FASHION NOTES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 3802, 12 April 1913, Page 4

FASHION NOTES.

CHIFFON EVENING GOWNS. Some recent models for evening gowns which have been turned cut of the Rue do la Paix workrooms are made almost entirely in chiffon.

Bright-colored chiffon, with lace trimmings and a bunch of flowers, or several bunches of flowers, is the material which has'been used more than any other. The draperies are complicated and ample, but they look so soft and clinging that they do not add the tithe of an inch to the breadth of •fhe 'hips. They all have trains, some long, trailing, single-pointed ones, others arranged in sweeping curves, others in two points which cross one another near the feet and divide like river tributaries. The 'corsages are just points of lace over plain chiffon tops, sleeves are merely chiffon veilings and very little of them, but waistbelts may be important ; draped ribbon; quite broad, and sometimes extending into a sash which loses itself among the chiffon draperies, and peeps out over the feet of a tassel or a chou.

Violet over rose color is a daring scheme, and it can look very well, and a huge black velvet flower at the waist pulls the whole thing together. The lace . used on a dress of this kind would be dyed to match.one or other of the colors, and the only touch of white or cream or pale rose pink would be near the neck round the decollete. Some dressmakers achievo the most marvellous iridescent effects by superimposing three, or even, four, different shades of chiffon; for instance, pale yellow over mauve and mauve over green, and under that a fairly strong pink, but such things have to be done so very carefully that only very knowledgable people must risk them. Lovely golden, and brown chiffons can be mixed without danger, and ridi velvet flowers in brown and gold with some rich old cream lace make good trimmings. Persian blues can be mixed witji apple greens very well, and with these the lesser precious stones can be worn, such as jade and lapis lazuli. Black and white chiffon is well known for its possibilities, but grey and black or grey and white are less general; yet they the intensely satisfactory, and a very big dressmaker in Paris has had models which make one think of those pearly grey skies one sees sometimes which seem to have a luminous light behind. In a dress a luminous light would very likely bo a silver grey, or gleaming white Liberty. Brilliant notes of color may be added to these tender-toned dresses by flowers, which grow more and move popular for evening near every week.

POWDERED TRESSES. The French are nothing if not enterprising. An attempt is being made in Paris to revive the fashion of powdered hair. At a race meeting held recently near Paris two beautiful girls appeared with white powdered locks beneath their picture hats and were the subject of general comment, and, it lirav be added, admiration.

There i.s no doubt that the addition of powder to the coiffure lends added charm to a pretty face and improves a plain one; but it is doubtful if the fashion which prevailed among the women of the eighteenth century will meet with the approval of their strenuous great-granddaughters in the twentieth. The idea is hardly compatible, for instance, with hockey, tennis, rowing, or other forms of outdoor sport. However, the originator of the old-new mode, a celebrated coiffeur in the Rue de la Paix, i= enthusiastic over the new departure, and prophesies its speedy adoption by women of fashion. The head of a rival establishment, -however, rejects the possibility of its general use with scorn. As a concession, he admits that it might be worn at night, blit i.u the daytime “Never, never!” Meanwhile, whatever the outcome of the new experiment. one may piously hope that the blue powder of the eighteenth century is buried beyond hope of exhumation. It is on record that Charles James Fox, dandy and leader of the “-Macaronis” in his youth, great Whig statesman and sloven in his later years, returned from his “grand tour” having acquired the habit of using blue hair powder, which at that time was fashionable on the Continent.