BE A BEATNIK NEXT WINTER

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29380, 6 December 1960, Page 2

BE A BEATNIK NEXT WINTER

Favoured Fashion For 1961 Season

Dior does not favour long, lank hair and rope sandals, but the top 12 couturiers are suggesting that women adopt the beatnik way of dressing for the coming winter season. It will mean chunky, rough fabrics for slender black slacks and leotards, purple and black hooded jackets and sweaters, untidy string-like fringes and a hundred new novel ideas for clothes for leisure wear. The heavy un-read volumes of philosophy and such are not essential accessories but they would help. Most of these new separates are for “sitting around and doing nothing in.” For those with pretty • legs, there are short, circular skirts in black, scarlet and purple felt that have been dreamed up for wearing with leotards. Sweaters knitted in wool of rope-like thickness that slope off the shoulders and reach just below the hip-line are an alternative.

For tall, slender women, these new styles can be extremely effective and smart but shorter girls will have to choose more carefully to avoid the barrel look this winter.

Blondes (and there is nothing to bar blondes from the beatnik mood) will find the deep mulberry and purple shades flattering. For them there is the Robin Hood jerkin in suede with the hem cut in points and a waistlength draw-string blouse in flannel cloth which was known as “poodle” cloth in some towns a few seasons back. Even the beatniks are bored with duffle coats now. Instead the belts have been dropped below the waist on the old fashioned trench coats and the result is just as bulky, just as warm and just as “beat.” There is just one thing about these clothes—the colour range is not extensive. It is confined to dark, rusty reds or vivid scarlets, shades from violet to purpig. black and the dimmer tones ol brown. To give them their due. these colours do lend a fragile look to the wearer which is accentuated by pale pink makeup and, believe it or not, really bright lipstick and nail varnish.