Most Clothes Badly Out-Dated, Impractical

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30952, 7 January 1966, Page 2

Most Clothes Badly Out-Dated, Impractical

(By ZALIA THOMAS) The clothes that most men and women wear today are hopelessly out-of-date. They are impractical and lack comfort. That, in brief, is the opinion of at least one Paris designer, Ruben Torres, 34 years old and born in Texas. He thinks it is time that garment manufacturers accepted the challenge of bringing the design of clothes up to a standard comparable with most other spheres of modern living. Mr Torres is a particularly harsh critic of the type of clothing imposed on men. “They should be wearing neat smart jumpsuits and supple comfortable boots,” he says. “Their jackets should be stretch blousons with only the necessary number of pockets . . . maybe one for change and keys, one for driving gloves. “Why are they constricted in uncomfortable jackets laden with unnecessary pockets that are expensive for the tailor to make? Why

do they strangle themselves with ties? Why do they fear colour?” Slight Improvement Women’s clothing, he feels, is a little better. “They are snapping up the new lightweight garments offered to them by the foundation industry.

“They refuse to be constricted, and their attitude is allowing the evolutions toward more rational dressing to begin from the stain out.”

One of Torre’s contributions to this trend is a capsule collection, made for Du Pont, of foundation garments of “Lycra” elastomeric fibre designed to demonstrate to manufacturers the gist of his ideas.

“Foundation garments must be pretty white maintaining their most important rote of enhancing a silhouette,” he says. “I feel that in-between-ers, or light-weight lingeriefoundations, are the garments of the future that will appeal to a growing young generation.” For the Du Point collection Mr Torres has chosen fabrics that are supple and lightweight, yet powerful enough to fulfil their task as foundation garments. White, black and natural —with the emphasis on the natural are the colours chosen. Second Skin

In his opinion natural shades will become ever more important, as the foundation garment is used increasingly as a second skin rather than a distinctive item of clothing. This idea is reflected in his

“subsweater.” It is shaped somewhat like an undervest, in such a way that no ugly seam ridges, straps or edges show through a fine-gauge knitted garment.

Mr Torres foresees a time when all garments will be in molded, stretch fabrics, with styles changing probably every three years as do car bodies today. The aesthetic unitl will be called in to design the line, while the industrialists will provide the technology. Individually in these fac-tory-produced garments will be achieved through colour or the addition of trims.

Even more individuality will be displayed in women’s evening wear when flesh-coloured leotards will be worn under diaphanous gauzy swathes of material.

Jewellery will be brilliant important. Hair will be more than ever a women’s pride, and her coiffure will be elaborate for the evening hours. “The so-called elegant clothes men and women wear today are hopelessly out-of-date,” says Mr Torres. “Men have to resort to jeans and floppy sweaters to feel at ease, while women go all out for knits or short shifts, and textured tights. “Much revolutionary thinking must be done to satisfy the clothing needs and comfort-with-good-looks requirements of modern life, and by the same token, swift steps must be taken to prepare the way for the clothing concepts that will fit into the life of the twenty-first century.”

Ever since women left the home for the office, factory and laboratory they have been largely ignored by the fashion industry and have had to wear drab and unfashionable cover-ails and protective clothing. Now they are getting attention by the British fashion industry which has designed a range of up-to-the-minute outfits to satisfy the most fashionconscious woman. The designers of the two outfits shown here are alive to the need for clothes that fit well, give proper safety protection, are easy to wear and, above all, combine comfort with smartness. The photograph on the left shows a two-piece suit in multi-nolin, a completely anti-static type of viscose. It is designed for women working in completely dust-free conditions such as the assembly of transistors and rocket gyros in the atomic, electronic and fine engineering industries. The other shows an overallfor office workers made from 100 per cent nylon in the new Dobbie weave. This weave allows the material to breathe and gives more comfort, particularly in centrally heated buildings.