DRESS REFORM FOR MEN

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 30 November 1912, Page 9

DRESS REFORM FOR MEN

M. Alexandre Duval is in Paris the acknowledged arbiter of masculine elegances. His attack, like that of many other reformers (says the Telegraph's Paris correspondent), is levelled against the swallow-tail, the garment which is the despair of the aesthete, and makes its wearer resemble, in the words of M. Donnay, "a melancholy insect." M. Dv val is not perhaps so revolutionary as some earlier reformers. He does not suggest the restoration of the colored braveries of the eighteenth century. He will be satisfied if we exchange our broadcloth and Vicuna for black velvet, mid we may still wear the breeches for somi-dress occasions. At a dinner with one's aunts, for instance, he recommends, and in such circumstances, inb'vnn to wear, a long frock-coat of black

velvet, elegantly caught at the waist, and leaving a large opening above, through which a grey silk waistcoat will bo advantageously displayed. The trousers will be of fine cloth and fall straight !v 'i avlkmi M. Duval is not dining with his aunts, but with one or more of the. many fascinating duchesses of his r.c.'iMpi'itnnce, he will appear in the splendours of a dress-coat of black silk, very ti<iht trousers of the same -stuff, —probably M. Duval, like Sir Wiloughby T'atterne, "has a leg"—white silk gloves fmr] varnished shoes, which will throw V)to relief his lilac socks.