WAIST-LINE PROBLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19627, 4 May 1927, Page 7

WAIST-LINE PROBLEM.

Revulsion against the fashion of the last few years for women to look all alike in "complete. The picture frock, which has been fighting for a place in the fashion world for several years, is established. Just as, years ago, every well-dressed woman had a navy blue coat and skirt in faer wardrobe, she now has. not one picture frock, but several. . Dressmakers are ransacking shops for copies of the fashion journals of • long ago, and sending their emissaries to the museums to study not only the form, but the colouring of the gowns of our ever-so-many great-grandmothers. Since the women of to-day insist on comfort, a good deal of artifice has to be employed to give the illusion of an eighteen inches circumference to a twenty eight-inch waist. It is achieved by shirring and gathering and pointed bodices over very wide skirts. Very low bodices with quaint little bebe sleeves are seen on many of the new frocks. These often have skirts of many flounces of tulle, springing out stiffly, and there will be a sash round the waist tied in an enormous bow behind. The skirts of the picture frock can bo any length, and many of them are comparativelv short in front and nearly reach the ground behind; others are much longer at the sides than in front or behind. Some of the frocks seen on the dance floors of London have skirts measuring four or five yards at the hem; these are gathered at the waist, and usually made of a rather heavy metallic material. It is not only for evening wear that women are aiming at the picturesque. The jabot of lace and the ornate waistcoat have already appeared. No less picturesque is the contrasting severe coatfrock to be worn with "a stiff Eton collar or a neat pique collar, shaped like an Eton. Those turned-down collars will be seen everywhere shortly, and exact .copies of the famous Bluecoat boys! costume of Christ's Hospital, with its queer pleated cambric tab. are being made, with "yellow stockings and knee-breeches complete.