Choose Your Own Clothes

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32349, 15 July 1970, Page 2

Choose Your Own Clothes

(Bv

NORMAN HARTNELL)

Do not let your husband choose your dresses for you. That is my message for the week, but unfortunately not many of my clients will listen to it.

i Husbands are excellent in their place—which is with pen poised over a cheque-book at paying time. But few husbands, if any, can really choose clothes for their wives. , There is only one person ’who can do that, and it is the wife herself. Sometimes women do not see their image clearly in the mirror, I agree, and some I women do seem to pick their clothes as if they were buying *>r the person they would I like to be. j DO NOT SWAP i But, mostly, women are reasonably honest with themselves, whereas most husbands seem incapable of choosing dresses that in any P way sait their wives. Men should be born with an ability to chop wood or mend car engines; women shoud be born with cooking ability and dress flair, in my opinion. The trouble begins when people will insist on swapping jobs. Then both get done badly. COOL, SEVERE Husbands, I And. like light blue. This is because men seem to imagine their wives cool, serene, unassailable. Blue is such a colour, but it can also be ruinous to the wrong complexion. Pale blue is not flattering to olive complexions, for example. And it may not suit every woman to look cool, serene, unassailable. Some women need colour, exotic prints, even clinging dresses to bring out their true beauty.

Yet few husbands want their wives to wear this sort of gear. Husbands nearly always want pale colours, nothing ostentatious. Husbands always

want longer hemlines than r wives want, looser clothes, . less make-up, a less “fabulous" hairstyle. They want to be proud of ' their wives, but not embarrassed by their beauty. BE NOTICED If you have a beautiful wife, let her preen herself, let her dress in the world’s finest feathers. My advice to wives of 30 to 50 years of age (provided they are vaguely of standard statistics), is to go in for trouser suits for evenings, choose vivid prints and clingy fabrics, the kind of trouser suits that beg to be noticed. Choose lacy, see-through dresses, regardless of what your husband says. LACED-UP BOOTS I have had a sneak preview at shoes and boots for next autumn and winter, and can let you In on a secret: the Victorian laced boot will be back in London. The Victorian boot, which comes half way up the calf, will take an extra 10 minutes to put on In the morning. Look out also for twotoned leathers, such as rustique calf in brick with dark brown, or brick with black. It is likely to be a reptilian autumn, too, with fake snakes, mock crockodile and imitation animal skins throughout fashion. Styles to look out for are snub or walled toes and vamps which get lower as heels grow taller. Pyramid heels are “in,” in the trade, while others are squared off at the back and slimmer. All heels are very firm and sturdy. Colours run from brick and chestnut to scarlet, purple and green.