London Modiste’s Profits

Southland Times, Issue 21578, 16 December 1931, Page 12

London Modiste’s Profits

(By a Londoner.) There is a great wave of economy in the gay world just now; people are not entertaining as much as they did, and every woman is trying to buy home products, particularly in fashion goods. The big drapery houses which cater for the luxury side of life are all featuring British goods, and have rows of British windows with lovely displays of things that most people imagined hitherto came from Continental fashion centres. The French dressmakers are very much upset by the diminution in their private clienteles, for though the big shops have brought models to copy, most of the bestdressed women who used to go over periodically to Paris to buy direct from the model houses are now seeing what they can buy at home, and are having estimates from establishments that they have rarely entered in the past. The French dressmakers do not like to see this valuable part of the business disappearing, and are now coming over to Ixmdon and taking rooms at the big hotels to show their models quoting cut prices, which with the import duty added, are far lower than they have ever asked. Some of the most fashionable actresses have in the past bought their dresses for society plays from Paris, but even they are now having to yield to the popular demand for British goods, incidently encouraging the home designer. Yvonne Arnaud, who has been having a big success in the “Improper Duchess,’’ has worn out one set of dresses and has had another group designed by Norman Hartnell, the young ex-army officer, whose success with his wonderful frocks is such that he has started a branch business in Paris. He has designed a lovely ensemble for her in dragon’s wing green velvet, consisting of a long fitting dress, with a very short coat with an enormous collar in ginger coloured kolinsky, with which she carries a little barrel muff to match. She has a gorgeous white evening dress embroidered in crystal beads, made closely fitting and high waisted. With this she has a long coat trimmed with ermine tails. Yet another ensemble has a coat in lime green georgette lined with black velvet and trimmed with black fox. This is worn over a lime green dress made with a high waist. High-waisted Empire fashions are being shown in two other new productions this week, and crepe romaine, the heaviest of the crepe family, is used for some of these. The new vogue for face-cloth long coats and coat frocks for out-of-doors is seen in the play at the Ambassadors. The queen in the play, “The Queen's Husband,” has a lovely long coat-frock in pastel grey face-cloth.