PEACETIME GLITTER REGAINED

Dominion, Volume 39, Issue 28, 27 October 1945, Page 10

PEACETIME GLITTER REGAINED

Formal Dressing At The Academy Exhibition

The first annual exhibition of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts to be held since the war ended almost regained full pre-war glitter last night. The exhibition, the academy’s 57th, was opened by His Excellency the Governor-General, who was accompanied by Lady Newall. The words “Evening Dress” appeared on the invitation cards for the first time in six years, and guests, who till recently did not follow any arbitrary rule regarding dress, paraded floor-sweeping frocks, dinner jackets, 'white tie and tails’ and plenty of decorations as they moved about the thickly crowded temporary gallery in the D.I.C. building, which has acquired a permanent charm of its own, with its cream interior, and bluecurtained, niullion windows. Women guests who discarded their coats as they arrived revealed dresses ranging from draped lace sheath gowns to decollerage styles heavily embroidered with sparkling bends and sequins. With their Excellencies on the central dais were the academy president, Mr. G. G. Gibbes Wntson, and Mrs. AVatson. Captain the Hon. I). E. A. Winn, Mr. D. E. Fouhy and Miss N. Walton, the academy secretary, Jib. E. D. Gore, and academy council members, sat on the chairs flanking the raised dais. Following Sir Cyril and Lady Newall’s example, many of the guests attended the opening ceremony and stayed tojnspect the pictures before proceeding to the Plunket Ball. Lady Newall’s trained gown of off-white satin with its diamentestndded square neck was worn under a floor-length evening coat of deep searlot silk velvet. Her long earrings matched her diamond tiara and she wore a double string of pearls.