Masculine Look For Italian Women

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31657, 18 April 1968, Page 3

Masculine Look For Italian Women

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) FLORENCE, April 17. Italian women may dress next winter like Edwardian dandies,. wearing long checked greatcoats, silk cravats and brandishing rolled umbrellas. They may even wear bowler hats.

With square shoulders, double-breasted jackets and big flat lapels, the only feminine thing about some of OgnibeneZendhan’s fashions at the Florence ready-to-wear collections yesterday was the girl inside. Although most outfits had skirts, all had a masculine, tailored look with waistcoat, coachman-style maxi-coats, leather buttons, heavy brogues, bowler hats, umbrellas and white silk cravats, anchored with large pearls. Ognibene selections demonstrated in an exaggerated form the line emerging in the Italian or ready-to-wear high fashion for next autumn and winter. The look was neat and tailored, with square shoul-

ders, fairly high necks, small lapels, with jackets straight and fairly close to the body, sometimes loosely belted and usually ending at the hip bone.

There were many capes, high necked and metal buttoned, in military style. In spite of predictions of more maxi-length garments for next winter, very few were to be seen. The most successful were Carosa’s voluminous black and' white striped coats, which flipped off to show a black and white mini-dress underneath, with shiny black thigh-high boots. But 95 per cent of the hemlines stayed put, slightly above the knee. Tweeds came back into Cheir own after a long banishment.

The new colours, all shades »f brown, green, grey and black and white, favoured tweedy textures, very often in checked and plaids. But few designers were willing to abandon entirely the highly successful doublefaced fabric which has been popular in Italy for several seasons.