Umbrella Fashion Notes From Paris

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1949, Page 9

Umbrella Fashion Notes From Paris

PARIS (By Airmail.)— With the breaking of the long summer drought and the advent of a decidedly rainy autumn, Parisiennes are showing increasing interest in the new season’s umbrella fashions.

While a stubby umbrella some 6in shorter than last season’s models was a feature of the recent show by the Federation of Umbrella Makers, the long-handled style is still the favourite among French women. Handles are round or square, and straight. Many are made of soft leather, wide enough to slip over the arm, and one model even had a tiny pocket for the booklets of underground and bus tickets which the Parisienne invariably carries about with her.

(By Barbara Stevenson.)

Covers are mostly in pastel tones, although a few authentic plaids were shown. Soft grey, grey blue, soft greens and a range ox reds, starting with a pale pinkish red and ending in a vivid fire-engine shade, were the most popular. Navy and black umbrel'as are being sold with two slip-on covers—one matching and one brightly coloured. They are fastened with yips or conventionally domed. Novelty handles featured real ivory and tortoiseshell antiques. One such handle vas said to have come from the top oi a coal poker which had once belonged to a French queen. PARTIAL TO CROOKS French women are partial to crook handles, and generally buy one good pure silk covered umbre'la frame, which" can be used with two handles, one tailored and one dressy.

The handles are interchangeable by the simple method of unscrewing one from the frame and screwing in the other.

Another favourite “change” is to have several top covers for one umbrella. Some smart French women have umbrella covers made to match every costume they purchase A velvet or suede embroidered slipon cover for a handle is another trick to change a plain wooden-handled, everyday model nto a glamorous accessory. Fur supplies a new 1950 touch in soft slip-on covers made of Persian lamb, ponyskin, and broadtail. One famous fashion house has a modei with a wrisl haadi in natural mink, the handle matching the fur trimming on a green facecloth suit. FASHION ACCESSORY

In France, an umbrella is considered a fashion accessory and quite often carried for style niy. Rain or shine, every other Frenchwoman takes her umbrella to the races, and one model has a shootingstick handle, upon which the uivner can rest. One smart Englishwoman seen at Auticl this season had a lever little leather case for bin ’culars attached to a highly polished, tall, .roodon handle. Sports, ohops m’e matching their umbrellas to their rain wear and provide long slender pockets in front of waterproof fabric coats in which to carry them.—Reuters.