LONDON FASHION NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 131, 6 June 1939, Page 14

LONDON FASHION NOTES

LONDON, May 4.

The private view of ' the Royal Academy still remains an important social function, although this year it did not usher in the season. This began so much earlier on account of the visit of the King and Queen to Canada.

Pictures and personalities are rivals on this occasion, with so many interesting people arriving to see their portraits. Representatives of the Government and all the arts, social beauties of past ages, and debutantes making their

Tucks and pleats are a great feature 'of present fashions, and give style to plain woollen frocks. It is a becoming design for most figures.

first appearance, all help to give this gathering a picturesque appeal.

As a fashion show it became a parade of smart millinery. The weather had returned to almost winter temperature, making the usual array of spring and summer frocks impossible.

A great many black and navy blue ensembles were worn, but every colour of the spectrum was represented amongst the hats and veils.

Flowers, faathei's, ribbons, and veils, and although some of the pictures were extremely modern, many of the hats were Edwardian or Victorian. Red and purple hyacinths massed together was the sort of colour scheme of many types of millinery.

Veils in every colour were worn in a dozen different ways: draped round the brim with a bunchy bow at the back, all over the face with long trailing ends. Folds of net under the chin with the ends taken up into a bow on the Hop of the crown. *

Indeed, if you want last year's favourite hat to masquerade as this year's

AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY PRIVATE VIEW

model, choose a clever veil and arrange it originally, and you will even deceive your own family. Furs and fur trimmings were seen on all sides, and I noted many of the short fur coats I recently wrote about as well as fur stoles, and still a few fur hats. ■ x COLOUR AGAIN. The coloured jacket was well represented. One smart woman • had a spring ensemble of cyclamen pink Angora jacket, with black cloth skirt, but was wearing a short silver fox fur coat over it. The beautiful Mary Lady Howe, in black taffeta and silver fox, had a trail of white gardenias across her small black hat. Lady Oxford had a short jacket in hunting pink red, over a long, slim black dress, with black hat and the small black lamb muff which'is'her favourite accessory. I specially admired a long, tailored woollen coat in that brilliant gentian blue that is so fashionable, squared shoulders, fitted waist, slightly flared at the hemline, and quitfe untrimmed — cut and colour giving it all the distinction needed even amongst a crowd of fashionable clothes. Small felt sailor hat in the same blue, and black accessories, completed the picture.

Scarfed hats, which I sketched recently, were represented in many shapes and styles. Small pill-box hats, with folded crepe round the edges, and a long scarf end from the back twisted round the throat. A*sharply-rolled-up Breton sailor scarf drapery round the crown, pulled through one side of the brim, draped under the chin, and caught on the opposite edge of the brim, to mention only two.

Another picturesque way of adding novelty to any shape. Mustard yellow on black made one of these hats, while the other was all in lime green, worn with a lime green coat and fox furs. TUCKED TECHNIQUES. Details often give the season's style more easily than expensive trimmings. This season tucks are doing yeoman service, for if all the tucks of this season's fashions were laid end.on end they would almost encircle the globe.

There are so many ways of working tucks and so many tricks that give tucks importance, either as a fancy decoration, a plain tailored accent, or as a deliberate influence on the silhouette.

Tucks and pleats go hand in hand, and the success of many pleated skirts is that a tuck is stitched half-way down each,pleat, and so it remains in good shape. Another style has tuck-stitched pleats that are released a little above the hemline to give the skirt a ruffled edge.

There are straight up and down tucks in pin or quarter-inch widths that look so well in fine woollen fabrics and suggest the great rage for stripes!

Blouses are tucked all over, either round the figure or up and down. Short jackets in contrasting colours are entirely covered with half-inch tucks going round both body and arms.

The model sketched was tucked and pleated all over, the pleats being tucked into the shoulder yoke and waistband, and at the elbow of the bracelet-length sleeve.

For a very slim girl I saw a dress with tucked yoke and fullness pouching over a skirt that was tucked round

a deep corselet over the hips and gathered fullness below. Dresses of this sort in a good colour scheme have the simple elegance which all can achieve.

E. RUTH SIBLEY.