KEY TO DRESSING

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 28

KEY TO DRESSING

AH. EXPERT TELLS HER STBRY A well-known fashion writer once talked for five minutes with Madame Lyolene at her Paris atelier and emerged to tell me exultantly that she had not one story but six (writes Marjorie Shuler in the ‘ Christian Science Monitor ’). I think that it must always be so with this vivid Russian woman, who began to design 11 years ago, and now can see her name in bright lights above the fashion with all the other stars —that is, can see it if she takes the time and stops to look, which I very much'doubt.

There is the story, of course, of her own success, how she came into business by the backdoor, so to speak, by means of selling her own jewels and furs to obtain money on which to live

until the Soviet regime should be ended, a matter of a short time so she and the other Russian emigres believed. VARIETY. There is the story of how she works with the fabrics talking to her and of how she savours her favourites, wools, by running up a few silk gowns, or of how when she is making a collection of sports clothes she must vary her work by letting a few cottons go through her nimble fingers to come out, not sports wear, but evening frocks. There is the story of her firsts. She is said to be the first to use clips, hunting all over Paris for an old snowboot to get the design, the first to use two bracelets on one arm, the first to make sports dresses of lame, the first to make evening gowns of wool, and the first Paris designer to come to the United States and spend four and a-half months in the Middle West to learn about the American woman. And, perhaps, the last is the best story of all, and the reason why today in her Paris shop with Helm and her New York headquartres with JohnFrederick, the famous hat designers, she can speak with authority about the good points of American women all the wmy in which the mass can improve in costuming. AMERICANS DRESS WELL. American women dress well, in Madame .Lyolene’s opinion, but she has a word of advice, and that is—take off, rather than put on, trimming. The well-dressed Frenchwoman, she tells me, will say, “ I like that dress, but couldn’t you take off this, and this, and perhaps this?” When she finishes she has simplified, rather than elaborated, the costume, for the French know that it is the woman who makes the clothes, not the clothes’ make the woman. Avoid striking buttons which catch the eye, is Madame Lyolene’s advice. All such trimming makes a woman look fatter, while her objective should be slimness. Have the courage to be individual, not queer, but wear_ clothes which emphasise the individuality. Every woman, no matter how poor or restricted her background, has a personality, and the thing to do is to learn what it is and show it. WOULD AVOID REPETITION. Again, referring to • the Frenchwoman, Madame Lyolene said to me, “ If we tell her a dress is a success, she is apt to reply that is the reason why she does not want it. If a Frenchwoman entered a room and found someone else wearing a costume like her own she would have the right to leave. The American woman, , on the other hand, is prone to buy because a thing is ■ the style, and you see a tiresome repetition everywhere,” The American woman should seek her own colour. Black is Madame Lyoleno’s favourite, and again she was among the first to urge it for wear in the United States. But she believes that the individual woman should seek the colour and the combination of colours which mean something to her. These colours, however, should be borrowed from nature, “ Look out of the window,” said Madame Lyolene. “ Look at God’s creation. When you try to adorn a room take one single blossom that is real, not a mass of artificial ones. And when you wear colours take anything which "Nature combines, but don’t try to put false colours together.” URGES SIMPLICITY. Above all, bo simple, is her advice. This word “ different ” is the most terrible- one-hr- the. English .language, ye.

her opinion. Things should be normal to be right. Under this heading Madame Lyoleno has a word of con-' demnation for too many diamond rings and brooches. A few interesting pieces of antique jewellery, she thinks, would improve the effect of the costume. About the fit, she cautions a woman to buy a dress which is a little larger across the bust than she thinks she needs, and then to have the waist and hips made smaller.

The cuckoo is the only bird which can lay other birds’- eggs in its own Mesfci ,