IN FASHION’S REALM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3755, 2 March 1926, Page 71

IN FASHION’S REALM.

Margrrita.

WEEKLY UP-TO-DATE DRESS NOTES.

By

T was leading about that horrifying arffiii in Gippland, to the east of Melbourne, in Victoria, and it set me thinking of sackcloth and ashes. If, as in the ease o' “Black Thursday." an artist were asked to paint something for the art gallery o* Melbourne, he would ohoose between two things for the dress part. If he were painting a realistic picture it would be to portray the unhappy people just as they were, but if a classical one. then it would be something expressing sympathy—one realistic figure, a woman, in the copiforting arms of a classical one; again a woman, but a goddess with mural coronet on her head. Artists have always shown by their pictures, where dros s has to express anything, that nature in her moods is an Empress, and la mode in hers, but a queen and her vassal. For nature dresses, and very much so, a s Dore, the famous French artist, realised when he came to illustrate Milton and also Dante. In her benign moments she has four dresses, no matter where the scene is cast— spring with the buds and uncurling loaves, summer with the full blooms and vine leaves, autumn

with the falling leaves and the colours they have in autumn with the leaves gone, but with snowflakes for the jewels. In her furious ones, of course, it is always a picture to express the peculiar passion of the time—flood or famine, storm or fire. I am inclined to think that all fashion originated with the mind on nature, and that she is ever before the great designers even now. * * # I. don’t. often catch the cable-sender so easily as in what follows. It was in midFebruary that he despatched from London a message assuring the world that Paris had vetoed the Russian boot. Seeing that mid-February marks the return of spring in the northern hemisphere, naturally Paris, and London, and New York, and all the others would be sure to discard any kind or boot 'u vogue in order to return to shoes. I know all about the so-called Russian boot, which is more properly the Polish one. Europe was visited by an extraordinarily severe winter, and America likewise, with the result that Paris, ever ready to take advantage of anything in the way of an opportunity, launched a boot with a long, soft and close top, which, being pf some length, wa 8 finished off with a narrow border of fur. And there you have it in a nutshell, and it seems a very natural thing when you come to think about it. * * * I am showing you to-day three pairs to illustrate the autumn modes, as well as one large sir.gie figure. One of these pairs illustrates dresses, one coat dresses, and one coats that might be called coat dresses. r fhe first shows on tho left a charming dress of tho tailored variety with a coat effect, because of the collar, and on the

right a dress that is frankly one with a worked spray down one side front, the one being in outline and the other solid merely for the contrast. You will observe the flare, and note it is achieved, in the one case by the fullness turned into pleats at the side, and in the other by the same pinched into a “beir at the sides, which same is tho leading style with the feature. * * * Some further reference may be made to that spray. Viewed in the light of such, it gives a fairly good idea of what the artists hove been doing abroad when coming to painting drosses. An extraordinarily largo lose with a stalk and leaves, such would about explain tho popular selection, and there it is. I cAn only go by the pboto3, but I have not seen one with the “drawing” a step beyond what the school child does when he or she sketches one, and finds it necessary to say ‘‘This i 3 a rose.” For you see. saving for the colour, it might just .as easily be a cabbage, or a lettuce, or anything. I hare no faith whatever in the painted design, i.e., decoration, and for this very good reason no artist of any real skill could give the necessary time to it for any price which anyone could pay. Art ever disguise art. It may take an hour or a day to do the painting, but it will take twice as long to do the drawing before the colours are applied. * * •* You cannot have too many examples o f the flare. This is yet another expression of it, but for a change with an inset repeating the material used to “cup’’ the sleeve. And as thi3 requires a frame, well

there it is in what is carried up above the corsage to that rather taking lattee coming down from the rounded neck. The flare is in the popular “bell” style, and the sleeve is another evidence as to bow far we cao go when it come* to the bishop.

I have given all the current flares the necessary consideration, and all the coming ones that havo come under my 'notice the same thing, and my “first prize” judgment acclaims tho grouped, elongated bells the best of all, with a long way between that and the next. These elongated bells always start at nothing, just below the low corsage level, and then, taking form, widen, and widen by degrees till near the hem, when they suddenly open out. as bells always do, till they meet, the result being that the hem is a continuous cluster ono against the other. The selection is limited to the dress afternoon or evening, and is easily th« very prettiest of ail and the one with the most artistic merit. * * * I come to the two coat dresses, one in open outline, and the other solid for the contrast. The open one has to be studied carefully. There is a fur collar, simply because so much wil lbe with a fur collar.

but the fur below has nothing to do with the call's which have no fur at all. They are simply patches on the dress itself, with a ribbon finish—one of those like smart touches we see from time to time.

The other dress buttons over in coat, style once, has a fur collar and cuffs, and, of course, the usual flare, which is indicated •well enough for the purpose, seeing what has been given already.

A favourite way of brimming tho little hat of ibis autumn will be to “fan” the ribbon at the side. But first the shape, as tho little hat of the autumn 1926, will be different from the little hat of the autumn 1925 as chalk is different from choose To start with, the crown will be much higher, and shaped, meaning to say that it will be creased, or bent in, or over folded on top in tho very prettiest of ways, and nearly always towards the back. Then tho brim—it will be there and not—a heJ met-like dip in front, but a sharp turn the other way at tho back. With that nothing more remains, but the trimming—a more band of ribbon round the front, but a far. of tho same, set against the side and more or less reminiscent of the ancient cockade. But suppose that you have two fans, one either side, and joined at the back. Well, an example I saw wag very "suggestive of the wings of a bird when seen from that position, the bird itself being somewhere, as one would suppose, inside the flattened brim.

And now the two coats, or one if you like, and care to adjust the fur to make it so. I, myself, prefer to speak of two, starting with the example on tho left—an

elegant coat with a fine fur collar tnd cuffs as large almost as muffs. Tha other is useful, chiefly to give some idek to tho fit, and also the fulness. Coats of ihe class will be improved with a little braiding, and these two proved it.