SPRING ACCESSORIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22544, 8 October 1936, Page 4

SPRING ACCESSORIES

COMBINATION OF COLOURS VOGUE FOR CHIFFON Bl" BABBARA With shops and shop windows brimful of spring elegancies, it is difficult to decide just where to begin when telling you about them. Accessories, for instance, deserve a whoiC aiti( le to themselves—so ingenious and individual are the new designs. Handbags in particular aro more original than they have been for seasons. Beside tho patent leather ones I wrote about last week there nre hosts of linen ones in glorious shapes, often hand-em-broidered with flower posies or lace dosigns, and there aro coloured basket ones half-moon shaped, bedecked with flowers. There also arc softly pliablo doeskin handbags in every colour with gloves to match. Their clasps are always ornamental and different sometimes glass or wood or covered with the bag material, rarely chromium or steel. Shoes are different, too. There aro lots of coloured ones, mostly tnado on American lasts with onto trimmings that are really interesting. Then there are tho hats. 1? a rely have we been allowed such licence with our headlines. There are big hats and little hats, dipping-over-one-oyo hats and halo hats, toques and tammies, bowlers and berets. Some of them are tremendously gay in colour, trimmed with vivid orchidaceous shades or with field flower colours, and others aro more conservative, such as black, navy or yellow. Most exciting are the flowertrimmod hats. Usually they are widebrimmed and trimmed with realistic roses, carnations, tulips or watcrlilios. The flower colours aro subtle, though often vivid and very French, particularly in tho way they are combined. One windowful of French model hats features a black toque trimmed with mauve, cerise anil .Nile green net flowers, a chiffon cap of pale yellow trimmed with anemones, a widebrimmed navy balibuntal with a wreath of red berries, and another Italian straw resplendent with field flowers. Veils are everywhere still, bunched or floating, always entertaining and interesting. Something new again are glazed chintz evening dresses with designs reminiscent of a harlequinade. One derives its inspiration from the sky at night—a shiny black ground is moon and star-spattered in white. Another burnino- red chintz has a dazzling design 01^round white suns with branching rays. These two were made into square-necked wide skirted dance frocks worn with white pique jackets and accessories.

Tunic frocks for afternoon are shown everywhere." Particularly attractive is the daisy-patterned crepe in my sketch. A tan ground has tiny white daisies on it. Nile green daisies nestle at the neck and Nile green crepe lines the sash which binds the waist of the flaring tunic. Tho under-skirt is pleated and so is tho frill which edges the

elbow-length sleeves. These, by the way. are fashionably wide at the shoulder. The frock in my other sketch is a copy of a Molynoux model made in redingote style. Again it has a tan ground with a fairly large daisy design. Green and white ribbons edge the coat and neck and yellow daisy clips fasten neck and licit. With theso two frocks are seen white shoes, gloves and bags, tan hats trimmed with white and the latest shade in stockings—Sahara. To return again to evening frocks — more and more chiffons are being shown, each seeming more lovely than the last and nearly all combining: two or more colours. There are tho lampshade dance frocks, for instance, with full, filmy skirts, made in two or three layers of transparent material in different colours. For example a rose slip will have chifTon overskirts of pale blue, pale green and pale yellow, achieving a delicious opalescent effect. Or two layers of dark violet net will sweep away from a Nile green taffeta slip. In all these now clothes there is a tremondous flavour of the old-fashioned Christmas calendars. They have a baroque tendency reminiscent of bygone lithographs. Everywhere ono notices it, not only in the clothes themselves, but also in the technique of well-known modern colour photographers, in the delirious fruit, /lower, bird and butterfly head-dresses, in the coloured heart lockets, rather affected jewellery, and in the figures, faces and pompadours now in vogue. A well-known store here has counted on this rococo atmosphere and has devised window displays that might have been designed by Cecil Beaton, Hex Whistler or Oliver MesseJ. Their backgrounds aro all in pastel colours and aro trimmed with white paper curled and out in Victorian shapes—flowers and fans and d'oyleys and aspidistras complete with stands. Their display figures aro different, too. Their faces and limbs are covered with cellophano and tinted in pastel shades. Tho hair cellophane or sometimes lace run with a cellophano thread. The wholo effect is extremely delicate and utterly charming, etheral and lovely. •