IN FASHION’S REALM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 67

IN FASHION’S REALM.

WEEKLY UP-TO-DATE DRESS NOTES. By Mabguibiti. Now and again word comes along of something suggesting the freakish. Believe it not! The reason for the word is summed up in this one—sensationalism. It is true that the freakishly inclined may be wearing what appeals to_them; but that does not make a style. In prewar years the great designers of Paris sometimes launched a freakish thing for the fun of it, as witness the harem skirt and the hobble, and coming to hats the “Merry Widow.” But in these days those same designers are puzzling every hour how to avoid the freakish,, and it is either to hold the trade that is there or to get some of that which is not. I was reading a few days ago in a New York paper that Paris had decreed a

skirt to only the top of the knee, and that hose was being woven with a decorative garter to go with it. But—believe it not as it would not be tolerated. Similarly, I was reading in a London paper that thousands of women were now wearing buttons made of congealed animals’ blood, these being the latest button out, and in all sizes. And, once more, believe it not —first because buttons could not be so made, second because no manufacturer would dare to think of such a thing, and third because no woman would have them. I take it that the New York report was to excite attention, and I surmise that the London one was to get the sex to refuse buttons with any great amount of red in them for anticommunistic reasons. * * * The modes for winter are set, and to all intents and purposes, when it comes to the review, done with. And the modes for spring are before us in the imported picture, and the silhouette is just this—the boyish or masculine suit, in that the coat is such, and the coat makes it; and the cape coat-dress, the silhouette of the one being on quite straight lines, length of the skirt to below the knee, and that of the other being either with a flare or without one, length of the skirt the same. These are to be the two cardinal selections, though, of course, there are others—suits where the coat is not on the lines mentioned, and dresses that are not caped at all.

A nice style of coat-dress where the cape is omitted is shown in this. The little panel gives the collar and sleeve, and the other one the lower part of the

dress to the fastening and the flared continuation to the hem. It will be observed that the front is with a panel effect, and that the flare is cleverly marked off with a few lines pf narrow braid, or it may be stitching. * * * Returning to the cape, which I see is about arriving, it is utterly different from any ever designed before. In other words, it is not a cape to imprison the arms, but a cape that serves to drape the sleeve. It is like a curtain —the kind that overhangs another, a sort of cap or finish. And note that it is sometimes not a cape at all, and in this way: The wearer turns round, and you study the back, and there are two capes, one to each sleeve, and so a drape in very fact. I hr not seen the name used, but I iiiyself shall call this the cape-sleeve, or, if the reverse is better, the sleeve cape. And now another thing: Generally speaking, anything in the way of a cape is with an even edge. But it is not so in this case. True, there is often an even edge, but some of the pictures I have seen give a scalloped one, or one with diamond points or with tabs. And I have remarked several where a fringe is employed. Now it so happens that the cape gives the dress designer a chance of the fullest, enabling me to say that we shall probably see hundreds of different ways, and all of them artistic. It will be the designer’s business to go on improving, and so I visualise some very, choice creations. * # * Having noied the coat-dress already given, note this one—an even finer design, in fact a much finer one.’ Here

you get real elegance, a coat the silhouette of which is beautiful, with the flare starting from a higher level than usual,

and the Actual flare, consisting of pleats, being prettily marked off with that slanting cross-piece. I emphasise the collar for obvious reasons. Fur will be continued —a little or just enough; and here it serves for a finish, and is met with an edging to the revers that assists.

* # * While it is not arbitrary to have ev iff thing ic keeping, nevertheless it is the safer counse. And the best dressers are those who study this—hat, dress, hose, and shoes. It is the natural law The wearer is in one, for all that one end is a head and the other a pair of feet. And the toilet should be in one enough to harmonise with this idea. A hat that is in keeping with the dress gains by it, and a dress that is in keeping with the hat gains likewise. More—uniformity gives height as surely as the lack takes from it. A kindergarten test for this latter is to colour two strips of paper of the same length, and, of course, width. Colour one all a single colour, and colour the other in three—one end one thing, the other another, and the middle different again. Hang one on one side of a window and the other on the other and stand off and look. Of a certainty the piece of paper with the single colour will seem to be the longer one. * * * The hat is “Alpha,” the shoe “Omega,” and here are two shoes that struck me as extremely pretty. The top one simulates a as though the part over the instep had been folded back on the glove principle. If it were permissible,

I should call it the gauntlet shoe. The other is with a slipper effect, and very nicely it is achieved. It is all in the tab, and the way the line is scrolted from this to the sole. Tiuly a very pretty shoe. * * * Mufch may be made of the scarf, and much will be. They are coming back, and in gay colours. But it is always different, or there would be no fashions at all. You have your dress, and the lower part of the sleeve gives tfhat the di’ess doesn't —a pattern. And the material being suitable, there is a scarf of it, and so the scarf becomes part of the dress. It will be a long scarf—one that you can take twice round the neck and still leave enough in the way of ends to float to the arm’s length. The scarf may be employed otherwise. I saw a very nice dress where the upper half of the collar, with even revers, was so made, and then the scarf was knotted, and the ends flowed down the front at their own sweet will. Such will be w the pattern of such as to suggest a geometrical puzzle, for this is to be the word—oblongs, squares right angles, triangles, acute angles and obtuse, all dovetailing more or less, and puzzling you to say where the one ends and the other begins. * # * But I have an idea that the jazz pattern is going out. You see it has been exploited in every possible direction, and when you get to that, why, you have to go in for something else. Hence the geometrical pattern that is not jazzy at

all, but simply a case of squares or oblongs or diamonds in proper order. I indicate as much in what you see, the drawing being to illustrate the remark that when it comes to two materials this is one of the best ways to employ them. The patterned part may start from the neck or from a yoke, as may be desired.