STRAIGHT HAIR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19320, 6 May 1926, Page 5

STRAIGHT HAIR.

It will be a help in dressing children if the old adage is remembered, "Straight hair, straight lines." This does not by any means mean, that a straight-haired child is to be allowed no pretty clothes. On the contrary, the straight-lined frocks can carry all the colour and embroidery one wishes to put on the small person. Colour is most important for children, and a common mistake so often that of putting a child into brilliant colours because her hair is dark, forgetting that it is complexion and general effect, not the hair alone, that decides the wise mother what colours suit her child. One will often hear it said, "Oh, mauve isn't a child's colour," or "I can't put my child into grey." These are very old ideas, belonging to the days when mauve was half-mourning and grey was an old lady s colour. Now mauve runs into 30 or shades, and grey into nearly as many. And among these are many tones which suit certain complexions exquisitely. There is another danger with children's clothes and it is one to be carefully avoided, especially in coats and party frocks. Clothes designed for children should not be copies in miniature of clothes for grown-ups. Because godet skirts on long bodices are decreed by fashion for us to wear, we must not assume that such will be suitable on the small person. Whilo the proportion may be right, the effect will be outre. A fashionably-dressed child is not an attractive picture. Children's clothes have quite a little fashion of their own, but it is not a reduced copy of ours. The mother who dresses her child most successfully is often the one with limited means, Who makes the small frocks herself, and by so doing has discovered a type of dress that suits the wearer, and uses that type in her every-day and her party clothes, varying them in material, trimmings and embroideries. 'lt is a good investment to buy a very well-made child's frock and use it as a pattern for all the other little frocks;