Royal Widows and their Weeds.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 896, 3 May 1889, Page 4

Royal Widows and their Weeds.

The Gaulois gives some interesting par' ticulars as to the mourning worn by widows of royal and imperial rank in Europe at the present time. A modification of the English widow’s cap, as worn for so many years by our Queen, would appear to be the form of coiffure adopted at many Courts, and the same journal states that an English milliner possesses a monopoly of supplying these to the royal familio of Europe. The descrip, tion given in detail show that the cap, as worn at foreign Courts, has black lisse ‘ weepers.’ The aged Empress Augusta, though she wears in other respects the conventional widow’s mourning, is obliged to have very warm caps, owing to the neuralgic headaches from which she suffers. The immense strings fall almost to the carpet when she is seated in her large arm-chair, which is mounted on rollers. the empress charlotte. The unfortunate Empress Charlotte, widow of Maximilian of Moxico, has always been careless of her drees since the great tragedy of her life. In her widowhood and mental alienation she loves to wear the brightest colours, though her attendants have frequently tried to dissuade her from doing so. She often puts red roses in her hair, as she is represented in her portrait by Raudan, in which her remarkable resemblance to her grandfather, Louis Philippe, comes out so strikingly. The Empress Eug6nie wears the very simplest sort of mourning. Her gowns are of woollen fabric, and fall in plain folds from the waist. Her dressmakers occasionally attempt some variation upon their unstudied simplicity, but the Empress always bids them revert to the untrimmed dresses that she now prefers. THE QUEEN-REGENT OF SPAIN. The Queen-Regent of Spain has till quite lately worn deep mourning that was almost nun-like in its severity. The dress, very flat and straight, has had a long full train. Upon her head she has always worn a mantilla of a block woollen fabric, without even the relief of a fold of transparent crape. Eor extra covering, when crossing the gardens or traversing the long corridors of her palace, Queen Maria Christina wears a long black mantle lined with white velvet. She uses two pearl-headed pins that King Alphonso used to admire, for fixing the thick black veil upon her head. For certain occasions of ceremony the Queen-Regent has of late doffed her sombre black and worn a lilac gown ; but she seems to like to return to the black veil that denotes her widowhood. r , THE FIRST TWELVE MONTHS WEEDS* Princess Stephanie’s still girlish head—she is but twenty five—is the latest to wear the royal widow’s cap, under which her fair

hair is almost hidden, and the black and white of Austrian widows’ mourningi Some dresses just serit to the Empress Frederick illustrate the etiquette of tho first twelve months’ weeds. Among them is a mourning dress in plain English crape, the skirt of which is gathered all round the waist. The Empire bodice has a deep collar of white batiste and cufls to match that reach to the elbow. A long trained house dress is in black cachmere, the front being entirely covered with crape, pleated diagonally across it. The cuirasso bodice has a plastron of crape, the fastenings of which are concealed beneath two bias folds. Large sleeves of white crepe lisse are worn over the black ones, the latter showing through. A tea gown, in a soft fabric called woollen velvet, opens over a front of striped black crape. The long train is lined with white silk. The belt that confines the gown at the waist is made of woollen passementerie studded with unshiniDg wooden beads. The collar and cuffs are of thick white serge embroidered with black. AmoDg the dinner gowns is a Princess dress of English crape, the front of which is draped over black silk. Another is in black woollen velvet with train gathered on the back, sand trimmed with an embroidery made of small wooden beads. On the flat bodice is a deep white collar, like a nun’s, but made of the very finest batiste, in this respect unlike a nun’s. Among the mantles is a long and ample one, intended to be worn in driving, and made of black woollen crape, lined with Astrachan fur. The young princesses wear black serge gowns with riding habit bodices, and collar and cuffs of black crepe lisse. Their evening dresses are black grenadine, closely pleated over dull black silk, trimmed with English crape, and worn with black silk sashes.