Belinda’s Letter

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 10 June 1933, Page 13

Belinda’s Letter

Dearest Betsie, —It is very comforting to hear the great dressmakers’ Collections in both London and Paris are full of ideas for the woman with nothing to wear. They have so much simple elegance and little accessories that completely transform last year’s dress into a 1933, model. A suit should lead the way in every wardrobe, a straight skirt and a little jacket, either fitted at the waist and just reaching the ni.ps, or short and loose with t!;e fullness at the back, introduced by means of -cutting the material on the cross or by a widening box pleat. Buy enough material to have a short sleeved top made so that you can transform your suit into a one-coloured dress, lightening it with contrasting scarves 'and gloves. The cheaper materials should be chosen for your blouses, for cottons are smarter than silks. Choose checked gingham with a .large bow high at the neck, spotted muslin, pique, voile, or crisp organdie. The simple styles are charming and so easily laundered.

As soon as you have this new outfit added to your wardrobe, altering your old dresses can be tackled. Your woollen dress can be given an up-to-date look by shortening the sleeves to hatf-wav between the elbow and wrist, or to the elbow, and making a matching cuff and collar, cuff and tie or bow set in pique, flax, linen or musin. A pleated fan-shaped tab of the same material could be stitched to the end of your belt—great rise may be made of small handkerchiefs on olam dark woollen dresses. The handkerchiefs either m fine, plain, white lawn, or gaily striped or checked linen. If you have a short-sleeved dress, tie a handkerchief round each elbow with one corner drawn through a slit in the sleeve and clipped back. A third handkerchief can be pleated cornerwise and slotted through a slit in the dress at the neck, forming a little jabot. Belts are becoming important and are worn on all sorts of dresses. Plam leather belts on evening dresses and blind cord and thick silk cord are fre-. quently seen. •

SOME FASHIONS AND A BOOK

Ribbon is very important for evening. I have seen a very entrancing little cape made out of 4,j- yards of 8 inch striped or plaid taffeta ribbon. Cut off one length to go round the shoulders, leaving it with the large ends to tie in a large bow in front. Gather the rest of the ribbon on one side and sew it to the straight piece round the shoulders. Tiny darts can shape the straight piece to the shoulder, but this is not essential. A little cape of this kind can be worn over a plain dress and it is easy to carry when you are wearing an evening coat. I have been very busy this last week remodelling my last two years’ wardrobes on these lines. I am really pleased with some of the results I have obtained, but the sewing woman who was helping me remarked: “This will he the ; last time surely that you will be able to remodel some of these garments, l which we have now remodelled three | times.” Even poverty can sometimes be amusing.

j T have just finished Michael Arlen’s : now book “Man’s Mortality.” Once : again he refuted the critics who pcr- ' sist in regarding him as a popular confectioner in green-hattery. This , new book of his, despite its .rather wormy title, gives us all his early audacity, but audacity in terms of ideas and world problems instead of in Mayfair , bedrooms. Mr. Arlen has joined the ! ranks of the fiction-prophets in a ■ bound, stimulated thereto, I suspect, by the futuristic speculations of Messrs | Wells and Shaw and Aldons Huxley, | and by his own obvious interest in | ■ peed and machinery. There are flashes of Arlensque humour in this novel, but they are infrequent. The erstwhile novelist of Mayfair has set himself a theme of high seriousness and has achieved conspicuous success. The book has virtuosity that has made the name of Arlen a household word, hut there ' is more in this thrilling narrative; there is a meaning and a hope and a philosophy. Read it, Betsie dear. Yours ever, — j BELINDA, 1 Wellington, June 8.