Youth and Beauty !

Southland Times, Issue 22008, 6 May 1933, Page 16

Youth and Beauty !

LIFE IN LOS ANGELES. Miss Dorothy Paterson returned to Invercargill on Tuesday casting appreciative glances about her. After three months away, five weeks of which were spent in the marvellous Californian climate, and the rest of the time on the Matson luxury-liners, the Monterey and the Mariposa, one is still convinced that her “I am awfully glad to be back,” is really genuine. The reason she gives is that the life lead by the average Californians very quickly palls, and soon becomes nauseating to a New Zealander, particularly to the New Zealander who works.

She was very disappointed in the Californian girl. “She is so petted and pampered by her men folk that she is little more than a fashion-plate. She

is not the least enterprising or ambitious—l was even surprised to find that my being a woman pilot created just as much stir there as it does here—the Californian doesn’t exert herself to the extent of flying her own ’plane. She spends half her day ‘making up’— uses a tremendous lot of rouge, and lip salve and eye-shadow—the average girl would no more dream of going out without mascara heavily fringing her lashes than she would without shoes and stockings. And you become so used to it that in time you develop that same ‘undressed’ feeling if your own face is ‘naked? And the time they take to get ready’when they are going out! If a girl has a spare night, she spends it at home in titivation—giving herself a ‘facial,’ treating her hair, plucking her eyebrows, manicuring her fingernails (nails are invariably lacquered brilliant vermillion or rose-pink, never natural). The hair is either worn in a fairly _ short semi-shingle, or more popularly in the long shoulder-lepgth styles you see in the pictures, curled thickly on the neck. And these curls she ‘does’ every night, keeping them in place with clips and slides, before she goes to bed!” Of course all this to a New Zealander is an appalling waste of perfectly good time. One wonders how our girls would react to Los Angeles’ (pronounced with a hard ‘g’) famous Coconut Grove, the home of the celebrated jazz orchestra, which is a sort of ball room and lounge as an adjunct to the equally celebrated Ambassador Hotel. Miss Paterson, who has travelled extensively, admits that the Grove is the most nearly perfect example of man’s artistry she has seen. It is entirely surrounded by a promenadelounge formed by an avenue of tall coconut palms. Inside, the tables rise in tiers—each table has its own alcove, and its own lights. Tire Saturday afternoon The Dansant at this rendezvous has become a recognized institution in Los Angeles—and girls and men go to them alone, every Saturday. The men say it is the only time _in the week they don’t pay for the girls, and they definitely state that they watch them selectively as they enter, with an eye to the afternoon’s partners. And the girls!—they are nothing more or less than fashion-plates—hats, shoes, gloves, frocks—everything—in the very pinnacle of fashion. Miss Paterson said it was perfectly fascinating to watch them, to study the different creations of dressmakers’ art and the different methods in the female art of luring. Nowhere but in Los Angeles could such a thing be carried out— Los Angeles, whose most notable suburb is Hollywood, where film “stars” and film fashions are made. What appears on the films one week, is worn by the citizens the next. Yet the girls can' completely outfit themselves ultra-fashionably for much less than a quite ordinary costume costs here. For this there is a simple explanation. Hollywood has some wonderful model frock shops, necessarily exclusive, because when a film star dashes in and purchases a frock, it becomes “last season’s” in a week! These shops, therefore, never keep a garment in stock more than a week, but put it out at greatly reduced prices—and these slick girls from Los Angeles do all their shopping in Hollywood, and know where to purchase these “reductions.” And they are very appreciable reductions, too — according to Miss Paterson, you can purchase for £3 a frock that had been £lO the week before. On the streets of Hollywood, she added, one rarely sees female attire at all. With practically no exceptions, the girls and women are wearing trousers and jackets, some of them extremely smart and beautifully cut, in every conceivable shade, and most attractive. At the resorts, too, they nearly all wear pique “shorts” and smart shirt blouses with rolled sleeves—in cool and dashing shades, very pleasant to the eye. Miss Paterson was at a number of resorts, notably Palm Springs, the wonder place in the desert, where many of the film stars spend their vacations. “California is certainly everything it is claimed to be,” she concluded. “Their spring is like our summer at. its best, yet there is always a refreshing breeze from the sea. It is wonderfully stimulating.” On the one occasion she piloted a ’plane (surprising,. too, that this is an even more expensive hobby there than in New Zealand) spending a memorable half-hour flying over the Santa Clara valley, where Wallace Beery does a lot of flying. Looking down, the earth appeared to be lightly