FASHION NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 260, 2 November 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

FASHION NOTES.

A NEW BORN STYLE. SMART BEACH WEAR. (By A PARIS EXPERT.) The parachute silhouette, Avith a wide skirt and shorter has landed with a splash in the middle of the Paris summer season, wrecking the stream, or stemline silhouette we have all been wearing for some years. Not since women wore knee-length robes-de-style in anti-depres-sion times, have there been such full short day-time skirts. The? scene that witnesses this new style skirt at the Fashion Openings is quite interesting. Car after car draws up to the doors of the couturiere who is about to present this latest style creations. The arrivals are met in the marble halls and give in their cards. Upstairs, the luxurious drawing rooms are brilliantly lighted. People dash around wildly hunting for seats. There

are tisually about four hundred guests. Finally, the miracle is achieved and the vast crush is seated. A voice calls.out a number, and a slim, lovely girl appears. The show is on. The mannequin walks gingerly down the spaces that have been left for the parade. The girl, with her spreading parachute skirt, below a very slim bodice, is showing a new-born style. Her cartwheel hat clings to the back of her head by some magic. And so the show goes on, amid excited murmurs among the audience. Over and over again the Paris dressmakers in a dozen or more of these fashion parades show dresses and skirts with the parachute skirt for daytime and for evening; the spread parachute skirt for evening dresses, and half-folded parachute on daytime dresses, is the big news. Blouses with these skirts are necessarily slim, though lots of them are not fitted closely. . • Wrap Madness. Wraps, ono> for each dress, and each one different, are being indulged 'in here in Paris. The "Depression Mood" consisting of one coat and a wardrobe full of frocks is not being adopted by the fashionable Parisienne. Wraps in this season when it is warm and sunny are extravagant, for they serve no protection whatever; they are, though, just the same, more plentiful than ever. Women have two wraps in some cases to a single frock —a fitted, white glazed linen jacket, and a cape of the material of the frock. Or they will have a printed sleeveless coat and a jacket. Wrap madness is more in evidence with evening clothes. There are so many versions of the summer evening wraps, and women want every one of them. They want a long printed taffetas evening coat, and they want a hooded tulle evening cape, or a feathered jacket or cape, etc., etc. They want all these, and they get them, if their purse strings allow. Most amusing f and new are the glazed chintz capes and blouses_ printed all over w!th newspaper clippings in English, French, Swedish, Italian and Spanish. Just as striking and incredibly beautiful are "Great Bear," dark ground printed silks, splattered with that constellation of stars. Glazed coarse tulle, printed with whirling flowers and leaves, and named "Dervish," makes evening djesses and wraps. Glazed chintz evening dresses, and dresses with Garden-of-Eden flowers and foliage, also appear. Summer Millinery. There is no definite tendency where millinery is concerned. Tltere' are a few reminiscences of the directoire, slightly altered,, lengthening forwards. There are small hats with chiffon and lace veils floating off the back like Second Empire hunting hats. There are bonnets with scarves to match, bonnets made modern and trimmed with wild flowers and ribbon. For sports wear there are a good many berets covering the nape of the neck, with a small vizor on the side. For sports wear the vizor is in the middle. Plenty of large capelines are to be seen, very * pliable, and some have narrow brims aud flat crowns. Breton hats set

forward, covering the ear on one side, are generally liked. Coloured toques of flowers are being worn a good ■ deal. A wide selection of raw materials is being used where millinery is concerned. Large felt hats of pastel colours, Baku, Bengal, and Bengali, Ballibuntal and Panama, not forgetting cellophane in all its most renovated aspects, i.e., cellophane tubulars, cellophane ribbons, etc. A great many flowers are being used for trimming; marguerites, camellias, zinias, or gardenias in pale pink or red. There are wild flowers, and small bouquets, ears of corn, feather flowers, feathers, and a prolific collection of veils. Fashion and Nature. Nature-study appears to. have captivated the interests of most-designers of fashion novelties. Dress clips in particular bear evidence of this. Perfect replicas of bees and flies are carved in tortoiseshell and crystal to 1 adorn some frocks,' and I have noticed a smart woman wearing a solid glass clip in the shape of a bird cage, in the centre of which gleams a little glass bird; The old-fashioned glass paper-weights are to the fore as buttons and clips, and then come any number of flower buttons,, dogroses in pink celluloid, blue forget-me-nots in groups, and yellow buttercups, oil /lonntino- n sumnierv touch to smart

ensembles. Tiny seed pearls arc the newest trimming for all .kinds of fashionable frivolities, nnd women are carrying handbags embroidered- with tiny pearls, which look particularly striking when the ground of the bag happens to be in a dark colour. Scarves, in all kinds of fancy fabrics have pearls scattered over them. There will be a run upon beads when women realise how easily an old scarf; can be brought.up-to-date by sewing a few on. Swimming Suits. .. The new swimming suits are quite interesting. They are in the most gay and cheerful colours. The lobster colour —so much lovelier in reality than it sounds—is one of the leaders, and turquoise conies in second. There is also, for the fair girl, a leaf green swimming suit in thick ribbed knitting, with crisscross straps over the. shoulder-blades and an elastic at the waist to keep the backless suit taut and trim. Masses of gay gingham checked woollen ■ jerseys make into pretty little suits, and there are other delicious things in cherry and coral and astral blue.

See to it, reader, that your figure is good enough to dispense with a skirt to your bathing suit. If you consider that you have a little over much avoirdupois around hips and abdomen, you can wear an elastic belt which will give you a most beautiful "ligne." Beach coats must not be forgotten. Oiie seen at a recent Paris couturier's is in cafe-au-lait, cut on Princess lines.