Gay Colours Predicted at British Fashion Show of Men's Clothing

Evening Star, Issue 25994, 8 January 1947, Page 7

Gay Colours Predicted at British Fashion Show of Men's Clothing

TOPICS FOR WOMEN

Men, and more particularly Englishmen, of the twentieth century have tended to the sober did strictly conventional styles of clothing, but American influence was strong in the liall showing men’s fashions of the future in the “ Britain Can Make It ” Exhibition. Here clothes were almost gay, and certainly colourful. Futuristic trees, whose leaves were made of tweeds, worsteds, and baratheas, spurning, the traditional wintry shades of brown and black, took on the hues of late summer—reds, greens, maroons, fawns, with dashes of scarlet and hunting yellow. This colour theme ran through both the custom-made clothes from Savile ltow and Bond street, and the readymades from lesser-known districts. With more colour there was more freedom of movement. The full Ameri-can-belted sports jacket, hitherto seen only on youths who were evacuated to the United States during the war, i was offered for export .and for. the home market. There were lightcoloured jackets and dark trousers, held up by gay suspenders in silk rubberised kid and plastic. Belts were made in the same resplendent patterns for wear with slacks. Jackets were two inches longer, but not yet as elongated as those worn by male Hollywood stars. For informal wear, a whole row of sports shirts in overcliecks, plaids, and fancy weaves were topped by equally

colourful pullovers. And iu the sports section, scarlet hunting outfits were foil to rough tweed hacking coats. Fancy buttons were no longer a feminine prerogative. I'i.n - coloured, embroidered, or brass, they appeared on men’s sportswear and lounge suits. A pair of typically English punched brown brogues witli wexig heels got a giant share of attention in footwear display. To the feminine eye, hats seemed a trifle smaller, with variations on the bowler. Shirt manufacturers were doing their best to break the war-time “ mend and make do ” habit of cutting i, of a shirt to make a new collar for three shirts with collars attached. They were supplying a spare collar with the new shirt—to be sewn on when the old collar wears out. The long time which elapses between giving an order for a made-to-measure suit and the delivery date is br?c down prejudice- against men buying suits “ from the peg.” Of the 21 exhibits of men’s suits, coats, and overcoats at the exhibition, seven were by manufacturers of ready-to-wear clothing. Four of these were by the American firm of Chester Parrie. A double-breasted formal suit of West-of-England worsted, a gray with red overcheck country suit, a double breasted Angora topcoat, and beige Bedford cord slacks came from the former Rolls-Royce aero engine factory, which this firm lias converted to make tailored men’s wear.

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL

Mrs W. J. Mathers left on Monday Engagement, to join the Wanganella en route to The engagement is announced of Perth. Shirley Olwyn, elder daughter of Mrs E. and the late F. Richardson, of Mr Arthur Pacey, of Napier, arrived Maori Hill, to John, elder son of Mr by plane yesterday, to visit his mother and Mrs C. Joplin, Wadestown, \velMrs C. S. Pacey, Royal Terrace. I lington.