A Rival to Bond Street

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 255, 24 July 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

A Rival to Bond Street

London’s Fashion Centre May Change News from the Great Fashion Houses of Europe [“Dominion" Special Service: By Air Mail.] London. July 2. To Englishwomen the world over, Bond Street means the very best—whether applied to clothes, perfumes or jewellery. If you walk down Bond Street on a fine summer morning, you will see famous actresses, mannequins, duchesses, and, in fact, everyone who adorns the picture pages of the “Tatler” or the “Sketch,” enjoying the sunshine and looking in the shop windows.

N ow Imi told -that Bond Street has a serious rival in Curzon Street, which runs from Park Lane to Berkeley Square, and used to be nothing but town houses of ducal (families. Lately shops have sprung up in Curzon Street, especially towards its bottle-neck end, and a famous cinema occupies an important site on the south side.

Now Curzon Street is apparently undergoing reconstruction, 'and will be broadened and commercialised, with luxury shops on both sides. Already another cinema has been opened at the Berkeley Square end, and flower shops and beauty parlours jostle each other in aristocratic competition. Last year the dead end of the street, for so long blocked by the town house of the Dowager Countess of Carnarvon, was eliminated, as the London County Council bought it and pulled it down. The famous Shepherd Market, immortalised in Michael Arlen’s novel, “The Green Hat,” is to remain unchanged for the time being. In Print. When Miss Merle Oberon, the film star, flew to Paris this week to appear in a gala performance at the Comedie Francaise. she was following a very general fashion this summer by wearing a silk frock with a strikingly original printed design. . Miss Oberon’s dress was patterned all over with golfing figures.in various attitudes. With this dress she wore a white jockey cap. All the leading London fashion houses are trying to outdo one another in the ingenuity of their printed silks. Schiaparelli shows some very amusing ones in her mid-season collection. One I liked particularly was a dress of black and yellow crepe patterned with South Sea island scenes. Women carrying baskets of fruit on their heads, palm trees and other typically tropical motifs appear in black on a brilliant yellow background. The same pattern is used for a chiffon evening gown—this time with black figures on a deep sea green background. The underslip is of satin, and there is a long cape of black tulle to complete the ensemble.

A pale pink afternoon dress with large rabbits nibbling green cabbages caused much amusement at the dress show. It is meant to be worn with a large pale pink hat. I also saw a frock for wearing in the country with a pattern consisting of

’full-sized seed envelopes. This particular model had a zip fastening all down the back. The Best-Dressed Woman In Paris. Prance’s “Ascot Week,” the races at Longebamp, lias given rise to some startling and very feminine fashions. Frenchwomen are saluting Mlle. Janine Guise, winner of the “Grand Prix for Elegande,” offered by a Paris newspaper to the best-dressed woman in Paris. Mlle. Guise wore a close-fitting jacket and clinging ankle-length skirt. The jacket was collarless, and trimmed with two huge fur epaulettes, and a heavy band of the same fur round the hern. Tight-fitting sleeves and dark gloves of the same shade as the fur completed the costume, which was distinctly reminiscent of the fashions of 1913-14. Another fur-trimmed costume was outstanding at the races—a full-length summer gown of organdie trimmed about six inches from the hem with bands of dark and light fur. “The “Prix des Drags” was one of the notable events of the race week.

The day has now gone by when half-a-dozen coaches used to drive up the Champs Elysees anil across the Bois de Boulogne to Longchamp, packed with graceful figures in large picture hats and garden-party costumes. One coach only now survives, but it makes rather a anournful “procession” all alone. So the coaches have now been replaced by cars, and in addition to those which actually go to Longchamp for the races, there is an “elegance competition” in the Bois, in which beautiful cars and faultlessly-dressed women take part. ,

The big dress houses and car manufacturers compete to make the event a success, and no less than 200 cars were entered this year, driven by outstanding figures of the stage, film and social worlds. ,