Slenderer Evening Gowns

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 5 (Supplement)

Slenderer Evening Gowns

8y... A Paris Expert

THE new evening gowns conjure up all that has been implied by the word Parisian. Trained models are carried out in satin, in taffetas and in velvet, and they finish in a square line. Evening dresses are more slender than in previous seasons. Trimmings of silver kid as belts and insets appear for the evening, and glittering jewelled clips 1 and embroidered motifs are favoured. Colours for the evening include purple, azure, green, mulberry and black and white. Lace is being used and effectively combined with ribbon. Evening dresses of lace are many, they are slenderly fitted to the mid-tliigh, from which point, ample but soft fullness flare out equally all round. Many of the new lace models have a flesh-pink tulle underdress beneath. There are many different shades of lining-tulle, prominent among which are basic exhibition bronze and fresh yellow-green. The tops of the lace corsages and a broad section of the corsages below the bust are being lined with the flesh-pink tone. These gowns are most luxurious. All are moulded to the body, with busts full, waists drawn in and hips tightly fitted. Busts, shoulders and sleeves are points I at which the new cut may be observed by the astute.

Sleeves and Waists Sleeve-to|w are changing. Many are gathered slightly into an "arm-eye," which is curiously placed at a low shoulder line, but so gathered that a. wide chest and shoulder effect is obtained. The predicted long, tight "mitten" sleeve, which buttons the length of the wrist, is back once more and the sleeves, which are hand-shirred all over, are being seen a good deal. There are a good many tight elbow ones, but nothing fussy. Belts waver between width and a narrowness so excessive that it suggests a shoestring. Waists will be important enough this season for women to worry about their corsets long before they choose their new frocks. Tight-lacing? Not a bit of it. It simply means that most of the afternoon and a good many evening dresses look as if they had been wrapped round the torso, and without a well-fitting corset this line looks too horrible for words. Besides, email waists—not tightlaced, remember —look well with broad shoulders and the latter are so flattering to the average feminine figure that every designer is using them again, in moderation.

Straight Skirts Straight skirts which threaten to get shorter with every collection are in again, worn with neat-fitting jackets. And elaborate afternoon coats with draped fronts (which provokes worried inquiries as to how to get out of them), wide long coats and neat waists, and loose straight eoats, with exaggeratedly full IKK-ks, divide the honours between them. All of them, alas! demand high hats. They will make most of us look 10 years older, of course, but we shall probably stifle otir resentment and wear them. Some of those I have seen are more than a foot high and looked, I must say, quite attractive on the mannequins who wore them. Hut they are not the kind of things to wear on one's off-days! If you catch a glimpse of a girl with a hat like a steeple and a dashing fullskirted small-waisted coat, you will know that she is dressed in the acme of the new autumn fashions. This is one of the most important "lines" in the autumn and winter dress 'collections which have opened in Paris. Cellophane Cloth There is a craze for cellophane cloth, first used by one of our during Paris dressmakers some seasons ago. The cellophane fabrics that are worn look nothing at all like what your toothbrush comes wrapped in, but like fine lace, or satin, or solid jet, or silver cloth.