A Nine-piece Wardrobe

Southland Times, Issue 21928, 1 February 1933, Page 5

A Nine-piece Wardrobe

London.

Sarah-Jane, a young London dress designer, has planned an ingenious outfit which enables a busy woman to choose her autumn wardrobe in less than an hour’ and without having to hurry from l place to place. This nine-piece outfit, which provides for country as well as for town, for morning and for afternoon, is made up as follows: (1) Topcoat, (2) woollen dress, (3) skirt, (4) shirt blouse, (5) woollen jumper (hand knitted or of some lightweight fabric), (6) afternoon dress, (7) morning hat, (8) afternoon hat, (9) handbag. By the time the Busy Woman has walked down the room in, the eighteenth century house in Davies Street, and has turned round to look for a comfortable chair, Sarah-Jane’s quick eye has appraised her prospective 'client’s figure and colouring. After a short consultation this designer disappears and presently comes back with sketches and patterns, and followed by an assistant bearing rolls of cloth. Coal and Morning Dress. “Suppose we start,” says Sarah-Jane, “with the overcoat. In an outfit of this kind where every piece must be related to all the rest, the topcoat is the foundation on which we have to base each variation. The coat will be worn both in town and in the country, so would you like to have it in this material?” And here she deftly unrolls a piece of cloth in a lovely dull red with a surface that is rough in appearance but smooth to the touch. “These plain fabrics will be fashionable this autumn, and it is better, in any case, to have a plain cloth for the garmenf you will wear continually, and keep the fancy materials for interchangeable frocks, etc.” “The yoke of the coat,” she continues, “might be in flat curly black fur, and it would be smart to have a small upstanding collar in the same fur, tied with a neat cat bow in black cloth. These high collars will be much worn this season.” Here a mannequin appears wearing a tailored morning dress carried out in a light-tweed woollen fabric, with a diagonal patterning. Diagonals, as Sarah-Jane points out, help to give slim lines, if used with discretion. The dress fits easily about the bust, trimly round the hips, and has a red belt at the natural waistline. The new and interesting neck can be worn either open or closed. The material is in black and white, the buttons, specially designed for this outfit, are in red and black. The black in the dress material links it with the black fur on the coat, the buttons echo both the fur and the cloth. It will be seen that the moulded hipline of the dress harmonizes with the line of the coat so that there shall be no wrinkle to add bulk. This line is seen also in the skirt, which is made ii. the same material as the coat, and may be accompanied by two tops: a woollen jumper, either hand-knitted or carried out in some feather-weight material, and a quaint little shirt. This shirt was a tiny basque (cut up in front to take off width and also to show the jolly buttons on the skirt). It is made in soft wasn silk of the type designed for men’s shirts but gaily printed with an all-over design in black and red. The coat with the skirt and either the shirt or the woollen jumper would make a useful country outfit. For the afternoon is proposed a dress in a new ’ material, half-wool, halfsilk, exquisitely soft and warm and yet thin and “dressed” looking.

Two hats are also included in the set. The one for morning is in the cloth that makes the coat, has a stitched brim, a very flat crown and two simple ribbon bows, one black, one red. The other hat, for the afternoon, is a tiny velvet .affair, designed to suit the wearer. The bag combines colours and fabrics in such a manner as to be appropriate for any of the functions for which the nine-piece costumes are designed.

Sarah-Jane has ideas for other outfits, each rather different in character and composition, according to the needs of the individual client; but in every case one main theme pervades the set, so that however the various garments are combined, there is harmony.