Clothes and the Woman. The Wonderful Art of Simplicity

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18064, 15 April 1933, Page 10

Clothes and the Woman. The Wonderful Art of Simplicity

LONDON, Feb. 28. FROM head to foot the woman of * 1033 is more complicated than she was last year, writes H. Pearl Adam in the London Observer. ►She may or may not be more charming; only those who are charmed .or not charmed by her can say; but she and all her helpers in the stitchery and cuttery have to Work hard to achieve the pseudosimple outline of the year. It is, as a matter of fact, all Euclid melted into curves, and the straight line has become, not the shortest way from one point to another, but the pleasantest. '‘There arc to be no bows, or gathering's or outstanding flounces (save for very young girls in mistsoft but toast-crisp ramparts of tuile or organdie); the essential line of the body is to be followed, and its drapery is to be ingrowing as it were. Thus a dress that looks as simple as any Simon that ever bought pics has a complication of folds which no man could understand; all he knows is that the wearer is uncommonly graceful.

Both London and Paris arc attending very strictly to line, or rhythm, and there is nothing jazz about it, either; indeed, it is fact approaching the classic. This is especially the case with evening dresses and teagowns, which have the most sapient draperies arranged within their unbroken outlines. A New Model. For instance, a new model in dull red crepe—color dull, surface halfshiny, like reel pewter—is so amply made that the fullness is gathered up in the front of the waist and falls in long folds to the feet, with almost a sash effect. A similar 'effect is repeated at the top of the low-cut bodice, leaving a plain space between.It is abominably difficult to describe, because it looks so simple and takes such a heap of doing. People who write about dress pray for panels and insertions and things, which carry pictures with them to the reader. So do dressmakers, who don’t have to bo so skilful, and their clients, who don’t have to waste fortunes on that invisible necessity, cut. It is a curious fact that men always want their wives to wear simple things and never understand how costly such simplicity is, although they themselves know perfectly well that for less than that umpteenth guinea a chap simply can not get a coat that sits right across the shoulders. And everybody wants him to have his shoulders right; between the Latin slope and the American square pad, tho Englishman carries it shoul-der-high. Sleeves. What queer things sleeves are! It is not their fault, it is the fault of nature’s q'u'eer liking for peninsulhs in the human form. All normal humans have twenty-seven; twenty digits, four limbs, two ears, and a head. All but the ears need clothing, and what a highly specialised collection of trades it is that thinks of nothing but hats and stockings and gloves! The hat-trade .occasionally takes pity oh one of the ears; it is mostly hairdressers who look after them, but hairdressers do what ladies tell them, and hatters tell tho ladies, and hairdressers consult with hatters, and so, like a really good wk'iting, the proposition comes to table with its tail in its mouth.

Anyhow, about sleeves. They are queer but various. You can have them every old which-way, as long as thev are either (a) absent, (b) elbowpuff, or (c) ample to tho nth degree. Ample, yes. On tho small tailored jacket they can be merely cylindrical, fulfilling their purpose of coating the human arm, and, like the best afterdinner speakers, saying what they have to say as smartly as they can, and then—or rarity!—-merely stopping. &ut on hby, dandfcr, fluffier, Sort of dress, from tho little woollen nine-teenth-hole lunch-frock to the teagown that has heard the chimes at midnight, if the merry company and the cocktail-shaker did not obscure them, the sleeve is having a lovely tiflic. iSometirnek It, is a long transparent bag, out of which the arm, apparently tired of it, suddenly breaks through an ’Opened seam. Sometimes it is a thing fts fat 'as a ihelon but as soft as a blanc-mange. If you straightened that one out it would touch the ground, but you keep it by an invisible bhhd, hidden by its fulness, w’ell above the elbow.

The great point is that, though there may be as much stuff in tho sleeve as would have made a dross in the days when wo all went tubular, although It may be gathered in largo-falling folds, or l&ft in rectangular-falling Semitransparent thicknesses (or thin*' nesses), the sleevo must keep away from the bodily curve to Which it is latitudinal. The curve of the waist must, must, huist appear. Hondo the sleeve must keep a why from it. Watch hotv rnahy of the fashion designs represent the model akimbo. But as being akimbo is an attitude of which the taste, unlike its etymology, is hot dubious, the average Woman will do well to see that her Sleevo floats Well away ffdni the inward curve of the waist. Tho more than average woman can let it .ovorfloty the place whore that curve should he. Thus a pleasant time is had by all.