Fashion Notes.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 996, 3 April 1891, Page 6

Fashion Notes.

Stays and petticoats are made of the richest brocade. White swan’s down gauze petticoats highly perfumed, and edged with frills of white lace have replaced flannel petticoats. Open-work stockings are fashionable, and stockings with real lace let Inin front. Open work and ribbings of the fancy kind are no* carried up to the top of the stocking. With white dresses kid shoes and tail stockings are worn. The back of bodices, where they are sewn to the skirts, are now finished off witffi a ruched rosette, called a chovM (puff)- The newest combinations are gray and maize, and wine colour and blue. Vivid turquoise is also much worn. The ‘ Selborne ' birds have been invented in order to lessen the havoc made in the bird world for millinery purposes. They are made of the feathers of birds and poultry killed for the table. Feather tips are very much employed as trimmings round the edge of bodices, jackets, sleeves, and plastrons. But the newest style is that of large velvet and silk flowers put on as a border round the neck. There 13 no foliage, the flowers are pressed close together, forming a very becoming frame to the neck. A charming, yet simple costume, is of cream-striped cashmere, made with a kilted flounce with a shell-heading, from which falls a flounce of Maltese lace. The bodice, slightly full in front, is conSned by bands of Maltese lace. The gigot sleeves are finished with lace ruffles. Very smart people are now weiring richlyembroidered corsets, cut in nearly a straight line, low on the chest, and forming a point at the waist. They are a capital finish to dresses of plain foulard or silk, especially when combined with chemisettes or corsage draperies, and long sashes drawn in at the waist, purse fashion. The Countess of Jersey at her first reception in Sydney wore a lovely costume —a trained robe of pale blue satin and brocade, trimmed with bunches of lilac, the particular tint of each making a novel but highly effective contrast. Diamond ornaments, including a riviere of great beauty, and a floral spray of the orchid Dendrobium formosum, its white petals tipped with yellow, completed a handsome toilette. In England it is becoming more and more the mode to wear bodices dissimilar to the skirt. A very smart low bodice, which might be worn with almost any skirt, had a broad band of antique brocade, the ground cream, the designs in cold and faint natural colourings, which come some four inches below the armhole, and was bordered with gold galon, eo that the groundwork of the bodice was visible beneath. From the neck fell some scallops of lace, and by way of sleeve a puff of pmk silk surrounded the armhole almst like a rouleau.

The latest Parisian novelty is to have the dress cut en sarrau (a clinging tablier), which reduces the train to very narrow limits. Instead of the bodice cut with a redingote forming the train and a narrow tablier, the skirt is now formed of a very wide tablier, fitting" close on the hips, and almost meeting at the back. This is trimmed with fur, feathers, or embroidery, and is only open to make place for the train, which should always be of different material. The tablier, for instance, may be pf lampas, and the corsage of the same material, while the tram is of satin. Or the bodices and tablier may be of China crape and the train of lampas.

At a fashionable wedding reception in Sydney last week the bride wore a toilette of which the underskirt of white satin was veiled with applique guipure of grey and silver in a geometric pattern; the overskirt of French Srev cashmere, the edges bordered with grey velvet a shade darker. The bodice of satm and applique guipure had a jacket of cashmere, with zouaves and basque of velvet, and a large bow with long velvet ends fell from the waist at the back to the edge of the skirt; a small white bonnet with Bilver guipure and white feathers.

In Paris the principal dressmakers are using thick silk and even cloth for ball and evening dresses. Very little tulle is used, but sometimes gauze with satin stripes or gold and silver threads is substituted. The gowns are made up with a trimming of flowers round the bodice for young girls, and feather border for married women. The light coloured silks and satins are richly embroidered on the skirt. The bodices are made of gauze, draped over plain silk, with the Byzantine waistband or belt (a sort of corselet) covered with real or imitation jewels, placed amid the embroidery. For young girls the belt is simply worked with gold thread.

Formerly fur was only worn on the head as a soft cap. Now we have beaver, sealskin, or sable plainly laid over stiff bonnet shapes, with an edge of plaited velvet to- match the colour of the fur, and trimmed with a mauve, gold yellow, or shaded green feather, and with ribbon velvet strings. Pelt hats are also often trimmed with fur, and sometimes even a miniature fur covered animal is perched on the edge of the hat, or the tail is arranged in loops between the ribbon or velvet bows.

A very uncommon evening gown is of dead white Indian mull, cut low in the neck and without sleeves. The muslin is pulled into the neck, and falls into straight folds to the ground in the fashion of a long loose lobe. A white satin Swiss belt studded with pearls is shaped to a point back and front on the upper side ; on the lower it is straight at the back and cut slightly up in front, giving a short-waisted appearance. A pearl fringe encircles the shoulders, and a similar trimming runs round tlie skirt at the bottom. For a young girl with plump neck and arms nothing could be prettier.