IN FASHION’S REALM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3613, 12 June 1923, Page 62

IN FASHION’S REALM.

WEEKLY UP-TO-DATE DRESfI NOTES.

By

Marguerite.

Tile only whirligig pattern I like savours not of Egypt but, of China. It always reminds me of the dragon—that waving scroll so suggestive of the growth one sees under sea water as it waves with the

latter’s motion I have employed it here to shut off the bodice from the skirt in a season’s costume combining two materials—one patterned, the other plain. The patterned makes. what you see, and the plain the skirt (smaller scale) and collar and cuffs. You will, by the way, notice a little bit of lace on the edge of the skirt. So far as my own observation goes, it is quite outlandish, since it has to be treated as unknown ; but I see a great deal of English, French, and American work, and, taking the American. I have been struck again and again with this very peculiar detail. I assume that it is there to soften the severity of the hem. as, failing that, I cannot see t.ny reason for it. It is self-evi-dently an attachment, sewn on the skirt in-

side—a piece of lace or it may be some other material, the origin of which is beyond me. I have included it simply because of what I have said. As everyone knows, pretty welt all fashions are designed, where drawn, for more or less youthful ages. The studio accepts all the* rest as understood. But, now and again there is something which we must associate with years of some kind, in that it cannot be identified with youth with anything like the same readiness. This is a case in point—a coal, a cloak, a mantle, or a dress as you may choose to view it. Shown from the back, we see a remarkably well-thought-out arm mantle, which points front and back, and fur or something the equivalent does the rest, with the edge, and to crown everything, iti the collar.

Speaking of ages, what of this for a conundrum: Which does it the more, meaning age or style? Or, to put it more plainly, does a woman if she is young juveniltse a design on more elderly lines more than a woman who is no longer voung age a style on youthful ones? Something is done in this way beyond all question. If a woman is young and full of the bloom of youth, undoubtedly no matter what she puls on loses something of its elderly aspect if it happens to have any. And just as surely if she is elderly and

assumes a youthful garb she gives it some years in the appearance no matter how

nnr It die gains herself the other way. Perhaps the extremist illustration of all ■will give more point to the question asked. Thus dress a woman in a girlish style and she will give it a womanly look; but you can take a tot, it you like, and even though you dress her a la Kate Greenaway in a •skirt to her feet she will still look the. baby she is, and so her dress will only strike the beholder as a whim of the fairies. 1 pencilled this drawing because ii struck me as a design with several possibilities. A s I found it, it was the bodice section of a dress, the skirt of which was quite plain, so making it unnecessary to worry

about it. You will observe how it is carried on to the skirt, and then take note of the size of the sleeve arid its shape—one of the kind resolved, as it were, out of the ocdice. And ihen the collar, which is of muffler value. In passing, because I am writing at a moment when I see much in the Imperialistic vein, has it ever occurred to you, the influence which the drawing together has had on the styles, and more so on the sources for the materials used to carry them out? i lemembor when Vienna vied with Paris, especially in millinery, but who would say "Vienna” now. And again I remember when St. Petersburg set the seal on fur modes, but who would ever think it in these days. This is the cue or a more general observation, and it is the effect that since the war, and especially since certain developments over the peace leading to a pronounced difference of opinion, Paris has become set m much smaller type and London in much larger. I repeat, more so on the stances for the materials. Granting what may be conceded to another great country, it is England that looms in the imagination in these limes, and so for the sewing machine and the needle. I rejoice that it is so —our Empiie before all, and each State thereof doing its best i.o strengthen itself to make the thing more thorough. 1 submit that it is the family agreement-—the old people comfortably placed and the children around somewhere or other as flanking supports of the General rtiu ture. There is much to lie said on the subject of Imperialism and Dress when you come to thinkiof it. This is a pretty little design—a full dress (though rendered as shown to avoid confusion!, solid and open. A one-piece style needn’t be at all monotonous. Breaking if

a lew level with the girdle a few tucks above will do wonders, and then, if a little work is indulged, as indicated in the pattern, the relief wili bo complete.

From June 1. 1922. up to the present date no less than 109,381 boxes of butter and 172,443 crates of cheese have passed through the Patea grading works (states the patea Press). The value of these products is estimated to he somewhere in the rißighbourhood of £2,000,000.