Stream-Lined Furs

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 202, 24 May 1938, Page 5

Stream-Lined Furs

Luxury and Loveliness of Ermine

"Dominion" Special Service:—Bv Airmail. London, April 30. Ermine is being dyed black or pale peach colour now to make lovely coals which reach right down to the ground and which wrap right over on either side.

A peach-coloured ermine coat is cut so that it has the casualness of a towelling batli wrap. A black dyed ermine coat covers your toes, and.has sleeves made of two superlative silver foxes. That is luxury, and, as well, a dramatic gesture from furriers to English women who don’t'—-we might as well be frank about it —wear I hose lovely furs which have given London furriers their tremendous reputation and have made London the clearing-house for the fur world.

They wish English women would wear them, but, unfortunately, since only the very, very rich can afford an ermine coat which one foggy night may yellow, women have got into the habit of thinking any fur will do. And so women who think nothing of spending 40 or 50 guineas on an evening frock will cover the 50-guinea frock with a fur coat which dates back to the days before furriers learnt how to streamline furs; will let fabulous diamonds shimmer under a collection of sables which their mother or grandmother, brought back from the Paris 1 Exhibition in 1800.

The next English winter will see a further development of a campaign to make English women “fur conscious.” They have to be educated to the fact, that furs have been given a new and fluid suppleness and a new loveliness. Furriers are meeting clients half-way by making fox coats with inset panels of chiffon or crepe romaine (along the underneath of the arm, or where the strain comes over the ribs), so that the foxskins won’t get undue wear and will live to be made up over and over again. They make coats of dropped and stranded furs (they are doing this with mink now), so that, instead of the old patchwork quilt piecing, you get a wonderful streamlined effect. And, what’s more, they are making swagger fur coats, with that swing backline which takes inches off the tooplump woman and does all manner of kind thing to the woman who’s just a bit too thin. Mink, stranded or not, is still the most popular fur in London for these coats, they say. Silver Fox and Other Foxes. QILVEB. FOX is used for three-quar-ter length evening capes or for coates to wear with afternoon frocks. Persian lamb, Indian moire lamb and American broadtail are made up into swagger sports coats. And red fox and cross fox, used for capes and short coats, follows along behind silver fox, which will never be beaten, furriers say, because it is enormously becoming for both brunettes and blondes. Revillon does swagger coats in glossy bronze seal; sends debutantes away happy with a grey or white Indian lamb swagger coat. This famous house leans toward a shorter sleeve, which is designed to be met by a carefully wrinkled suede glove; inclines to discarding collars (which are replaced by a new yoke interest), and builds out the shoulders into a square boxy shape. The average mink coat is usually three-quarters length. Sometimes Revillon will combine fur and fabric, not inconspicuously, but as part of the decoration. One of Revillon’s loveliest mink coats, for instance, is stranded, diagonally on to a yoke and straight revers of brown and gold brocade. A stranded skunk cape is done in the same way.

Tile National Fur Company has. a beautiful swagger coat made of white Siberian kid dappled with black. It was designed for race meetings, and its huge patch pockets are zippered so that they will hol'd all the usual handbag gadgets in safety and leave your hands free to focus race glasses. If you are bringing out your old coat this winter, you can. tell if.it has been attacked by moths by tugging the fur gently between your fingers. It will come away if the moths have been busy. Moth eggs will feel gritty (like sand) under your fingers, and, I am told, once found, you can destroy moths an'd eggs by wrapping your coat up in paper and putting it in the refrigerator for a few hours.