Paris Fashion Notes

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 142, 12 March 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

Paris Fashion Notes

First of the Year’s Fashion Parades "Dominion” Special Service—By Air Mail. London, February 12. rpillC talk of Paris just now is of ' little but the spring dress shows. They began last week-end and tills week they are being held at the rate of five or six very important ones every day. Invitations to the showings are not being issued as freely as usual this season. The reason is that dress pirates have been busy. They are clever and can cause serious loss to the originators of the exclusive styles they copy so quickly. They frequent cartes in the neighbourhood of the leading houses, where the collections are on view, hoping to pick up ideas from stray remarks or rough sketches of fashion artists who have the entree to the salons. How are the designers themselves reacting to the hectic excitement of those, the first of the year’s fashion parades? Most of them are as nervous as a playwright on bis first night. Worth turned his collection into a celebration party by making it the occasion to introduce his wife. They were married recently. Vivid, red-haired Mme. Chanel, during her show held court to a group of friends on the stairs. Lucien Lelong is one of the only ones to take an active part in his dress show. Captain Molyneux usually leaves town on the day before his parade, and Mme. Schiaparelli is another who prefers to disappear until her first collection is over. One of the many good and new things coming to us from Paris collections is the bloused dress, which is sure to be a general favourite with women tlie world over. Every fashion house has shown it. Imagine a blouse with front fullness, say, from the shoulder, back fullness from a small yoke, sleeve fullness caught into a little cuff. Imagine a deep, close and neat belt, probably with some applique on it in leather. Then imagine a skirt pleated from the hip-line down, or with inverted front pleats. That is the house dress with sleeves which may be nearly as wide as a bishop’s. It is the ideal kind of frock for the busy woman, who likes to move her arms and legs energetically but with perfect safety to her clothes. That is why the bagged blouse bodice is going to be a prize among dress outlines. And with the bloused outline goes the sailor hat with straight brim, low crown and stiff petersham ribbons, one colour backing another, to band the brim. Have your sailor in rough straw and your new frock in polka dotted silk or in a flowered linen-like crepe piped witli some dominant colour.