THE LADIES COLUMN

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7258, 21 February 1885, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE LADIES COLUMN

VE3T3 FOR LADIES.

FASHION NOTES. Wnrs colour is a favourite for dinner dresses. Pretty wool goods are trimmed fashionably this season with bands of velveteen. Evening bodices really are more like corsets with arm-holes, trimmed round with soft lace. The tendency now is toward plain skirt*, particularly with the fashion authorities in France. Green heads the colour list this season with a new tint called cresson, and a yellow brown called mousse is also highly favoured. For rich street dresses gros de cross, a new silk, half way between an Ottoman and a gros grain, combines with brocades very effectively. Fancy cloths are this season to be confined to small checks, a fabric of all colours, bearing a whitened surface called neigeuse, and the dark tartan plaids. For woollen materials this season the new French bodice is cat with the front side-piece on the cross, which makes the figure appear very much smaller. Worth pronounces for simplicity this winter. But the word "simplicity , ' must be taken in a very liberal sense, and not at all as indicative of plainness. The newest style of bodices for promenade costumes have a full silk waistcoat and drapery of silk just round the waist, with a straight zouave jacket over. Chair scarfs" are gathered in the centre by inch wide satin ribbons, in some old shade, such as salmon, cinnamon, snuff, or orange, tied in long bows and ends. Deipite the vigorous attacks made on the exaggerated tcurusures of the day by a conservative few, they seem rather to increase than to diminish in dimensions. Velvet, velveteen, and brocades are all so fashionable, and little wonder! Beautiful in texture, sublime in colours, and at prices hitherto undreamed of, one can afford these, if anything in the shape of a frock. A very affected street costume is made up of myrtle-green cashmere and the new plush upon plush. The skirt is circled with three flounces of the plush, these been cut at the edge in the shape of the pattern, the nap of the goods increasing in length toward the bottom of the figure.

My good friend in Paris writes me, saya the 'World, that the whole city is crazy about " vestes'"' — everything is "veates." Now, that will convey to the uninitiated scarcely anything, and the realities are eo pretty that I almost fear to enter into a description of them, in dread of Englishwomen rushing to wear them without the slightest attention or regard as to whether they are suitable or the reverse to their special style. That is the way —directly a pretty new idea in fashions is'started, everybody gets it, and, after thoronghly vulgarizing it runs it to death. Bat to explain " veates." They are simply short Zouave or Spanish jackets, made of the richest materials, fastening across the chest en cojuror at the neck, and reaching just below the armpit in length. For indoor and evening wear they are accompanied generally by a chemisette of lace, silk, or Indian muslin, confined at the waist by a very broad sash or a pointed Swiss belt (quite an old fashion revived, by the way), rfuch is their variety that they are adapted to all sorts of occasions. For instance, a very pretty one of deep blue velvet, edged with pearls and lined with primrose satin or surah, may be worn over an evening dress (with or without the chemisette) of faintest primrose tulle or iurah, a breadth, of the velvet being intermixed at the back of the dress or a* a scarf ; the lightest and heaviest materials are used together now in the same costume. An entirely different variety of the •• reste," worn by the Empress of Austria for hunting, had a collar of the fur known as " Kamtohatka" continuing into rerers cut on the cross. It was fastened by gold buttons bearing the imperial crown. Madame Bischoffeheim wsars the "veste Bretonne," which closely resembles what are worn by the Britanny lads—of coarse blue cloth, with gay-coloured braiding. Those who can boast of very alight figures may venture on a tight fitting " veste" of astrachan ; but, of course, anyone with at all a faille prononde is hardly fitted for a " veste." Tnose for the evening are superb, and always more or less embroidered, or braided with gold or silver; in fact, they are popular for three reasons—they take very little material, they look handsome, and are capable of any amount of decoration. One very lovely example was lately worn by the Grand Dnchese Vladimir; it was a short square bolero (the name suggests the Spanish type) of dahlia velvet, the edge over-eewn with silver; the sleeves just reached the elbow, where it was finished by the lace ruffles of the chemisette sleeves. Round the waist was worn a scarf of blue China crepe.

CHIT-CHAT.

A cheerful face ia nearly aa good for an invalid as healthy weather. Mrs. Garfield, the mother of the late President, hae passed her eighty-third birthday. The Eeverend Mother Mary Frances Clare is the only woman ever granted private audience by a Pope. Patti told-the Eoston Herald that she wore diamonds worth £60,000 the last time she sang in " La Traviata" in New York. " Why, Anna, you can't read and mind the baby at the same time." '' Begging your parding, mam, the child doesn't disturb me a bit." An enterprising picture-dealer in London has imported from Berlin 10,000 photographs of Prince Henry of Battcnberg, who is about to marry Princess Beatrice. "Roee of the roses," gashes Alfred. " What a buttonhole bouquet we'd make," she answered. "What do you mean?" "A rose with a sprig of evergreen." Ladies of the English aristocracy are engaged in a fur craze, and encase themselves in that material from head to foot, looking as if they had just walked home from Russia. Cards have been issued announcing the engagement of Master Willie Scott, aged four years, of Gordonsville, Va., to Mies Jenny Perry, aged six years, of Charleston, W. Va. At a sale of fans in Madrid recently, some brought as high as £190, the prices bid for them being due chiefly to the designs painted upon them and the names of the artists on them. The grandest ball-room ever seen in the world will be that prepared for the inaugural ball of President Cleveland, at the new pension building. It will afford room for about 2000 dancers. The London and Provincial Bank has issued an order that if any clerk marries on a smaller income than £150 a year he shall be dismissed, which is an instance of paternal government with a vengeance. A lady in a Denver theatre, the other night, wore in her hair six tiny humming-birds, which formed a half-wreath about her head, and which she had trained to sing between acts for the edification of the audience. Love knows no politics. Mr. Gladstone's son, the rector, is to wed a Miss Mary Wilson, the daughter of a Liverpool doctor of large practice and means, bat a savage Tory. They will be able to worry along without help from the old people, for his church, though only a country one near Hawarden Castle, yields him a snug £3000 a year. Doctor (who has been sent for at two a.m.):" Madam, pray send at once for the clergyman, and, if you want to make your will, for the lawyer." Madame (horrified): "Good gracious! Is it so dangerous, doctor ?" Doctor : " Not a bit of it; but I don't want to be tbe only fool who has been disturbed in his sleep for nothing." Bridegrooms who have to make gifts to their groomsmen ought to be in quite comfortable circumstances. Mr. Morris Pryor, who was married lately in New York, gave each of his numerous groomsmen a scarf pin of a black pearl surrounded by four pink pearls, and Mr Fred Sands, married at about the same time in Washington, gave his groomsmen pins representing the heads of birds in enamel, powdered with diamonds. Little Dick : " What is those animals in that big window, mamma?" Mamma: "That is a fur store window, and the animals aire seals and bears." "Is they alive?" "Oh, no. They were shot and stuffed* and then stood up to look as if they were alive." " Who are those ladies in the window by them, mamma!" "They are dressed up figures to show the new styles in furs." "Ain't* the ladies alive?" "No, pet " " Was they shot and stuffed, too ?" A correspondent of the Liverpool Post states that while searching the register at Somerset House recently, he came across the following :—Surname: Pepper. Christian names : Ann Bertha Cecilia Diona Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Ka'e Louisa Maud Nora Oph 'ta Phyllis Quince Rebecca Sterkey Teresa Ulyais Venue Winifred Xenopbon Yeni Zeiis; child of Arthur Pepper, a laundrymari, and his wife Sa*ah. Borne 19th Dβ ber, 1882, at West Derby, Liverpool,"