LONDON DRESS COLLECTIONS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27277, 18 February 1954, Page 2

LONDON DRESS COLLECTIONS

BOLD COLOURS AND NEW FABRICS

Lithe, lissom, and long legged—three London designers choose these words to sum up the new London collections that s\t the silhouette and trend for spring, says the New Zealand Wool Board. The 12 leading designers present the youngest, prettiest, and most colourful collections which London has seen for many seasons.

There is a new audacity in the use of colours. New textures encourage experiment in textile contrasts. Above all, the gradual evolution in line — apparent over several seasons—lias suddenly flowered into what Norman Hartnell and Victor Stiebel both call

‘‘the long-legged look” and Michael presents as “the lissom look.” This new silhouette curves the shoulders, gives the waist a long suppleness, contrasts slender yet practical skirt widths with skirts with one side panel or drape or with floating overskirts which flow backwards to show a slender basic line.

Fabrics and colours are as important as these new interpretations of the perfected line. Tweeds—winter’s top favourite —still triumph. This fabric’s peculiar texture and its wonderful colour range—the palest pastels and the strongest "luminous paint” colours are all within its scope—seem to lay out the colour palette for the coming season. Starting with classic suits, interpreted this season with subtle curves, every London designer uses spring tweeds. Small plaids in Dale rose, green, and yellow make spring country suits. Digby Morton shows Fair Isle tweeds, which are woven with a discreet Fair Isle pattern in half-inch-wide bands in grey on grey tones. Michael shows a matt-surfaced hopsack weave in one of the popular off-white tones, as well as a paje-gold and white nubbly weave which makes a superb suit. Ronald Paterson presents a new rounded cutaway-line suit in a blonde tweed which looks like sweet corn, and almost everyone has the spring versions of the wellknown Donegal weaves, which blend pastels into one of the new neutrals.