EXQUISITE FROCKS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 139, 15 June 1931, Page 13

EXQUISITE FROCKS

COVENT GARDEN OPENING

Covent Garden was itself again for the special night—more brilliant socially and sartorially than either last year "or the year before, states the "Daily Mail."

Tho great horseshoe which is the front of the house was packed with the cream of London's social and musical circles, and when the first note of "God Save the King" heralded the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of York in the Eoyal box a thrill went through more than one member of the vast assembly at the sight of one of the few magnificent spectacles left to us from the spacious and leisurely Edwardian days. Women wore gowns of exquisite colour—the blue of a raven's wing, the soft pale pink of a wild rose, tho rich red of Burgundy, the green of the waters of the Nile. Much of it was expi eased in lace—long, graceful frocks of soft filmy substance, relying on their own beauty of treatmont rather than on embroideries and trimmings for their success. And the little coat of last year had vanished. In its place were slim-looking wraps, their sleeves gathered into fantastic patterns and their fur collars standing up like Elizabethan ruffs. Most of them were of velvet, but velvet of the texture of a square of silk fine and soft enough to be drawn through a golden ring. Some were turquoise, others were peach colour, lapis blue, or the colour of an early lily leaf. Jewels were worn sparingly. There were perhaps a dozen tiaras in the house, and a score or so of striking diamond necklaces, but for tho most part pearls gleamed on white throats, and there was no extraordinary sparkle of precious stones. The Duchess of York wore only a narrow bandeau of diamonds, fastened low on her for.eh'cad, with ornaments to match on the corsage of her dia-mante-powdered gown. The Duchess of Westminster had a beautiful diamond tiara, shaped Eussian fashion, with blazing points glittering as the lights caught them.