Vest-Dresses New In Paris

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31597, 7 February 1968, Page 3

Vest-Dresses New In Paris

(By JEANNE GRAHAM) PARIS. Many dresses now in Paris shops look like elongated vests. These skinny, clinging vest-dresses in man-made jersey fabrics seem suitable only for skinny girls. Anyone with some shape looks disastrous in them.

One petticoat dress in a French synthetic called supravyl is finely striped and banded in sizzling shades such as lemon or lime, orange or purple, and this almost lifts it from the lingerie drawer to discotheque status. Another has a mauve or burnt orange neckline. These colours are mixed

with navy, or with lime on purple, orange on purple, and purple on lemon, if you can visualise such colour combinations. Slightly more closed-in are dresses in the same fabric but with knitted rib polo necks and elbow-length sleeves; or in two-piece styles with a jumper top coming to the hipline, and

contrast skirt, cuffs and pocket flaps.

French women are still arguing about when young girls should start wearing brassieres.

In America children seem to prance out of prams and into bras and beauty competitions. In Paris it is said we give them champagne to stunt their growth, so much do we like our Gigi girls. The answer to the bra question then is surely give a girl a bra when she needs one—physically and psychologically. A light well-fitted bra is beneficial for her, especially during school games like tennis, and her light dresses and tight sweaters will look far neater over a bra.

Little girls often start wanting bras before they need them, but I feel that if they do ask for one they could wear a “starter bra” with a cup which grows. A stretch cup is ideal. Adolescent girls of 13 upwards like a bra with more shape, so choose a cotton and nylon bra with a shallower, wider cup, suited to the adolescent.

Also new in Paris now (other than the bloomer suits of the collections) are knits. Most attractive “robes tricotees” are being worn and I saw a model wearing a bright yellow jacket and skirt with a huge fob watch pinned to her pocket, with crocheted hose.