FASHIONS IN WOOL

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27047, 23 May 1953, Page 2

FASHIONS IN WOOL

BRITISH DISPLAY (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON. May 14. For Coronation year, the International Wool Secretariat is showing an all-British display of women’s fashions under the title “Wool—the Wealth of the Commonwealth." The collection ranges from beach clothes to ball gowns, all made from British wool fabrics from London’s leading sportswear and wholesale houses. For evening wear, materials shown Included gossamer featherweight worsted, worsted suiting, wool taffeta and wool chiffon. One magnificent white shell-pleated ball dress and cape was made from men's woollen shirting. The Queen's dressmaker, Norman Hartnell, showed a striking dinner dress and cape in champagne-coloured gossamer worsted trimmed with matching fox fur. The cape was lined with gold sequins and could be reversed. In the hand-knitted section, an oatmeal wool boucle suit drew loud applause. It was knitted by a blind girl who used the Braille system to follow the pattern instructions.

Sportswear designers combined gaiety and originality in models for the beach, winter sports, yachting, tennis and fishing. Among the models shown were close-fitting tapering trousers worn with colourful jackets and jerseys The most startling en•enable in this section was an afterski outfit by Teddy Tinling, the Wimbledon fashion designer. It has a white fur fabric jacket faced with heliotrope-coloured face-cloth over a heliotrope face-cloth suit embroidered with white straw.

The display proved that wool materials are as suitable for lightweight summer wear as they are for winter clothes.