STREAM LINES FLOURISH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18502, 14 September 1934, Page 12

STREAM LINES FLOURISH

FASHIONS ABROAD DRESS DEVELOPMENTS ‘‘Yes, you really take care of youi] figure these days, for although curves are prominent they must be controlled and must certainly not be untidy ones,” said Mrs. Lottie Murdoch, an interesting Australian, who arrived in Auckland recently ou her way back to Sydney following her seventh business trip to England. Mrs. Murdoch is a noted authority on style developments, and is well known through the Australian business world. Whilst in Paris Mrs. Murdoch attended the spring showings of many of the most famous fashion houses, and was greatly impressed with the charm and elegance of this year’s modes. According to Mrs. Murdoch the vogue for the •.-heap and tawdry is dying. Women are tired of shoddy substitutes, of artificial silks, of imitation jewellery. There is-a real application of fine quality fabrics and in social circles precious stoneare being worn once more instead of imitations. Indeed, not snee pre-war days have the formal fashions in London been so elaborate as in this season just past. THE NATURAL FIGURE

As to the silhouette, Mrs. Murdoch was very interested to note that- the big couturiers are still making the natural figure tlio basis on which all their designs are developed. If there is any accentuation of any particular part of the figure, it is of the bust, which in all tlie more slender figures is charmingly uplifted. “All frocks, whether day or evening,” said Mrs. Murdoch, “are designed with some little touch to emphasise the graceful contours of the bust.” She said that the one-piece foundation garment was the most popular type of garment being worn abroad. The reason for that was the need for unbroken flowing curves beneath the smart, streamline frocks—a need which was more than met by these particular designs. The colonial girl, she said, compared very favorably with the women abroad. She noticed this particularly at Ascot, where some of the best-dressed women were Australians, who stood out most strikingly. This year London was the hub of the social world; all the smartest women from the Continent were there, and the polo matches were the mostfashionable events of the season. In comparison with London Europe was "dead” : a fact no doubt due to the exchange and the political unrest that exists.

INTERESTING FASHION PARADE

An interesting fashion parade she visited whilst in America was held on the roof ballroom of one of Manhattan’s leading hotels, when dozens of smiling young women who wore no dresses, no slips, and not a stitch of clothing that anyone could see except a corset and a pair of stockings paraded before a small army of men and women. It was the semi-annual fashion show of corset manufacturers and every United States department store had a special reason for making sure that its buyer got to the hotel and to the many other private exhibits in Manhattan.

Speaking of the ‘‘foundation garment,” that essential to good dressing. Mrs. Murdoch said that the most historic corset year of modern times was 1931, when the corset which would stretch two ways was made, of a new material, which allowed women to move about with -'’eater freedom while still keeping the figure snug.