to the nth degree. Perfect for bridge an<l the envy of every other woman at the table. Smart enough to dine in informally, making all the others look just a little dowdy while you try vainly to pretend you don't fael like the cat that ate the canary. It is so exciting discovering something new. ■ And when that something is gay, practical, chic and not too hopelessly expensive then truly the gods have smiled.

A Worry to Women. The new fantastic gloves are a worry to women. They complain that velvet "■loves don't fit and that thick satin "loves give them fat fingers. Their point of view is wrong. These gloves are not made to fit. They are just a bright note of colour to a sombre costume. The short satin gloves go on for ever, bright purple with a white dress or with a navy blue dress, and so forth. They have a new glove now, a soft tlun matt velvet which pulls on very easily, and which does not make the hand lookbig at all. In bright red with a black evening frock and a short velvet coatee to top it, it is divine. Also the short and very pale pink gloves look well with a dark dress, sometimes they have a pink cire feather around the hem of each. All the evening gloves are smarter if they are half way between the wrist and the elbow. The slippers usually match the glove in colours, but not necessarily. Like everything else in fashion, cela depend.

The Best Paris Style-points. Like cream the best of the Paris sty'epointe rise to the top of dresses and coats. They are slung around the neck and shoulders. If your dress or coat is not rig-lit at the top you are out of it, however correct the rest may be. And your head, too, has to look different. The new hats, and the way of arranging your hair, takes care of that.

Women are wearing frocks that look exceedingly simple from the elbows downward. Most of the sleeves are

plain, and they are either elbow length or long and fitted from top to bottom. The skirts you see mostly are slim and look simple, except for occasional ruffles, peplums or whatnot at the hips, and now and then a hard worked hem. But high around the neck everything is different. Practical dresses are muffled up with drapery, bibe, standing collars, scarves, bows, jabots and such things. Starched ruffles worked into bibs and jabots keep this detail in style and give daintiness to plain dark frocks. Between us, girls, this white ruffled jabot and bib business, provides a neat way of bringing a simple, well-cut frock from last season up to present fashions. Bowe and bibs of silk and feathers that come up under the chin are being much seen too. And bows, scarves and bibs of metalieed silk are good on wool or silk dresses.

Bracelets. Bracelets are smarter when they are worn in pairs, one on each wrist. In the good old days it was always thus. Victorians did it. So did Etruscans. Among the Pompeian ladies mummified in lava, you never find a one bracelet girl. Delightful for the jewellers, but hard on husbands, and a point well thinking about lovers, before you fall in !ove.