BRIGHT CLOTHES URGED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20419, 22 November 1929, Page 12

BRIGHT CLOTHES URGED.

AN APPEAL TO WOMEN.

SOMBRE DRESS DEPLORED.

LIVING A DEPRESSING LIFE.

COLOUR AN AID TO HAPPINESS. [by telegraph.—own correspondent.!) DUNEDIN. Thursday* If the women of Dunedin give heed to the advice tendered to them by the Rev. James Burns during the course of a lecture the city streets should shortly be paraded by women wearing much gayer, brighter and cheerier clothes. Mr. Burns has been at Knox Church since the resignation of the Rev. Tulloch Yuille, and has gained a high reputation locally as a lecturer on art. Colour was, one of the gifts of God, he said. None of them knew what colour really meant to their lives. If they could imagine a colourless world and a colourless garden they would at once see where they were. Life in a colourless world would he intolerable. There were some colours that were sedative and others which were joyous. The colour in the world was there to cheer them.

No Reason to be Dowdy. " It is remarkable, therefore, that you ladies go about Dunedin in such sombre dress," said Mr. Burns. "It is not that you like sombre clothes, but you have got the feeling that you should wear them. But why not go about in gay and cheering colours. These are the things that cheer in lifo, and even in Dunedin there are such things as colour harmonies. If you do not find harmony in colours they create discord." In tho new ant silk there were such exquisite shades that no ono had any reason to be dowdy and depressed. He was perfectly sure that they were living a far too depressing life, that they were not getting the real joy of life and they would have to look to nature. She was full of colour and radiance and one of the things which was going to help them was courage in colour. Mr. Burns went on to speak of the value of colour in the furnishing of homes and said ho was addressing chiefly the young married people. If they were going to have real enjoyment in their homes they must study the question of harmonious colour and the effect of warm paperings bringing gaiety and brightness. These were not trivial things, as they spent a great deal of time in their homes. Beauty in Pictures. Then there were the pictures on the wall. Did they enjoy them ? Did they often look at them ? Did they suggest anything to them ? Did they take any real place in their lives ? It was perfectly certain that to a great many people they were meaningless. If they got no enjoyment whatever from them it was quite clear that they should not be there. It was most extraordinary what some people put on their walls. Mr. Burns made some humorous references to the woollen samplers sometimes seen on tbe walls arid referred to one done in red and blue worsted wool, which bore a worked-in' text, "Consider the Lilies." Ho also referred to a custom of lifting the top off a wedding cake and putting it away under glass "as a perpetual illustration of the folly of one's early days."