Paris in the Mirror

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 126, 23 November 1935, Page 23

Paris in the Mirror

Written for "The Post" by Germaine.

PARIS, October 9.

A kind of wireless telepathy seems to influence the Paris dressmakers when they are designing the new season's clothes. There may be, indeed there always are, similar styles in different houses, but every house has its own personality, due to the man or woman wfto designs the model. You can always tell from what house certain" frocks emanate; there is no mistaking them. They have the hallmark of their own particular designer; they have a feminine intuition (even though the designers are of the genre masculin), and this is a very precious thing. The present aim of the Paris couturier is to make woman look what she really is—a woman first, a decorative expression after. lam rather inclined to believe in the theory that a woman should go to one dressmaker only, if that particular dressmaker has really succeeded in making her fee] that she has found someone who can rightly express her personality through the medium of clothes. INTERESTING INFORMATION. At a special fashion showing for the Press ,the other day I sat beside Monsieur. Andre Meyer, an artist, as everyone knows, where colours are concerned. He gave me a bit of interesting information abbut the colours that have been most successful this season. For the morning, navy blue deep red, green and black; for tha afternoon, green, grey, beige, black, and black and white; for the evening pale green, gold, black, black and white, and.pure white: Other interesting colours are the "middle" blues beige-rosee, a' brown that is' called taupe-claire, or light mole colour, light greens, and especially the new greens but no violets at all. Grey will be a faintly cloudy pale' grey, and dove grey will also be well to the fore. There is also a group of bright colours particularly pinks, rosy pinks, flame pinks, and.cyclamen. Besides the blacks which have sweeping victories for the evening as well as for day, there are all the lovely new fresco colours—cloudy, plastery dull pale shades—they are the newest thing on the colour horizon. This summed up fairly well the colour schemes for the new season. "LE STYLE EST LA FEMME MEME." This season's show is the inevitable plu::, not minus. Paris seems ito have special sources of materials in the first place. As a matter of fact, the sources are the same for all the others but there are possibilities that are overlooked by the others or else the fabrics are treated so characteristically that they appear to be something new. One might misquote, "Le style est la femme meme." Examples of this special treatment are seen in an extraordinary affair—a new materlace taffetas, a quilted thing in'various colours, as, for instance, red and white and silver. One seen, deserves to be painted, and.hung in a gallery for the edification of future generations. "This is an exotic," you-say, "and in exotic clothes- it is -easy to'be original." ;v- '■ The new evening gowns are something to dream of. There are versions of .the ,"pouf,V immense loops set at the back in a "centaur" silhouette, and lame gauzes, flowers, drowned in molten gold, with bolero tops and skirts trailing at the back, and shor*. in front —the peacock outline. Many of these skirts are slit up into uneven panels over, tighter underskirts of plain lame while the hips are wrapped in the same. An interesting gown is of black jetted net, wjth short bolero, a double ruffled skirt, and a madly uneven hemline, with an oval deeolletee outlined in h wreath'of scarlet and green flow ers, like a Hawaiian "lei." You have to be "Somebody" with a big "S" to wear'such gowns, but if you can get away with them you'll, relegate women m simple "chiffon rags" definitely to the background. ; TRIMMINGS IN THE FRONT. The other day I saw a charming fashion millinery collection composed of a series of models, each more absolutely fresh than the others. Worn three-quarters, many of these hats are trimmed with a veil shading the eyes, placed either beneath the hat or as a sort of hem, which. accentuates the movement of the brim, and gives lightness. Or the veil is even set at th" back and streams down behind, giving a very smart appearance to r. model. The trimmings are set in front, as in the star model of the" season—a pretty beret in satin, whose movement starts above the head and terminates in a large bow shading the eyes. Small toques, Fascist style, are completed with two silk tassels always in front. The Saint Cyrien chapeau, which consists of a mass of red and white waving cog plumes placed on a rather high model, is another sensation of the moment. The< hats with brims borrow the shape of a cure's hat, crossed with the Breton, trimmed with long ribbons in the back.

As to materials, there are. velvets, taupes,, soleil-taupes, antelope, straw, and satin. . , . For trimmings there are feathers; a large number of ribbons, of all kinds, and flowers. For colours, there is Titian red and Veronese green for smart occasions. We also find rust, burgundy, nigger-brown. TAILORED SUITS. Most of the winter collections are brimful of youthfulness and character. Materials are mixed for sports wear, chines, pied-de-poule, and, of course, tweeds and marocains; and crepe de chines for the Cote c"Azur. The tailor-mades have short jackets, basques close fitting, and buttonad at the back, and basques with vagua pleats in thejjack. Kimonc sleeves, blouse-corsaget, • yokes on corsages and skirts, very supple cloche skirts, wide sleeves caught in a high, close-fitting cuff," and a few sleeves to the elbow. ' ~>