N.Z.’s Spring Styles

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31124, 29 July 1966, Page 2

N.Z.’s Spring Styles

While New Zealand women may well regard the net look as “pretty fishy” and a bit too far out, they need not be countrycousins. Mesh and honey-combed knit sheer nylons in flattering creamy shades will be on the market for spring and summer.

Just as white and off-white leads the American market Parisians youpg and not-so-young have taken the fine, white seamfree stocking to their hearts. Which is not to say the fair sex here will follow suit. During a visit to the French fashion capital, Miss Jillian Ewart, fashion writer for the Wool Board, was given a pair. To be “in with the crowd” she wore them continually, but her mother’s horrified reaction when Miss Ewart returned home east white stockings into disgrace and they have not seen the light of day since. _ Youthful purchasers of fancy and coloured stockings this winter have totalled only i 2 or 3 per cent of our market. I The coming season’s stocklings made by a Christchurch firm will cater largely for this

conservative spirit with emphasis on a new muted textured look, discernible only at close range. A Christchurch hosiery firm’s representative, recently returned from a world tpur, considers White stockings very elegant and anticipates a demand for the style. He found the young London designers “calling the tune" all over the world. White is “in” they say. Many middle-aged matrons could be seen in Rome, London, Paris and New York looking “very elegant” in, of course, white. The new “honey” and “beige” shades—mid-golden browns—will pick up the pastels and clear colours of summer clothes “The Press” was told. In this way Christchurch women can achieve the total look, favoured by women overseas, who can now buy an opaque sheer to match every dress. Stockings with quarter-inch square mesh must be knitted on a special machine imported from overseas, and with import licensing restrictions, it seems unlikely that a "home-grown” product will be seen here. Still, manufacturers are ingenious, and spring is a way round the corner yet. Meanwhile we have shorter welts—for the short skirt set —very fine looped and honey-

comb knits; stockings with circular stripes; shades of honey blonde a top selling neutral in the United States, and mod brown for “teens and twenties”; with white for the revolutionaries. With all this talk of a stocking wardrobe, what of economy? “Mini” and “hand!” packs are the answer —three stockings in one, s|x in the other, and all perfectly matebed. Advocates of the fine shears would probably be surprised to leant that they have been wearing 20 denier not 15 for some time. The difference in weight is barely noticeable to the untrained eye, but the stronger nylon is much longer wearing.