A BRIGHT IDEA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

A BRIGHT IDEA.

DRESSING N.Z. WOMEN.

CLOTHES FOR COLONIAL TYPES.

(By E.C.R.)

"I expect soon to see women in this part of the world designing their own particular and distinctive style of dress, as do those of England, Prance, and the United States." This remark by an overseas visitor deserves the name of "Bright idea." We have for long, of course, persuaded the peoples of older countries that we habitually wear flax skirts and tikis strung round our necks, but now that the impression left by misplaced advertising is gradually wearing off, and our English and American cousins are realising that we are quite mild and civilised folk, it is high time that we developed our own individuality in the matter of dress. After all, the way we dress depends in the first place on tlie type of weather which is our lot. "Yes," is the reply, "and we suffer from every variety of weather to be found under the sun —or otherwise."

This is precisely why we need to evolve garments to suit ourselves. Probably no other country experiences so many climatic variations. Certainly, the big fashion centres of the world don't. Yet it is these which we blindly copy or from which we import clothes at ridiculous prices.

It is now suggested that we all go into tweeds, or take to the type of hat which serves as umbrella and sunshade in one. But I do suggest that wonders could be done with water-proofed materials —and that doesn't mean they need be the stern and sensible materials which are so boring at times. It's possible, or ought to be, to be dainty and practical as well.

And woollies can be gossamer, so that when you go out prepared to be frozen and find instead that you're going to be cooked, you won't feel too much like a cocoon. And please, oh please, shoes for our very New Zealand feet! "Imported clothes are a drawback to the New Zealand women," says that intelligent visitor of ours. We are built more sturdily than the languid lilies of world fashion centres. The pioneers from which we are sprung have given us frames made for hard work, and not for reclining on divans. That doesn't mean that we are not beautiful. We are; we have a beauty all our own; something that grew out of a new world in the making. But we can't wear the clothes that were made for Continental beauties, because our lines are different. Probably, it won't be long befora some enterprising dressmaker discovers this, and then it will be, "the lovely women of New Zealand."