PARIS IS OUT TO SURPRISE

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

PARIS IS OUT TO SURPRISE

Fashion Notes

ONE of the most bewildering possibilities in outfits designed for the new season's wardrobes, ensembles, rates top interest. Not just the usual dress and coat or suit and coat combine, but the newest sophisticated get-togethers shrieking with fine details, a smooth French finesse of colour contrast, and streamlines that promise dramatics for every personality. These clothes will make a new woman of you, and from now on we are out to surprise and intrigue you. Here are some of the ways and means given you by Pari* to this end: Paris makes you a preaent of slim 1889 evening dresses topped by Hambouyant Boldini brimmed hats for night drama, and of £lim streamline, black, day dresses with gold and steel embroideries, or striped with mohair braid. Paris gives you directoire bolero jacket* short enough to show a corseted waistline composed of inch-thick clipped feathers. Paris shows you the prettiest clothes in trim-line silhouette, trailing restaurant evening frocks under jackets of a contrasting tissue and colour skylarking brimmed hate or trim bonnets for your head to wear after dark.

ByA Specialist

A well-known wit sums up our new silhouette as "scanty rainment," which is the most apt definition, for clothes are skin-line slender, and in the evening, lots of skirts have to be split, so that we can get around, but with this there is the richest, most embroidered, satined, lamed and gold-cloth set of crinoline dresses that this world has seen for many years. The styles are assured insolently opalent, have-a-fling clothes. Shoulder Treatments The shoulder treatments so popular last season are continued in many houses. For evening, there is a suggestion of stress at this point. Elbows, too, are a favourite place for details. Many dressmakers have chosen the elbows for special treatment, such as puffs, inset sections, slashings, etc. Some dressmakers continue to pad their tailor suits for women, like a man's. The tailored effect is popular for evening, and there is nothing more becoming and distinguished than the severely plain black or white evening gown worn with discreet jewellery.

Evening Hats Women this season are defying the ban on evening hats. They really began to break down the "no hat" tradition a year ago when they started to wear the tiny skull-cap which was copied from that worn by "Juliette." No exception whatever was taken to this, possibly because it was 60 close-fitting, that it was almost a part of the coiffure. It is the startling erection of plumes and velvet which has now made its bow to the public, and which seems to worry the restaurateurs. If once women are allowed to appear in hats of this kind, they say, the tradition of formal dressing which still exists, will begin to disappear. On the other hand, many are the famous designers who are convinced that evening hats are a logical part of a dinner dress. And as a result, ostrich plumes, ospreys, sequins and flowers are all being used, although there seems to be a wide difference of opinion among the modiste* as to what an evening hat should be. Some are showing a band of chiffon fringed with ospreys, others insist that an evening hat should be anything but modest, and suggest feathers towering nearly a foot above the head, held on as if by a miracle. Enormous bunches of violets, chrysanthemums and roses, are scoring a veritable success. Little hats of sequins in many colours in one model, look well on a 'brilliant type of woman, and flat fruit, flowers or small posies of wild flowers with their leaves set upright look charming pour la jeune fille.

One still sees for evening wear tiny berets in .black velvet or in beading, perched on one side of the head, balanced 'by a jewelled ornament, pinned to the hair over the opposite ear. A soft circle of twisted velvet placed halo-wise over a very fine hair net, is sometimes worn on the "bobbed" heads which are making their reappearance once more. A circlet of ruched velvet ribbon coming up from the ruchiiig to tie in a perky bow on the top of the head, is another evening mode. Coloured Shoes Never have shoes been more decorative than they are just now. And besides the classical colours, many women are wearing specially made shoes which match their dresses or accessories. Claret-coloured footwear is very much in vogue for evening, and so are purple and flame-coloured shoes. Toes are very discreetly squared for day wear, and they are likewise rectangular. Much use is made of leather contrasts, and antelope and box-calf or lizard skin and kid, are worked together in a variety of designs. A pretty tan-coloured sports shoe has a box-calf quarter and a perforate! vamp of antelope—something quite new in the shoe world. Opera pumps have gained popularity. Plain, unornamented pumps in nary, black and tan are the favourites.