MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 November 1934, Page 9

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OF INTEREST

LATEST PARISIAN TOUCHES. (By a Fashion Expert). Nothing leads up to winter better than a classic tailor-made suit. It has gone through many vicissitudes since variations .on tailored lines diverted our minds from its neat charm, but just when least expected it returns into smart definite style. Like many of the most splendid evening gowns, suits also appeal - in rich old-fashioned plain tones, such as darkest green, sapphire, amethyst, brown, mole and lighter greys. Flat furs are sometimes -worked on to collars aiid long revers tapering off at a. single button waistline fastening. Velvet as a substitute for fur is becoming. Skirt fastenings change from the erstwhile side hook-and-eye method erstwhile side hook-and-eye method to buttons run a short distance down the centre front. One of the latest innovations is a two-button “grip-to” set to run down from the waist, but at either side of the back. This skirt fastening is full of merit for straighter skirts that show flat fronts and very little flare at hems. And do you know why? Because it preserves an unbroken line surmounting a flat box-pleat gore gauged carefully to widen out and give the right amount of walking “kick.” The motif is welded to the main part of the skirt at either side of the back through the medium of a quarter inch machine-stitched line, which might be leafed out between the material in the nature of a loose inserted tuck. This method is introduced to vary that short slit-up at the centre back which is more popular at the moment than side or centre front ones for straight-tailored walking skirts. The back “grip-to” skirt fastening appears on sporting suits, made on a classic line, with jacket in plain leaf purple tweed, and the skirt to tone, but showing a. green stripe. A mastic and purple pin-spotted shirt blouse, with a cravat tie of rust-coloured fuzzy angora wool, was worn with this.

Little neckties of this angora wool are a fascinating quota in plain colours like “poussin” yellow or scarlet, as they pretend to fill up openings of classic tailor-made jackets.

Really they lend just the requisite amount of warmth at the moment, and look well in vivid contrasts, chosen according to a colour scheme. This contrast, for example, might coincide with the primitive yellow washing through a red Paisley patterned blouse, worn with a dark bottlegreen ribbed woollen suit. Talking of bottle-green, you might like to change the one-button jacket fastening to five or six saddler-made ones of thick dark brown leather. This notion gives allure to a threedecker pelerine set in a flat movement to reach the shoulders from an otherwise collarless neckline. Now we are veering from the classic! Metal runs into floral boutonniere of bronze this season, and burnished silver metal into star motifs and a lot of welding up on outsize cable links for waist-belts and bracelets. Costume jewellery takes a new turn with an enamelled disc strung on to a cord. These make blue, black and lacquer red, necklaces with gold or silver metal ridges to match a similar motif set into metal bracelets with Eastern wrist openings.

The lapel watch-clip encircled by tortoiseshell worn by Princess Marina when she arrived in Paris has already stimulated action on a simple unaffected trend.

Wood polished brown for initials replace those of metal on brown and green. Black might be used on grey. These motifs are decorative and make a personal splash on lapels, in belt, buckles, forearms of sleeves . . one,’ not two! I have seen them placed at the base of jacket peplums, and above rather than on breast or hip patch pockets. The latest hats straight from Lemonnier are ready to cut a dash with classic tailor-made suits. Either one of these new models will lend just the right fillip to a tailored outline. One is a. new Francois Villon shape in black felt with a fairly high crown sloping out gradually into a wider base to meet a short brim. The trimming suggests the plumed swirl movement.

Of course, it is in minkiture mid very fine, twisted into the merest line from an emerald green and black ostrich feather. This motif starts to wind from side front of the brim round the crown, and finishes off in a shoot on the crown at the side just beyond its starting-point. The Tyrolean Alpine has an equally jaunty’ allure in black taupe, with the crown designed to point up at the back and a short brim curled up at the edge. This brim finishes in a double line one side, with, and pointing as it. were, to a. gaily coloured. humming bird filling a dent punched into the crown.

ENGAGEMENT RINGS In ancient Rome a ring was given to mark a betrothal, as a pledge that the contract would be fulfilled. Originally, the ring was of plain iron. In the time of Pliny (A.D. 2327) iron rings were still used. but during the second century the gold ring was introduced. Though betrothal rings were thus purely secular, they were later blessed by the Church. Formulae for blessing the ring have survived from the eleventh century. The wedding ring developed from the bethrothnl ring, though the exact stages and dates cannot be traced. Decorated gold marriage rings date from the fifth century, but it is not certain that they were used in the actual ceremony of marriage. The diamond is traditionally associated with the engagement ring (according to Lilian Eichler, in “Customs of Mankind”) by the old superstition that the sparkle of the diamond originated in the flames of Jove. In Italy the diamond was called “Pietra della reconciliazione” because it was supposed to maintain concord between husband and wife. Among the lower classes, instead of the token of the ring, a coin was broken by the couple. bethrothed, each of them keeping a part.—“ John ©’London’s Weekly.”

RETURN TO BOOTS. evening shoes of glass. 1 got shoes, You got shoes, ' All God's chillun got shoes. —Negro Spiritual. And the chillun will be .wearing some rather strange shoes in the next few months, if the evidence on view at the thirty-fifth International Shoe and Leather Fair, at the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, is to be believed (says a London “Daily TeleIgraph” contributor). The women, for instance, may not be wearing shoes at all. They may bo turning—or, rather, returning—to boots. With Regency days as their inspiration, their feet will be shod in little ‘■bootees,” with three and four-inch heels (compared with a two-inch maximum last year), and plentifully laced up the front ("Corsetiere” is the correct term). The “bootees” are of various colours and shapes. There are blues and reds and purples, and all of them most indubitably “Conversation Pieces.” (It is, I am creditably informed, some ten years since women last wore boots and liked it). There are also evening shoes made of spun glass (besides gold and silver kid and lame). The glass looks exactly like twisted thread, but when you touch it you realise that this is the stuff that windows are made of. The evening shoes are cut to the most measure of skeleton patterns. The Irishman who described a net as being "a collection of holes held together by pieces of string” might call these shoes “pieces of glass kept apart by the foot,” for the foot is without doubt the star turn. For next summer there are sandals which, even more than the evening shoes, appear to have been "dieting." Just a bare minimum of sole and strap suffice to suggest the sandal.

Such streamlined footgear may cause the feminine foot to drop and spread. However, these dread possibilities are guarded against in the winter wear by “built-in” arch supports. The foot goes into training, so to say, in the winter for the laxities of summer. And, incidentally, if you jlo not like high heels, there are plenty of very low ones—as low as three-quarters of an inch if necessary. For bad weather there are women’s rainboots with fur turnovers. The whole affair is washable. There are also shoes that not only look as though they are made of linen, tweed and “crash,” but actually are.

MEN’S BOOT LETS. As for men—let it merely be stated that there are “black suede bootlets” and brown boots with brown and white check cloth uppers (also blue and white, if it takes you that way), button boots and shoes (big, shiny buttons) and snake-skin shoes, with large, round pieces of reptile' stitched on like a steamer’s plates. • What, of the shoe store of the future? As the customer enters, an innocuous-looking doormat will register a camera and pressure study of his foot. As he takes his seat the assistant will already be in possession of a rapidly developed photograph of the customer’s foot. An “ambuloscope” will make a slow motion film of the customer's foot—walking, running, and dancing. The shop will be laid out like a dress designer’s establishment —spacious, bare, and uncrowded. The lights of the shop will be carefully directed on the feet. Finally there will be an X-ray and “foot health centre” in each shop for the study of peculiarities and “stresses” in the customers’ feet.