“Simpler” Collection Is Still Quite Elaborate

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30216, 22 August 1963, Page 2

“Simpler” Collection Is Still Quite Elaborate

(By

ZALIA THOMAS]

LONDON, July 30., Norman Hartnell, the Queen’s dressmaker, announced that his autumn and winter collection had been “created on a simpler note.” By previous Hartnell standards, the collection was comparatively plain, but a black velvet dinner dress with elbow-length sleeves of white mink and a black velvet evening coat flanked from waist to hem in white mink could hardly be described as “simple.” Gone, however, were the

heavily-embroidered evening gowns. Where beads and sequins were in evidence, these were used discreetly, at the waist of velvet gowns, on the collar of a long cloak of black tulle, or on little coverup jackets over plain straight dresses. Capes for day and evening wear appeared in the form of Cape sleeves on a black velvet evening coat and as a detachable waist-length cape on a black coat heavily trimmed in beaver. Making its debut is a striped brown and white fur called Zorino (commonly known as skunk). Hartnell uses this fur with greait effect in a reversible coat of cream tweed, which looks equally attractive whether the fur is worn inside or out A novel hat in ; the collection, styled by Mrs Claude Saint-Cyr, was a white mink turban with a small brim held in place by a hook and eye. It could be detached and worn as a collarette.