Bath Gowns.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 998, 17 April 1891, Page 4

Bath Gowns.

• Can you give me a suggestion!or a pretty bath gown ‘ writes a young lady not far from the Empire City. ‘ I am going on a visiting tour and I want something smart looking. Fashion creeps into every item of a woman’s wardrobe. There are garters fashionable and garters out of fashion, and even the fashions in hairpins change as periodically as our bonnets and hats ; and there are fashions in bath gowns. I take it that every woman in these oolonies uses a bath gown.

for fewhonses are built nowadays without the desirable and highly necessary bathroom, and where there i»a hath there should be a bather ani the bather requires some sort of a gown to use too and from the bath room.

I am aware- that it is economical to use one’s old dressing gown for this purpose. No one would be so-extravagant as to use a new and smart looking dressing gown among the steam and slop of a bathroom 1 hope. In the place of the old and somewhat discarded dressing gown, a well ordered wardrobe should contain a proper bath gown. I remember one I had many years ago made of coarse Turkish towelling in the shape of a loose gown with wide sleeves, buttoned straight down aad secured round the waist by a cord. This was not only a coarse but a very useful kind of gown as it washed easily and when wet was soon dried. Later on fashions influenced bath gowns;, and I had to get one-of a pretty pink flannel,, lined with- swansdown calico, and neat meltings at the neck and sleeves. I made it ia the shape of a gentleman’s plain dre-ainc* gown. Or course if you requite.something extraordinarily smart the bath gown of to-day i 3 an elaborate affair, and will cost as much as a ball or a visiting dress. Ext a fastidious fashionable women have their bath gowns made to match tbe decorations of their bed and bath room. Shell pink and anemonie are favourite colours, and the material should be a very fine soft-fleecy material, called lamb’s wool fl'anuel, and is often lined with a silk that bis ads barmomiquriy with it. You might take some ideas from the desoripti ons of the bath gowns worn by some of the leaders of fashion. Beie are a few of them. W rs Langtry’s bath gown is of a glorious ye’.low brocade triumed with black fox fur. C± broad Russian collar of the fur extends nearly to the waist, where it is met by heavy yellow silken cords with fox tails at their ends. There are deep caffs to match the the collar and a little border of it comes from underneath the gown and edges it all round. Mrs Astor, of New York, has a bath gown of sky blue wool, lined with cream coloured si k, with threads of gold woven into the border. Large pockets, and a hood adorn it, and with it a girdle of blue silk is worn round the waist. Mrs Frederick Vanderbilt has two favourite bath gowns. One is a loose flowing robe, like that of an abbess, of turquoise bine wool, lined with whipped cream coloured silk which also forms the lining of the wide angel sleeves and monk’s cowl like hood. Another society lady has one of pearl grey with a fine traoery of silver through it, lined with .plush pink and trimmed with soft pink feathers, which also form the broad open collar, and DvA der tbe white sleeve. The above are of the expensive vfdcr of things. You oan make & slnftft one really pretty out of light tweed or flannelette. Remember what Ouida said, * It matters not what your gown is made of; it is in the way it is made that creates the difference of being iu or out of fashion. Dora.