War Re-Shaping Woman’s Figure

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13139, 13 September 1940, Page 6

War Re-Shaping Woman’s Figure

Adoption of uniforms by women and the need for freedom in walking, has resulted in a hasty return to natural figure lines.

To be tailored is to be smart and the revival ot\wasp waists and bus-

tles with .which we were threatened only a few months ago, has gone by the board. With a sigh of relief women can abandon the idea of striving for curves which nature never intended anyway, and once again laugh at the pictures of Grannie in her, youth. Femininity is safe for the duration. A firm but' supple “midriff” and -little or no boning is the rule.

Not so long ago, girls rated physical beauty by comparison with the proportions of Venus de Milo. In a modern outfit, such a figure would appear so many; “bumps and bulges.” Its possessor would doubtless spend all her spare cash on. Turkish baths

and massage creams! Some of the voluminous costumes of the past were designed to conceal bulges in an individual that Ayere not beautiful —and other women slavishly -followed suit. We are told that the extremely high-waisted full skirt was designed to hide the twisted spine of a Spanish princess. The high ruff of the Elizabethan era Avas introduced to ■conceal a neck disfigurement of a royal maiden. Fashion history has it that the crinoline was designed to,conceal the motherhood of a modest French queen. Marie Antoinette when Queen of France, fastened feathers in ; her hair. Ail the court ladies followed her lead. The price of aigrettes rose to as much as 10,000 francs. Headdresses became too tall for the carriages of the nobility. Duch'esses rode to court with their heads aWaVe with plumes, craned out of their coach windows. Then the queen’s head came off, ;and feathers were out of fashion. Under the rule of Nappleon, it is said that a Parisienne of the ruling group was obliged to purchase 600 elaborate dresses a year to keep a Tla mode. -I After the fall of the first Emperor, with’ the return of the Bourbons to poavor,, there;,was a reaction to simpler styles. Daring - costumes were taboo. By 1816, the Indies of the *6hn’ were -Wearing gowns of the

general shape of a flannel nightgown! In the 1830's, a woman with pretentions to smartness had to look like a tent. Anything resembling a natural line was disgraceful. A lady, set about with hoops of horsehair and steel and wearing at least a dozen starched petticoats, was not unlike- a walking ironmongery and manchester store.. In -18 50, corsets caused bulges high' in front and lower in the back. Fashion designers were so keen on the “hills and hollows” effect that they emphasised it with the wire and padding of a bustle. ‘Women must have liked it, however, for comparatively few adopted the revolutionary bloomer costume introduced in America and England by Mrs. Amelia Bloomer.

In the early ’9os, you could do without a bustle; tight lacing produced the bustle back effect, anyway. In 1908, the sheath gown made its debut. Police had to .protect the wearer of this revealing type of dress on its first appearance in Chicago from more modest women who considered that the wearer had outraged decency. ' Of course, the cave woman ignored fashion altogether. It was the caveman who improved on nature by dressing up. He daubed his body with coloured earth, and added feathers, shells and for adornment. Then one day he handed some of his discarded trimmings to his mate, and that started the feminine fashion contest. Soon, man dropped out of the race and left the honours entirely to his mate. Now, when the husband protests that she’s made the fashion face too hot, there’s always the retort obvious. “Then I’ll go permanently into slacks.” Emphatic male protest provides a for the price .of a new piece of frippery. Maybe, though, the war will eventually change even that —-and slack suits it will be;