FASHION NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1320, 17 March 1877, Page 19

FASHION NOTES.

Cat's eye stones are favourite jewels. Smyrna lace is used for bonnet strings. Cashmere stockings are soft and warm. Ball dresses are all made to lace in the back. New and elegant fans hava amber sticks. Patent hair dyes are no longer in demand. Bed petticoats have not gone out of fashion. Seal-skin hats are more fashionable than ever. Exquisite ball dresses are made of coloured crepe. Veils with gilt dots some distance apart are fashionable. Very dark cloth stuffs are used for children's street suits. Old-fashioned linked sleeve buttons are in vogue again. " Very light, blue stockings are clocked frith navy blue silk. New bracelets are very narrow, and do not closely fit the arm. Woollen stockings are made, for autumn and winter, which, are really Cretty. The Pomadour puff is becoming to lost ladies with gray hair. The best and warmest quilted petticoats are lined with eider-down. The princesse dress and princesse polonaise still remain popular. Black felt and velvet hats are enlivened with trimmings of satin ribbon. Natural flowers are worn in the hair when it is dressed for the evening. Two large, thick curls are worn in the neck when the hair is dressed high. Chamois skin jackets are preferred to worsted for wear under outside wraps. Smyrna lace is more fashionable than any other for trimming under-clothing. Very young ladies continue to wear their hair in French twists and finger puffs. The crepe dresses now so popular for evening wear are worn over satin petticoats.: Turquoise jewellery is becoming to young ladies with fair complexion and blonde hair. The driest hair is said to be kept glossy if it receives fifty strokes from the brush every night. "Montague curls" is the name given to the hair scattered about over the forehead in little half moons., ! It is a generally accepted rule that a gentleman .should take the outside of the, walk when' promenading with a'lady. ' Capotes ' and other, pretty, hats which' look like Normandy caps have 'face trimmings of white lace or tulle ruches. - ' ' Although ladies may wear their hair in any way becoming' and still be reckoned fashionable, it is'generally getting popular to build up more and more on the top of the head, and we may soon get back to some of the ugly fashions of a few years ago. ' ' ' '' The Catogsn style of dressing the hair is in favour, and with a moderately thick head of hair this- may be arranged without the use of false braids. The hair is braided in the nape of the neck, drawn up on top of the head, and' the ends made into finger puffs or a small knot. Low in the back of the braid is held with a gold or silver pin. Sometimes the hair is twisted into a double cable Jnstead of a' braid. This season ladies are not particular to have a bonnet to match each dress. One hat serves for opera, theatre, and visiting, and this is generally of the new shade, tilhul, or the favourite, cream. Plush hats are selected by young ladies, and are trimmed with ostrich tips and laces. Even dark-coloured velvet hats are supplied with lace strings, which are fastened under the hat in the back, and are held •with a pin under the chin or tied in a loose knot. A white skirt made to wear with trained dresses, and which does away with the necessity for a bustle, is of cambric, has ruffles all the way down the back breadth, and four layers of them just at the edge. The outside lower ruffle is edged with Smyrna lace and passes around the entire skirt. It is starched very stiff and holds out the dress just enough to make it graceful and pretty. The material used is so thin that this skirt is but little heavier than an ordinary one.