Fashion Notes.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 999, 24 April 1891, Page 6

Fashion Notes.

Blue in all shades la likely to be a fashion, able colour for some time to come ; other colours in vogue are almond green, dahlia, ruby, poppy rod, and marigold. This last, and indeed all shades of yellow, is employed for evening dresses and for chapeaux, m which case it is combined with jet ornaments and black feathers.

Young ladies are introducing ‘beauty’ spots on the shoulders with low necked evening dresses, and these sometimes take the shape of a fly, a bee, and even a butter flv, fastened to the bare shoulder by gum. This is very funny looking. It was a young American girl who first thought of thi3 whim, and she has already many imitators.

A lovaly dancing dress for a pretty girl is pale green tulle, and a green silk underskirt of the same shade. All round the bodice, sleeves, and bottom of the skirt, a band of Burma violets, and a diadem shaped wreath of the same flowers all round the head, quite in old style, and the hair dressed h la Psyche.

Grey is wonderfully popular, and many of the Tudor canes have grey yokes covered with jet and steel, the flounce or oape of blaok velvet cloth or plush, and the lining of grey silk. This worn over a black gown and with a grey net, trimmed steel and black ostrich plume 3 forms a lovely and artistic toilette.

As a relief to the coats and bodices v/ith long basques, soma modistes are making princess gowns and polonaises, but witb open fronts and vests of close form. The sides are, however, closely shaped, and the fashion r,f a slightly full skirt i 3 only- becoming to the very slight straight figure.

Buttons are to be revived for ornament as well as use. Antique buttons are being manufactured in great variety. Miniatures of the beauties of different reigns set round with pearls, enamels studded v ith paste, old silver and gold incrusted with jewels, are all to be a favour. The smartest will be of Wedgwood china. The ground is to be the c dour of the dress or coat, and the figure or tracery upon each button i 3 white or cream.

For brunettes’ wear there 13 a red shade of orange, also lemon, and a citron tone that is extremely lovely. One often sees this colour in nasturtium blossoms. Apple green, silver gray, and cardinal are good colours for evening wear. A fringe of poppieß round the edge of a cardinal velvet dress is lovely, the bodice being trimmed to correspond. Apricot velvet should be appropriately trimmed with jet ; black gloves, black stockings, aud black shoes should be w'orn to accompany.

Some of the latest capes are fashioned on the policeman’s oape style. They are made of the finest cloth, set into a yoke of plush or of cloth for a contrasting colour, braided or embroidered. The high collar, also copied from the garment aforesaid, matches the yoke and is usually faced with costly fur or feather trimming. The capes, which fall below the wearer’s waist, are lined with cloth of the same colour as the yoke and collar and are pulled ia round the shoulders.

Evening bodices are once more, as a rule, to be laced at the back, and many morning ones also, where the bodice and skirt are cut in one or are sewn together, as many are. The loDg sleeves to low bodices have only been accepted as yet in diaphanous materials by English womeD, and the fabrica are out mostly on the cross and wrinkled. Black lace and spotted net thus used have most frequently a tight linipg out in white net, which ia perfectly invisible when worn, but proves most becoming to the skin of the arm.

The Empress of Russia has just had a violet velvet mantle made for her by Redfern, the English tailor, who visits St Petersburg every year. The lining of this regal mantle is composed of picked ermine skins, and dowD all the outlines, inside the edges, runs a magnificent passementerie in gold and violet. Another, but shorter, mantle made for the same lady is in the newly revived shape copied from the shou der cloaks of the Tudor period. It is in white and gold brocade, lined witb snow white satin, and mounted into a yoke of richest gold passe, menterie, with high collar of the same, lined with white and gold ostrich feather tips.

Cloth gowns, very light in colour and beautifully fine in texture, consequently light in weight, are the most fashionable of evening toilets for dinner, theatre, and home wear. The fact that cloth lends itself bo well to the rich embellishment of passementerie is sufficient to render it a favourite with dressmakers. Gold embroidery aud jewelled salons, enriched with tinsel threads, finds no proper or secure basis on their textiles ; very soon the weight of the trimmings rends the foundation- Cloth, while beautifully glossy and so soft as to take tho most graceful folds, is sufficiently firm to sustain a great amount of heavy embroidery, and this, in part, accounts for its great popularity.

The most fashionable style for hair dress--ing is the Grecian. The fringe is narrowed and drawn forward to shade the forehead ; the hair in front is parted across the head, half of it drawn to the front and the rest to the crown, quite to the back, the hair growing on the lower half being raised to meet it and both coiled In a classical knob with the extreme ends drawn through the centre of the coil and frayed out to make a frizzy fringe. The style of coiffure is completed by two bands of velvet mounted on wire, oue extending further than the other towards the forehead, but both shaped to the head and joining at the back immediately under the hair coil. These hooped bands aro finished by jewels or neat bows placed at tfee top ao cording to fcaate,