DRESSING AT ASCOT

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 272, 16 August 1927, Page 3

DRESSING AT ASCOT

PROBABLE CHANGES IN FASHION Ascot is always interesting to the student of fashion. This year there were fewer than ever of the freak fashions which are always ugly—the unweildy “Ascot” hats running over with : feathers and lace, the dresses so over-trimmed with fringe and flounce that they have lost all “Hue,” the eccentric handbags and parasols and the too much decorated shoes. The great majority of the women present were charmingly dressed and xvell-turued-out. 'file main impression after this Ascot (states an English writer) is that ,to be smart dresses must be small. The best frocks were short and fitted so closely at shoulders and hips that they looked small; among the best hats were many of the skull-cap kind; shoes were plain Court shoes of the. slightest, and handbags were, ou the whole, small and unobtrusive, so that the general effect was of trimness and smallness. This does not mean that there were a great many, but the smartest of the wide brimmed hats were almost undecorated and were never floppy so that even the wide hat did not destroj’ the trim appearance. The bangkok hat was the great favourite, made with a high rounded crown, and a slightly drooping brim much narrowed at the back and trimmed with an almost insignificant baud of narrow Petersham ribbon. There was a strongly marked revival of the lighter shades of tan and caramel. The “best” shoes and stockings, for example, were of beige or caramel and often their colour was repeated in th hat. Beige lace frocks, which were to be counted by the hundred, gave good opportunities for wearing coloured hats, favourite hat colours being a soft lime green, a bright blue, and a curious vellow-green shade which looked its best in the severe shapes in coarse straw edged with navy. Clever use of colour was a feature of this vear’s Ascot toilettes and while a few kept to one shade, the majority used two or even more colours very skilfully, though the hard bright colours were seldom seen. Jade and scarlet have vanished from the smart woman’s wardrobe. Green with blue, green witli yellow, and bine with 1low were perhaps the newest and smartest of the colour combinations. An interesting distinction was made between frocks of the debutante and the matron, the former inclining to organdie and tlie latter to the short and trim little frock. Onlv the very young girls wore sleeveless frocks, long slim sleeves, slightly decorated above the waistband being the almost invariable shape. . . But this vear’s Ascot gives hints ot several probable changes in fashion—or at least of attempts likely to be made bv dressmakers to induce a change in the present simple and durable frocks—and one is the return of the long, wide skirt and a greater amount of trimming. Stockings, too, are growing less pink and by winter we may be wearing dark stockings with dark frocks, there were a number of gun-metal hued stockings at Ascot, worn with navy blue frocks enough of them to disprove the theory that 'dark stockings make thick ankles look slim! ' Tuesday was the day of the coat, and here again a decided change in fashion is to be recorded, for the coat generally worn was the straight-down coat with averv narrow upstanding collar and a eroup of gathers or vertical tucks at the back of the neck. At a first glance these coats look severely plain, but a closer view shows the elaboration ot seams and insets and nervures which give relief to their otherwise plain services. The majority of the cloth coats were in black and navy lined witli tlite dress material and with very scantv, if anv, trimmings of fur at the neck. Heavy collar effects are quite out of the mode! Successful, too, were the coats ot chiffon, crepe de chine, and georgette to match the thin dress worn under them. On Gold Cup day m the hot sunshine these coats were seen in unpatterned chiffons in bright colours—an orange coat over a yellow frock was one example—and on luesday, a dull day, in crepe de chine printed in a tiny all-over diaper pattern like the dress. There were also a number of very similar toilettes in which a dress of a two-colour plaid silk voile was covered by a transparent coat of the same .material. 11l all cases the coat was straight and fitted up to the neck with gathers somewhere along a very insignificant collar band, and sometimes the hem ot the coat had a deep border of a fluffy fur dyed to match.