ROMANTIC TREND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23018, 21 April 1938, Page 4

ROMANTIC TREND

NEW FEMININE FURBELOWS j EDWARDIAN HATS AND VEILS PRINTED CREPE AND CHIFFON i i BV ItAHBAUA LONDON, March 16 There is high romance in the air these clays. We have been spoiling for it for some time. Step by step our evos have been opened to the femininity of delicious furbelows that have not been .seen since our grandmamma's clay. Wasp waists, wide skirts, wispyshawls and veils, flowers and frills — these are showing in all their allurement. Edwardian shovel hats, resplendent with crimson roses and caught about with spotted veils, tantalising pill box hats crowded with tiny blossoms, 1 befrilled muslin blouses, tucked ohif- < fons and real valenciennes laec —these are the line details which enchant our afternoons.

There is on denying it. All this womanliness has its roots in the past! One sees ball-gowns that might have walked out of a Watteau or a J toucher; head-dresses that are the very essence of French romanticism; party frocks copied lrill for frill, bow for bow, from some old-fashion print of the sixties. For they have no singb period, these clothes. It is as though some sorcerer had tossed in the air all that was ever designed for woman to wear, and only that which was most enchanting, most feminine, had come our way. Attractive Evening Coat You will see in my sketch the de-murely-fitted evening coat that clings so charmingly to the youthful figure of the girl on the left. Fashioned from dark green faille that rustles as she walks, it has a frill at the neck, covered buttons fastening right down the front, and exuberant flounces at the hem. Her sleeves from wide-winged shoulders narrow to slender wrists, her piled hair has a delicious tuft of pale green tulle perched atop it, and two Tung, wispy tulle ends look particularly seductive when tied in an innocent bow under her pointed chin. Then there is the niched, beribboned crinoline in my other sketch. Dove grey slipper satin makes its widely-spread-ing skirt, worn over a hoop, caught, and looped like a lampshade. The bodice is similarly niched, as on the skirt, and bows of cyclamen satin tie at latticed intervals.

The corselet, tentatively introduced by Chanel in her summer collection, has been the certain success of the newopenings. This same designer puts a corselet of pale pink satin over a frothy

dance frock of chalk white lace. The corselet reaches from ribs to hips and is boned and laced in similar fashion to those our grannies wore under their crinolines. Even .Molyneux and Alix, those sponsors of the classic, drape horizontal bands of contrasting material round their sculpture-like frocks. A yellow band reaches from just below the chest on a black crepe frock to well down over the hips, and is shirred and fitted in true corselet fashion.

if your waist is extremely small and if you are tall, a corselet will suit you well, but the short or fat must beware its cutting line and unkind accent. Pastel Shades Popular

Dancing at Dorchester House recently, 1 saw another pale grey slipper satin frock that was prophetic of the new outline. Leaving the shoulders absolutely bare, it had a boned and fitted bodice that came right down to the hips at the sides and rose in a point in front. The skirt was shirred to the bodice and stood out in stiff folds to the floor. Blown around the bodice top was a drift of pink and white apple blossom, delicate and lovely against the pearly grey. Muted pastel shades in mauves and pinks, greens ancl greys, blues arid oyster colours, are most often used for these romantic gowns. Sometimes the bodico is a different colour from the skirt. Chanel puts a dark plum-col-oured chiffon bodice on to a pale blue slipper satin skirt, and scatters plum satin ribbon bows on skirt and bodice. Lolly pink .satin makes another frock that is quilted in diamonds and studded at each point with contrasting buttons, for all tlio world like an upholstered chair. Flower prints on both crepe and chiffon are extremely dashing. Usually in brilliant colours on black or white grounds, they are splashed at wide intervals with great bunches of flaming poppies, stencilled clusters of anemones and roses, huge bunches of sweetpeas, and bouquets of mixed flowers of all kinds. An opaque superimposed white is startlinglv lovely when introduced in these flamboyant designs. It highlights and outlines the more extravagant blossoms. You ran have your flower print either wide-skirted or cut. on the cross and fitted to vour figure—then it almost invariably "has a "softlv-draped top and probably a little matching or contrasting bolero jacket.