CHARMING EXPERIMENT

Evening Post, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 15

CHARMING EXPERIMENT

DOLLS OF ALL NATIONS

A delightful experiment was,tried iii an Australian girls' school last year, for instead of toiling laboriously over endless seams and darns and patches the young folk in the sub-intermediate sewing- classes have been allowed to dress dolls, each one in a different national costume, so that to a degree they have been having their geography, nistory, and sewing lessons all rolled into one. The dolls are charming, states an exchange. Infinite care and patience have gone to their dressing, and the small dressmakers • can claim that the national costumes are perfect in every detail.

Often long and painstaking research, was needed to secure details of the different costumes, and in each, case | the dolls have been imported from the countries they represent, so that they, themselves are all perfect in type, colouring, and feature. Pieces of material have been specially secured from the different countries when it was found impossible" to secure fabrics of just the right texture and just the subtle shade characteristic of the national costume. Sometimes minute lengths of material- have been specially hand-woven to fashion skirts or jackets, and traditional embroidery designs have been faithfully copied, down to the most minute stitch. Every detail has been carefully followed iri the costumes, from the. 'kerchiefs or shav'ls •which cover flaxen or black locks to the gay embroidered socks, the fur-trimmed shoes, the wooden sabots, or the knee-high boots of shiny leather. So a little Korean maiden' is dressed in a gay striped silk that hails from her native land, a Czechoslovakia:! peasant twists round her waist a manycoloured, sash that has come from a: village in her own country, and a sturdy Scotch lassie wears a kilt made from an original tartan over a century old.