SPRING MILLINERY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1178, 13 July 1911, Page 9

SPRING MILLINERY.

ITS DOMINANT FEATURES. Hats usually are things that are viewed by tho average woman with almost equal feelings of apprehension and pleasure— apprehension, because she may buy at the moment hats which in a dav or two she may bitterly hate; ami pleasure, because ol their lresliness and btauty. They can either be the last touch of perfection to a charming toilette or else be tlio one thing that mars it irretrievably. At the display of iicir spring milliner} at present being viewed in Messrs. Kirkcaldie aiul Stains' showrooms, the characteristics that strike one are the colours tnat dominate—cerise, coronation blue, and fuschia colours. They particularly lUstinguisn the spring hat, with still another feature added—that the flowers or feathers rise straight and high abavo the crown, while the rest of the hat may be fairly liat, and finished with a bandeau, perhaps, of lace, beaded cmbiuiuery, o: sonu material wilt which lire hat is trimmed. In many cases the crowns are quite high, frequently hidden with flowers, and with _wide brims, either turned up sharpply ill front and caught to tho crown with spTays of flowers, buckles, or a rosette, or else with a slight upward roll all round. Very few of them have perfectly straight Hat brims. This season tho hats do not strike one as being so large as last, and .whether it is because mil. has become so used to their size, or whether they really have decreased, is a question somewhat difficult to answer. On the whole, though, they probably are smaller. Black and white ribbon is used quite considerably in trimming hats, some of them having wide outstanding bows in the front, or else merely having touches of it, and finished off with flowers. The black hat, fortunately, we can never get away from, nor would we wish to. One beautiful model was of black lace Tnsel straw, lined with Honiton lace, and finished with one magnificent lancer plume, fastened by a silk and bugle butterfly. It would be hard to find a more simple and yel more elegant hat. A striking contrast to its quiet simplicity was a tiny black Tagel Income hat, the ceriso crown of which was almost entirely hidden by a clustei cl cerise lancer plumes. Undoubtedly French-looking. A charming hat was a large white Tagel hat (most of them arc Tagel), the whole crown of which was masssd with sweet peas, cerise, bljio, and purple, all toning into each other in the wonderful way of these flowers Even the fibres were there, so well were they reproduced. Another striking hat' was of Royal blue straw with a cluster of convolvulus flowers in marvellous tones of blue, purple, and yet still further colours, caught in at the side-back of the hat. There is no .questioning the brilliancy of t'ho colours used this season, nor is there any intention of veiling them in any dogree, and yet so marvellously are tlio sliai'.s chosen that very seldom do they strike one as being in any way harsh" or incongruous. A little Inter on v,-e will see the all-white hat with not a touch ' of. other colour upon it—white Ilowers, white leaves, white lace, ribbon, feathers, or anything elso .with which it may be trimmed. One can imagine'how charming it will look above a fresh young face worn with the daintiest white'frock imaginable, with all its accessories. One quaint nnd most attractive little hat, or rather bonnet, carried one right back to the early Victorian time, the crown of iloral satin veiled with black •and having at one side of it, just above the ears, a bunch of shaded pink roses and at the other side a chou of pink ribbon. It. would make a perfectly fascinating frame for a pretty face. A direct change from the motor bonnets with which one is so exceedingly well acquainted by sight was one that would be nothing else but Turkish,.. It,, was shaped exactly like'the Turkish'' smoking' caps, but was pink and white in colour. Yet another one was of cerise straw veiled with blue tulle, with a bandeau of, Wcdgewood blue beading over , navy blue framing the face. At the sides were little tabs of, straw . giving quite .• an Egyptian touch to it all. A hat which it is quite impossible to pass over was of cream chip straw veiled with amethyst ninon, the whole crown being massed with sweet peas in mauve, pink and cerise, and finished with two medlars—at least medlars in shape, but not in appearance for. they were carried out in colours to tone with the sweet peas. The brim of the hat was rolled np at the back,' and lined with folds of ninon. A Pierrot hat of black and white straw, tho wholo crown being covered with green .leaves, and its base being swathed with cerise ribbons, next caught the eye. Cerise ilowers also mossed it on one side, the whole effect of the hat being most' uncommon. With quite a number of tho hats laco was used to lino the top part of the brim and quite often it would be noiut lace.. Sometimes lace alone would be u=ed in the trimming of the hat, one example being very effective with wide largo standing out bows, the outer edge of the lace bordered with black, trimming the front of it, with a slightly rolled-up brim all round. Floral hats, however, prevail and floral hats are most attractive, whether they are massed with flowers or whether they are simply wreathed with them.