SEEKING THE IDEAL IN WINTER COATS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 309, 21 March 1928, Page 4

SEEKING THE IDEAL IN WINTER COATS

A PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TASTE AND FORETHOUGHT (Written for THE SUN) Coat-time is very nearly here . . • and it behoves us to think what sort and style and colour we’ll have. Choosing a garment of this nature, though, isn’t always as easy as it sounds, is it? All very well if one has a nice fat banking account and can amble leisurely into an expensive store and, languidly waving one lilywhite arm, demand to be shown the latest, most delicious, most exorbitant models. ... . . , But so many of us are just typistes and clerks and workers of every description, and it’s not so simple to invest in a respectable garment that fits our purse and our critical taste and our .need for something that will wear, all at one and the same time. However, the difficulty of the task only makes it the more fascinating, so let us try. To begin with, we must realise grimly that every other garment a girl possesses gets a rest now and then, but once the cold weather starts in good and hard, she has to wear her winter coat practically every day, and very often for four or five months it is her Twin. But worse is yet to follow —if the girl is hard up (as. incidentally, we always are, aren t We?) that coat will have to out two seasons. Naturally, therefore, if our young lady is wise (like we are) she will spend a good deal of time planning out the details of this most important purchase. She never buys the first coat she sees, just because the saleswoman fixes her with a baleful glare and tells her it is the latest, and suits her admirably, when ten to one the colour makes her complexion look like mud and the cut turns her into a matron. First of all, then, she surveys her wardrobe. That probably won’t take her two weeks, if she is a “self-sup-porting woman.” By this means she hits on the best neutral shade to provide the most successful background for her various frocks and hats. That done, she looks up the fashion journals, or wanders round the good but not inordinately expensive shops, and studies the latest in styles. From these she eliminates anything extreme and sticks like a wise child to a modified edition which yet has distinction and smartness. An “air,” so to speak. Then the collar and cuffs. Ot fur. Here our model shopper shows her good sense again, for she decides that whatsoever fur is good and true, and absolutely real, that only will she have, costly though it may be. Even if this means a reduction in quantity, she decides in the wisdom of her soul that the real goods automatically wear better and twice as long as the artificial variety. She would, moreover, resolve on a short-haired pelt rather than a terrifically fluffy one, which may be much more decorative but by the end of the winter would probably be a chronic sufferer to baldness and patchiness, both of which complaints are not beautifiers in either man or trimming. After that, I consider she would be entitled to an hour’s complete rest, comfortable in the calm reflection that her duty had been well done and her purchases wisely selected! KING COUNTRY JOTTINGS At the Taumarunui Parish Hall on Sunday evening a large number of friends and well-wishers gathered to bid farewell to Mrs. F. T. Brown and Miss O. Brown, who are leaving for Ohura. An excellent musical programme and dainty supper were enjoyed, and the vicar, the Rev. T. P. Weather hog, presented to Mrs. Brown a dinner service and to Miss Brown some beautiful china. Mr. Weatherhog expressed the regret of all present at the loss of such valued wooers, and the Rev. Archdeacon Cowie, who was also present, spoke briefly to the same effect. Dancing has been the order of the night in and around Taumarunui lately, the Manchester Unity Lodge organising a most enjoyable evening recently in the Foresters’ Hall. The dance in aid of the Catholic School was also most successful, the Theatre Royal having been sectired for the occasion, while at Matiere the gathering at the conclusion of the Ohura School sports was a very happy one. Raurimu has also been active, entertainment having been supplied by the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. T. Weatherhog, who are artists of no mean ability, to secure r funds for the repainting of the Angli- ! can Church. Dancing took up the latI ter portion of the evening.