WOMEN’S INDUSTRIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3756, 9 March 1926, Page 71

WOMEN’S INDUSTRIES

The women’s section of the Exhibition is a revelation of'the range of skilled crafts which are either peculiarly within the province of women or in which women may do excellent and remunerative work. Here we see some of the most ancient handcrafts —spinning, weaving, potterymaking—being performed, much as in ages before the application of science to industry brought about our modem huge factories, with their elaborate mechanical devices and minute subdivision of human labour.

To many who have watched, fascinated, clay being shaped and moulded into bowls, vases, and other objects of household utility and adornment, and fabrics with elaborate designs being woven on a handloom, the thought must occur that these ancient handcrafts might well fib a large place in the lives of modem women. There can, of course, be no general substitution of hand labour for machine labour, such as the Hindu leader Ghandi, has mainly tried to bring about in his own land. The tendency is for mechanical devices to be employed in industry to ever-increasing extent, and for manufactures to be conducted on larger and larger scales to increase output and cheaper pricer. William Morris, poet and socir. theorist, has in his “News from Nowhere” drawn a pleasing picture of a ruralised England, freed from smoke and industrial turmoil, where life is healthy and simple, and machinery has been discarded for ancient handicrafts. His is an idealist’s dream which few can suppose possible of realisation, unless as the sequence of a total break up of our present civilisation. But primitive arts and practices do exist alongside of modern inventions; suiting individual needs and local conditions. We often hear it said that the motor car is driving the horse out of existence; but in hilly or roadless country the horse is still indispensable, and the bullock team and the sledge are relied on for transport where roads are too rugged or bad for horse power. Almost everv home has a sewing machine, but darning and many odds and ends of needlework call for the ancient use of needle and thread, and very many women find their chief pleasures in knitting, crocheting, and various forms of ornamental needlework. Some women attach special value to handsewing, let garments made by machine sewing be never so dainty. To make something, according to one’s means, needs, and tastes, is the healthiest and one of the most universal human pleasures, fn its highest forms the impulse to make, produces the fine arts; painting sculpture, architecture, and others where beauty is sought for. But the contructivo and creative faculty may be exercised for ordinary utilitarian purposes m such a wav as to yield the maker the true artist’s pleasure. Modern developments of science and industry have tended to take from bookmen and women many arts in which constructive faculty, and individual preference, formerly found scope. Except in a few isolated localities, women in the chief civilised countries no longer spin and weave, and dve.

The more purely household arts have diminished too. Women no longer compound medicines and ointments, make, soap and candles, and other household requisites. Bread-baking is done in very few homes where baker’s bread is procurable ; bought preserves, pickles, etc. tend to supersede home products. Under modern conditions a housewife finds quite enough to do to keep her home properly without making things that can (apparently) be procured from the tradesman as good as she can make them. In comparing the achievements of the old-time and the modern housewife it must not be forgotten that the former would probably have many handmaids to work under her directions, while her descendant must work her home single-handed, or at best keep fewer domestic workers. Since the modern • factory system and large-scale industry originated, women of the poorer classes have been drawn in ever increasing numbers to labour in factories, where the greater number perform only some special part of the manufacture of an article, or something necessary for preparing it for market. They perform the same action over and over again during their day’s labour; they advance the work some step, but do not plan and make a whole thing. The sam e of course holds good to the majority of male operatives. There is little room for the' artist’s pleasure of making in large scale industry. This is one of the regrettable features of our modern mechanical civilisation.

Where the need for self-support does not drive young people into the readiest source of employment; where there are means, and fair educational advantages, skilled handicrafts that afford scope for individual talent might well be considered more than they are. The tendency is for voung people to take the most obvious kind of employment, work that does not require much effort, and that brings fair pay at outset; though it may off little opportunity for advancement. Girls particularly crowd the lower departments of business life, as typists, etc. The majority, probably, may be as well placed there as anywhere. But if a girl has natural constructive faculty, or distinct artistic turn, she might be more happily and profitably employed in some handicraft.

The women’s section at the Exhibition shows what good work women may do in such arts as toy-making, basket-making, leather work, wood carving, metal work, book-binding, illustrating books, cabinet work, and many other kinds, as well os in the more distinctively feminine arts of lace and needlecraft. Doubtless at present in New Zealand there would be difficulties in the wav of obtaining instruction in some of tfiese, and still more in securing a market for the worker’s pro ducts, but others might even now afford an opening for women with constructive talent and business enterprise.

In the Auckland section of the Exhibi tion, one charming exhibit is that of hand painted china, by Mrs Greenwood of Auckland. The designs show high artistic skill, but what pleases me most is that they are characteristic of New Zealand. There are paintings of New Zealand flowers, New Zealand landscapes, and notable buildings, the first named class being particularly charming. A plate with sprays of kowhai seemed to me the finest piece of all, but other designs of rata, or pohutukawa, and manuka were also charming. It is well for New Zealand artists to turn to what our country affords for their subjects. But the average amateur painter, when making an original study of flowers, or still life, uses what lies nearest at hand, instead of making any effort to paint New Zealand plants or typical New Zealand scenes and things. One pleasant and remunerative employment for a girl of artistic faculty is designing Christmas cards. There is always a small market for good handpainted cards, but the readie : way of making money in this direction is to supply designs to manufacturers of Christmas cards. And designs showing New Zealand scenes, flowers, and birds would be eagerly bought both in this country and the Homeland. Many arts and handicrafts may be carried on by women as a means of adding to their income, if not as a main means of support, and the interest they yield is pure gain. FROCKS AND FASHIONS IN LONDON. By a Lady Correspondent. (For the Witness.) London, like the incomparable Delysia and her supporters, is -‘still dancing,” and it is debatable whether it is we who encourage the new music, the musicians who interpret it for us, and the clubs and restaurants where we dance our appreciation, or whether i* is they who encourage us. Be it the supply which creates the demand or vi£& versa, we danced to greet 1926 and it will be more credit to the enduring qualities of the satin and brocade wares of our shoemakers if their department of fashion is not thoroughly overworked this season. Selfridge’s have been responsible for an original and extremely pleasing spur to London’s 1926 dance career, for some oi those People Who Make the Wheels go Round there thought out a special Dance Week, the popularity of which may be judged by the fact that there was no evidence of a “Monday” spirit in the crowds at the store when the week opened, From flower-huecl dunce gowns and cloaks, shoes and stockings, ear-rings and shoebuckles, to the sober black and white equipment for our escorts, from gramophone records to musical instru ments, every department showed some thing of interest to dancing London which flocked up to the store, net m single spies, but in battalions. Upstairs in the Palm Court there was a special programme every afternoon, foi admission to which all the tickets foj the whole week were allocated by the first afternoon. Those too late to secure seats benefited by the fact that the programme was broadcast, so if you were not fortunate enough to secure seats for the performance, you at least could buy your face cream or your ribbons to the tango or fox-trot times transmitted to the various departments via loud-speakers. Amongst the mannequins parading the stage in new dance models was Miss Oriel Ros§, who was particularly wcllchosen I thought for showing off the attractions of a black chiffon velvet and gold slashed cloak worn over a black and gold gown, and in which she looked like a mediaeval Florentine page. At the end of the parade she slipped off a green ombre velvet wrap she had been showing over one of Chanel’s so popular black the chiffon models and sitting down at the piano sang “You Forgot to Remember” as though it were the everyday custom of a mannequin. Miss Harding sent some exhidition dancers to represent her, and Barrie Oliver demonstrated the Charleston with a skilled' energy which left his audience crediting him with elastic muscles and applauding’ him with more enthusiasm than ability to emulate his steps. Each day had a different programme: Pat and Terry Kendal from the Cochran revue at the Pavilion danced for old and new admirers, then there was the inimitable Sophie Tucker as usual twisting her audience round her little finger and giving the lie to her song “Nobody loves a fat girl,’ Jay Whidden and his “Midnight Follies” Band and numerous other attractions.

“Music is an invisible dance as dancing is silent music.”—Last hut most decidedly not least, there was Selfridge’s own new band: “The Three,’’ Warner, Yorke. and Rochs —ail alliance which London should soon know as well as it knows the Three Musketeers, for they certainly are a discovery which more than merits the reception accorded their debut at Selfridge’s.* They form an admirable combination and their playing is so full of joie-de-vivre that you could not help wanting to dance to their music. I think, had they wandered out of the .Palm Court still playing, the crowd would have followed them round tho store as the children followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin. One of those famous illustrations Rackham mode for “Peter Pan” shows some delicately-tinted figures of fairies, and underneath is written “Fairies never say ‘we feel happy,’ they say ‘we feel dancey,’ ” ana I am sure the owners of some of Madame Handley-Seymour’s new between season evening gowns must say that when they inspect the reflection of their toilettes.

It depends a good deal on individual taete whether you feel happier in a gown

of shaded panne, a shimmering tissue model or an elaborate creation of glistening fringed beads, but for my part I do not see how anyone could feel more “dancey” in these than in a few exquisitely designed wisps of chiffon blown (very securely) into a frock. “More than my tranquility of mind can bear.”—Chiffon, especially black or white chiffon, is extraordinarily popular, and Madame Handley4§eymo>ur is showing some lovely examples at 47 New Bond Street jnst now. Few of us agree with Goldsmith that to “Be obliged to wear black and buy it into the bargain is more than my tranquility of mind can bear,” and most of us are as happy in a black gown of irreproachable cut as we are in anything. One black model in these showrooms had a decolletage cut low at the back and low cut armholes. The filmy skirt was held in by a ribbon girdle run through slots and tying in the centre front. From below the shoulders at the back a panel of chiffon was sewn in a V-shape the length of tho gown, and fluttered gracefully as the wearer moved. Another little black chiffon gown had a straight bodice and a skirt eddying into fulness by means of innumerable pointed godet-s. At the armholes straight pieces of chiffon were sewn which could be clipped together at the wrist to form delicate hanging sleeves; as graceful a little garment as you could find. “A bevy of fair women rich in gay gems.”—The white chiffon models were relieved with diamante, pearl of gold and silver thread embroidery, for white chiffon, unlike black, requires relief and depends, upon the collaboration of such allies for its success. Cyclamens arc blooming with renewed zeal in the favour of the modistes and one straight-bodioed model had a full left-side flare to its skirt with cascading taceta of a deeper shade, whilst another showed a full skirt with a deep hem and narrow stoles of a stronger tone of its own material. Dumb jewels often in their silent kind More quick than words to move a woman's mind. Georgette wag represented charmingly by an azalea pink gown, its straight bodice having a deep yoke of diamante which carried its note down to *the low waist-line in a narrow centre strip panel ending in a long-fringed pink ornament. The skirt consisted of many pointed godets which, as its wearer moved, revealed that the tight underskirt was bordered with a strip of the heavily encrusted diamante trimming. A delicate lily-of-the-valley leaf green frock had a tight underskirt and a long waisted tunic slit up on either side and edged with a broad gold thread embroidery like the skirt of an 18th century cavalier’s coat. The gold thread waa r ’need round the armholes and the •imped decolletage. Green again l admiration in a model of shaded l iving its fulness in gathers from i.stline across the back of the skirt, : by a strap of jewelled trimming. o'.letage, a very low oval at the a. is filled in to half its depth with .i material embroidered with dia-

j in a spray design; in front the yoke was embroidered with a deeper design of the same trimming.

With so many people in, or going to Switzerland it is a moment to mention the elaboration of the sports outfit this season. The designs are so practical and so attractive that the attention of anyone interested#in sport should be turned in this direction. As they can be made up in such a variety of materials they are just as suitable for hot climates as they are for the country for which originally they were designed. Burberry’s are to be commended, particularly this winter, for their display of sports designs and their fiki-ing and skating outfits, made tip in Burberry’s own khaki or white materials, are accorded the approval of sportswomen in the tropics as readily as that of their sisters who choose geranium, orange, blue, or jade versions of the same suits for Murren or St. Moritz.

One of their smartest models for skiing was an orange suit of their proofed material and consisting in close-fitting trousers and a tunic coat buttoning high—the buttons set slantwise—with the turn down of the collar and the edges of the pockets of clean Chinese blue. A blue berot and blue gauntlets and the usual boots completed the ensemble. Another suit was made up in green, had wide baggy trousers fastening down over the boots at the ankle, whilst a chic black outfit, the close-fitting trousers strapping outside the - boots, was completed by a peaked cap and gauntlets of deep rose colour. Other suits were of chequered weatherproof in contrasting colours or in light and dark shades of the same col out. Burberry’s show some pretty shot materials, a good example of the range being a plum coloured suit having a yoked tunic, tabbed and buttoned pockets and a high collar. For those who prefer breeches and puttees there were some excellent models in the morl useful colours; beiges, fawns, greys and the light blue of the Italian Cavalry uniform.

The junor champions were not forgotten and gay “Pocket-editions” of these same models in orange or red made them look like very charming musical-comedv pageboys or demons in a pantomime. Truly they were as smart as any. Burberry’s have the tact and wisdom of the old established house, and as they know that, wherever she is. the twelve-year old lady of to-day takes a decided interest in her toilette, they sec to it that her outfits shall be above reproach.

A young man, who only recently joined the Benedicts, but who has been “baching” (navs the Otaki Mail), entertained a friend one evening, and instead of preparing steak and onions he, by mistake, prepared steak and bulbs. As a result both young men suffered considerably,. but after recovering they laughed at tneir unpleasant experience.