Slimness Becomes Subtle

Northern Advocate, 15 July 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

Slimness Becomes Subtle

(FOR THE WOMEN FOLK).

Fashion turns a corner—and behold, you are a little lady with an old world air. Your hair swept up, your waist “corsette.’' your complexion pampered to a creamy pallor. And your clothes reflect this new femininity. New clothes are going to be lots of fun.

In the first place, you will notice—and welcome—a trend towards ‘dressy’ clothes (as our mothers loved to call them). This means that your coat will have a fuller sleeve, a softer bodice, more fur; that your wool dresses will have swaying fullness; a new soft fullness that is done with shirring, with gathers or small pleats that hang flat in repose and flutter in motion; that even your tweed sports suit will temper its severity. It means that in these clothes your slimness will be a matter of subtle suggestion, rather than stark outline. And that brings us to that now subtlest of all things in the feminine wardrobe —the foundation. With an unbelievable flatness of seaming and finish and fastening (talons are lighter and very supple), corsets have become more subtle in their aid than ever. She.athlike fit is achieved by ingenious cutting of the new control fabrics that are revolutionising corsetry design still more.

New evening foundations manage to look still more helpless than last year, in their soft satin and lace —.a mere two ounces in the hand, no more, when boneless or only slightly boned —yet more efficient in their controlling. Waist-defining stepins (coming some inches above the waist to cope with ‘spare tyres’) have tiny diagonal bones to discourage rolling over, but invariably have skintex ‘fabric’ boning at the back to substitute the ordinary steel bones. Bosoms are lifted high, widely separated and held outwards in a high zestful curve. The new controlettes lengthen out the waist. Some show a marked Edwardian influence — seen as much in the elegant brocaded satins and slipper satins that fashion them, as in the lovely line itself.